Judit Kinszki with daughter Eszter
My daugher and I. I raised her completely alone. I don't really know if she knew she had a father. Csaba [my husband] was very busy and he only came home at night. When he got home, the child was always sleeping. When we moved [from the rented flat] to the temporary accommodation Csaba worked at home, but the child disturbed him. So I took the child away all the time. We visited all the museums of Budapest.
After the child was born I gave English lessons while walking with children. I pushed her in the pram, and two children came with me and I taught them English every day. I didn't want to take her to the nursery. I took her to my mother's place and I gave English lessons there. The child was standing and playing in her baby-walker. Then I thought she should go to kindergarten, and I tried to get a job. It was not easy. I wrote a petition that I would take anything, pioneer-leading, nursery school, anything. I wrote where I had been until then, what I had done, where I had graduated, and I lodged this with all districts. Nothing. Then a phone call came, that somebody needed to be substituted in the 8th district. I went there, and taught Hungarian and history - meanwhile my mother took care of the child - I was there for half a year. Then I went wherever I had to for a week, or two. I taught everywhere in the 8th district [Budapest's inside slum district where many Gypsies live]. These were very infamous schools in the 8th district; the teachers drank, didn't teach, they came in and beat all the children, so they were appalling places. All those poor Gypsy boys, whose parents were in prison; it was clear that they were always maltreated, but they felt that I treated them humanely.
