This picture was taken in Tatranska Lomnica on 2nd July 1938. It’s of me, Alexander Singer.
After the school year ended, I got a vacation from the Ministry of Education and National Enlightenment.
I won in a language contest, in French. They put me up in the town of Kezmarske Zlaby, and from there I used to walk to Tatranska Lomnica.
It was complicated for me to transfer from the yeshivah to high school, because I was missing a basic secular education.
My main problems were with mathematics. On the other hand, my favorite subjects were languages and history, especially the Middle Ages.
Today I can communicate in ten languages. Already from home I can speak German, Hungarian, Yiddish and Slovak. With my father and at school I studied Hebrew and Aramaic texts.
During my high school studies, and began learning French. after the war it gradually became a useless language.
In order to find some sort of a job, I had to quickly learn English. In time I also added the Romanian language, which I learned during my five-year stay in that country.
I also spoke Spanish well, but that faded away. I still more or less manage in it passively. Besides that I also know Czech, both spoken and written.
