The parents of Petr Weber, Aaron Preiss and Lola Preiss

This is a photo of my birth parents. My father is at the far right, my mother is second from the left. But I unfortunately don't know when and where this photograph was taken. Neither do I have any clue who the other people in the photograph are. It must have been taken in Poland, in Bochnia.

My real parents were from Poland, as I've mentioned. Their mother tongue was Polish and also Yiddish, because they lived in an Orthodox Jewish environment. I myself don't know Polish, or more precisely, I know it, or rather I understand it, like every Czech who isn't illiterate. I don't know anything at all about my real father, that's an absolute black hole. All I know is his name, Aaron Preiss. The only information about my real relatives is from my mother's side, there thanks to being in touch with her siblings I have certain clues, some names.

My real mother was named Lola Königsberg. She was, I think, one of seven or nine siblings, most of which were girls. My mother was the oldest of them all, so she actually brought them all up. She lived with her husband in Bochnia, Poland. Years later, my uncle Schlomo Königsberg, my mother's brother, told me the address where we used to live, and I even went there to have a look. I can't say whether my parents dealt mainly with others from the local Jewish community, but one can assume this to be so. It was a traditional Jewish environment, it's hard to imagine that they'd somehow differ from the rest. But it's not impossible for them to have had closer friendships with non-Jews as well. I have no clue as to how, where and when they died. As I've said, when I was two, my uncle escaped with me and some other people, and I then grew up with adoptive parents, and had no information about the fate of my real parents.