Artur Bloch

This is a high school graduation photo of my father, Artur Bloch. The photo is from the year 1898, and was taken by A. Schutte in Prague. My father was born in Uncin in the year 1880. From the age of 10 he rented in Prague, where he was attending academic high school. In Prague he later studied at and graduated from a German business academy. He subsequently left for Paris for two years, where he studied French and spent a year in England because of English. His first work experience was then with some shipping company in Hamburg. In 1909 my grandfather died, and so they called my father home. My grandfather owned three prospering factories, and had left instructions as to which of his children was to run them. My father got the largest one, the porcelain factory, with the caveat that he must pay out a dowry for all his unmarried sisters, which back then they all were, save for one. So he got into financial difficulties and was forced to find a partner. His brother-in-law, Josef Freund, who had a pharmacy on the Old Town Square in Prague and made a lot of money, then invested into the factory, as well as his brother Hugo, who lived with his family in our building part of the year.