Edit Lang and Andras Gaspar

It’s me who took this picture. Edit was Andris' fiancée, and I told them to act as if they were angry with each other. I took it before the war on our yard around 1941-1942.

We had a company and I spent my free time with them. There were three Romanian boys and the others were Jews. We were six girls and I think more than six boys. My husband was among them. And his fiancée, Edit Lang, was one of my girlfriends. When he was forced laborer, he supplicated in a letter the marriage by proxy, so a picture marriage. They had to send the data and they would receive a paper with the following text: Edit Lang and Andras Gaspar got married, they were considered husband and wife. This paper would make out from Andris' unit, where he was forced laborer. A lot of marriages took place this way. Quite a lot. The regular soldiers used to marry the girls from the town this way. But they didn't get the permit. They received a letter, that the picture marriage between Andris and Edit wasn't allowed. And Edit didn't come back [from the deportation]. If somebody told me then that I will be Andris' wife, I spat in his/her face. Although I was enough well educated to don't do such a thing. I didn't even think about, because he was Edit's fiancé!

I didn't set on a high value on something. For example I told once [at home] - I think I wasn't a schoolgirl yet - that I never had a pink dress. On the next day I got a pink dress from my mother. I could exploit my mom shamelessly, but I knew, that if I wished for something, I got it. In 1941 I had my own camera already, I got it as a birthday present from my uncle, my cousins' father, uncle Vili. My mother said that the photography misbecame for a girl. But I wished a camera. Agi and Evi knew this, and they told their father. It was made by the Agfa company, it was like an accordion and I think that was a 6x6 format camera. I could make 12 small photos with my camera. It had to be operated with a long wiry thing [the cable-release], which I had to push and exposed this way. I was so happy to have it…

I loved to take a picture of anything that lived and moved. I wanted to record everything and I took a plenty of photos. I think that I had some rolls of film which remained undeveloped. The camera had a brochure in his box, and I joined the instructions. The first few photos were unsuccessful, because I didn't open the diaphragm correctly. And sometime the camera or the subject moved. It was forbidden to move, because otherwise the photo became obscured. The camera wasn't so good like these from now, that you could move because it caught you in a split second, and I learnt this from my experience. It was used for the photo made in our yard, in which on one side of the bench Edit is sitting with her back and on the other side there's Andris sitting, as if they were upset with each other. I took this photo. My mother took the next photo, on which we sat arm-in-arm on the bench, Andris sat in the center, and I was on his left side and Edit on his right side. Potyi Vadasz, a boy from our company, stood behind us. We called him Potyi because he was small. When I knit a pullover for Andris, - he was a tall, handsome boy - I told him that if he was as small as Potyi, I had less to work. He asked me if I should marry Potyi. I answered that never, because I was taller with a head like Potyi.

We got the films from Varad, from the studio where they developed it. That studio was in the main street. The studio was called Foto-Revu, and we took the photos there to be developed. There were more studios, but this was the best known, because the word had it it made the best pictures. The owner was a Jew, but I don't remember his name anymore. His studio was really well equipped. We took the film out, we stuck it and we rolled up in silver foil. We took the film to the photographer, he removed it [from the silver foil] and he developed and enlarged it. And he made so many prints, how many we needed. There was a young man in the studio where they developed the films and he gave me some advises when he saw the unsuccessful photos. I think that I enjoyed my camera more than everything.