My wife and I at an SNP ball

This is a photograph of me with my wife Lujza. The photograph is from 1946, after the end of the war. And we’re together at an SNP (Slovak National Uprising) ball in Bratislava.

A few years after the war ended, one very lucky thing happened to me. I was at a partisan dance, as a former partisan, and there met my current wife. She, like her father, had been an anti-Fascist. My father-in-law was an upholsterer, and during the Holocaust he hid two Jewish families in the back in his warehouse, who'd also survived. My wife isn't Jewish. Simply put, I fell in love at that dance. My wife's maiden name was Lujza Nagyova. She's also from Bratislava, like me, and was born in 1928. She worked for her parents. Her father, as I've already mentioned, was an upholsterer. My wife's mother was a housewife. My mother took care of all the administrative work in the upholstery workshop. She didn't have any siblings; she was an only child. My wife graduated from business high school.

We didn't have a Jewish wedding; we had a normal wedding, at city hall, on 27th May 1950. We got married, and we've been married for over 50 years now. After the wedding we lived with her parents in Lodna Street. My wife's parents welcomed me as a son. My friends and acquaintances that had been in Novaky with me said about my wife's father: "He's an excellent person, he supported us. He supported us financially in everything, that's one excellent person." He had an amazing relationship with Jews.

My wife didn't care that I met only with Jewish friends. She was raised to believe that all people were equal. Her father had been a member of the Communist Party since 1936. And he had a very good attitude towards Jews. He had very many Jewish friends. So he also had a lot of Jewish customers. When I got married, he immediately automatically said: "Why would you live in a sublet?!" You'll live with us." They had a five-room apartment, so of course right away my wife and I had one room to ourselves.