Anna Eva Gaspar and Marta Weiss

This picture was taken after the liberation in Nagyvarad; I was already divorced. This is the Small marketplace, the theatre, the Asztoria, the Pallas and the Apollo movie theater. It was taken by a street photographer. In this picture you can see the little girl of my uncle from Arad, Marta Weiss and myself. We were very fond of each other, she was sticking to me like glue. They were those family-loving type, like me. She was the youngest, you can tell the age difference, she was around nine or ten. They have not been deported, because they lived in Arad. In the end they moved back to Zerind and from there they emigrated to Israel. Marta died there of lung cancer.

I never went to Israel. My [second] husband, Andras Gaspar, Andirs, was there and visited my uncle from Arad who emigrated to Israel. His daughter was the most beautiful house he has ever seen, although he saw quite many beautiful houses. He became so 'poor'. We never had money to go together, although I made some quite clear hints to my uncle about me wanting to go visit them. I wasn't that eager to see Israel, I was more interested to see Marta, my cousin, and my aunt.

After the deportation I came home to Alsoszopor. To my [first] husband [Sandor Taub]. He remained there, he wasn't deported. He was in Budapest all the time, free. He had some relatives there: His grandmother, grandfather and aunt. His mother was originally from Budapest. My husband managed to escape from the labor camp in Nagybanya and lived in Budapest until the end of the war. He hid there. He was smart and managed to give out himself as Hungarian. He wore Burger boots. That was the custom then.

When I came home, in 1946, I went to Nagyvarad, but there was nobody home. There were people living in our apartment, some strangers have been moved there. There were people moved in every house and apartment, I don't know who moved them in. The house was there... empty. I couldn't find anything. There were no pieces of furniture, only the chandeliers. I still remember that out in the yard our white sideboard, the Russians took everything else away. They emptied the house. None of our pieces of furniture were left there. They made a law that if they found any locked, uninhabited house, they broke in and everything [they could find] was taken to a warehouse. I don't know when this happened, because I wasn't there, the neighbors related me this. Those who came home could go to the warehouse and could pick out the things they said it was theirs. By the time I arrived home, the warehouse was empty. Well, it was easy to say that something belonged to you, a piano or something... There was a Steinfeld piano, the furniture for four rooms, in a word they took away everything. First the Russians, than anyone who were interested could take from the warehouse whatever they wished to. Pots, everything, everything.

This was already after the end of the war, and my husband was managing the farm and the mill, and made lots of money, he became quite rich. 'He had an easy time' and he was so strange, so unfamiliar. Well, one and a half years have passed, and I probably changed, too, but I'm sure he changed, as well. And he told me to have patience, because he is still young and needs to live the moment. He was two years older then me. My ex-husband was away quite a lot, his job required it, but he mostly didn't take me to the entertainment events and balls. And the truth is that in time I found out he only cheated me with two women: anyone and everyone... And I was there alone in that big house, and in order to be able to defend myself, he gave me a gun. A pistol trimmed with pearls. And I shot myself. I tried to kill myself, because I thought I couldn't live with this man, and I have nowhere to go so I didn't want to live anymore. I related this one month ago to my daughter, she didn't even know that. Although I had no financial difficulties, I told myself I couldn't take it anymore. The bullet missed my heart by half a centimeter. I was taken to Szatmar and I got well. But then I decided it was all that I could take... So I didn't wait for him to settle down. This was the reason why we divorced.

My 'dear' husband wasn't willing to give me what I was entitled to... He was fund of me in his own way, but I wasn't willing to live with him anymore. After some hard time he gave me back my clothes, but he refused to give me my things, like the photos left in the apartment the neighbors gave back to him. I was quite desperate. First because none of my relatives came home, my brother, my father or my mother, nobody. My two cousins, who were studying in Nagyvarad, chose to leave Romania. I had nobody left here. So the only one I had beside me was my husband. As I walked on the streets of Nagyvarad I met former classmates, acquaintances, but no relatives. One of the neighbors, a 'nice' one, told me: 'No wonder they told us the Germans treated you well, because you're looking quite chubby!' What was I supposed to answer to something like that...? So I didn't. I had nothing. No money at all. I only had the shirt I was wearing. I thought myself I had to do something, because I had to make a living and I had to live somewhere. My lady-friend allowed me to live at her place, but I couldn't stay there for the rest of my life. I sold the house. But first I had to arrange for my poor mother and brother to be declared deceased, because the house was registered to my mother's name, and I had to prove I was the only heiress. My lawyer was such a swindler, he twisted and turned everything so that I was left with nothing. He made me sign all kinds of documents, sold the house and in the end I only received half of the amount we established. The house was bought by a salon keeper. I went to him and he told me to wait, because I would get the money. I never did.