Lilli Tauber and her husband Max Tauber

This is a picture of my husband, Max Tauber and me. It was taken shortly after our wedding, in 1954, in my cousin Armin Freudmann's garden in Vienna. At the time of the picture I'm pregnant with Willi, my first son.

Although I was madly in love once in Prein it never crossed my mind to marry a non-Jewish man. However, it wasn't all that easy to meet a Jewish man! Aunt Berta had acquaintances in Vienna, and they told her that they knew a nice young man. My future husband's name was Max Tauber and he was already 31 years old.

My husband was born in Vienna on 11th June 1920. His father's name was Moritz Tauber, and his mother's Sophie Tauber, nee Lerch. In 1934 my husband's father emigrated to Palestine for political and economic reasons, and a year later his mother and the children, Grete Taylor [nee Tauber, born 14th August 1921], Berta Feder [nee Tauber, born 24th October 1923] and my husband followed him. The family mainly lived in Jerusalem. My husband's father was a shoemaker and owned a shoemaker's shop in Vienna, and later in Jerusalem, where he employed four to five people. My husband also learned the profession of a shoemaker in Palestine.

My aunt and I met my future husband in the Mozart café behind Vienna's opera. He had just come back from England where he had visited his sister. We immediately had a wonderful time. That first meeting took place at Whitsun 1953, and we got married on New Year's Eve 1953 at the registry office in Vienna. There were many people at the wedding: Aunt Berta, Uncle Roland, Uncle Richard, Aunt Helene, my husband's parents and many, many others. Afterwards we had a big wedding party.

My husband worked in a shoe factory cutting out leather in the first few years. He made very little money. Later he worked for the Post Office until his retirement.

Photos from this interviewee