Bernard Knezo Schönbrun with his family

This photograph was taken in our Bratislava apartment in the 1950s, and shows me, my younger daughter Evicka (Eva), my wife Anna and my older daughter Minka (Mina). Both our daughters were raised in the spirit of 'don't start anything, but if someone was insulting them, to hold their own.' We instilled this in them since they were little. Once in school some boy was calling Evicka names, that she was a Jewess. She knocked him to the ground, kneeled down on him and gave him a proper thrashing. When she came home, she of course told us everything. Our children confided in us with everything. The next day, comrade principal Pijakova summoned me to the school, back then people still used to say comrade principal. When I arrived, I said, 'Comrade principal, I know why you've called me, and I'm telling you right now that I'm not going to punish my daughter, as there's no reason to!' 'But, that boy has a weak heart.' 'We brought up our daughter this way, and she's not someone that gives up without a fight. The boy was insulting her, and she won't stand for that. So much for the worse that his father is a party official.' But in the end the principal and I parted amiably.