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My sister and me just before the whole family?my mother, my grandmother, my sister and I?moved from Veszto to Budapest. We got a flat on Maria Valeria street. A really decent fellow helped Mother find a very good job at the Central Institute of Finances. Up to the last moment, as long as the anti-Jewish laws permitted, she kept that job. She received a good salary, as the Central Institute of Finances was the second biggest bank in the country. ?That's why I did not have to raise my two orphans in poverty" she often said.
In the apartment house where we lived, there was a front staircase, and a back one, which was normally called the ?servant staircase.? We had to use the back staircase, but all the same, we lived in a sunlit, airy apartment on the third floor. The toilet was at the end of the corridor. For a time we had a proper housemaid who lived with us. Later on, a cleaning lady came regularly. The first housemaid, Roza, accompanied us when we moved to the capital from Veszto.
