Lilli Tauber's mother Johanna Schischa with a friend

This is a picture of my mother, Johanna Schischa [nee Friedmann] and one of her friends. The photo was taken sometime in the early 1900s, before my mother's marriage, in Prein.

My mother's parents, Eduard and Sofie Friedmann, lived in Prein, a small health resort, on the foot of the Rax mountain. They had a beautiful house and a grocery shop. One could buy anything in this shop - which was usual in the country at that time. There were newspapers, tobacco, food, handkerchiefs, and there was also a small gas station attached to the shop.

My grandparents had six children: My mother Johanna, Isidor, Julius, Fany, Berta and a son, who died of typhoid, I think at the age of 14. I don't remember his name.

My mother, Johanna Schischa [nee Friedmann], was born in Prein on 19th May 1885. She was affectionately called Handschi. My mother went to primary school in Prein but had no further education.

There was a ball at Purim in Neunkirchen, my mother went to, and she met my father there. I don't know when that happened. In any case, my father traveled by cart to my grandmother and asked for my mother's hand. That was rather unusual because people mostly got married through shadkhanim back then. It seems that my grandmother gave them her consent because my parents got married in 1908. So my parents' marriage was one of love, which, apparently, was an exception to the rule back then.

Photos from this interviewee