Judita Haikis with her sister Klara Lowenberg and cousin Adolf Edelmann

From left to right: my younger sister Klara, my cousin Adolf Edelmann and I. This photo was taken in Uzhgorod in 1945, when Adolf returned from the his hiding in the Tatras after WWII.

In 1945 my sister and I went to the school for girls. When Subcarpathia became Soviet, the Russian language was introduced in all spheres of life. There were Russian schools, and only my father could speak the language. We still spoke Hungarian at home. However, children pick languages easily, and a year later my sister and I had no problems with speaking Russian. I had all excellent marks at school in all years. My sister had different marks. Our father was a patriot and raised us to love our Soviet Motherland. We became pioneers and then joined Komsomol. I didn't face any anti-Semitism at school

In April 1944 my father’s brother Izodor and his wife Gizi were taken to Buchenwald. Izodor was executing with an electric wire and his wife was exterminated in a gas chamber. Their three children survived. Adolf lived in the Tatras during German occupation. In 1945 Adolf joined us. His sisters Livia and Judit lived in Prague. It was hard for them to raise their younger brother and they sent him to us. Adolf was like one of us in the family. Adolf finished a secondary school and we both went to Leningrad where he graduated from the Faculty of Philosophy of Leningrad University. He returned to Uzhgorod, finished a post-graduate institute. He was senior lecturer of the Faculty of Philosophy of Uzhgorod University. He got married and had two sons, Ilia and Andrey. When they grew up, they decided to move to Hungary. Adolf and his wife followed them there. They live in Szolnok. Adolf and his wife are pensioners. I believe Adolf to be my brother. We keep in touch writing letters, calling each other and visiting each other every now and then.

I finished school in 1949. I passed exams to the French department of the College of Foreign languages in Leningrad. I was accommodated in a hostel and started my study on 1 September. I finished the College of Foreign languages successfully. I studied French and English, and also, passed exams in German, that I knew since childhood to obtain a certificate for teaching it.

Klara finished 8 forms and entered the Electric Engineering technical college in Vinogradovo, despite our parents' protests. She fell in love with a senior student of this college. My sister's friend was a sportsman. Once he injured his spine and the bruise developed into tumor. He was taken to a hospital in Uzhgorod. My sister gave up her studies and returned to Uzhgorod. She entered an evening school and spent days in the hospital. He died and it was very hard on my sister. We tried to support her and I always took my sister with us wherever we went. We met our future husbands by this swimming pool. My sister married Leopold Lowenberg, a Jew from Mukachevo [40 km from Uzhgorod, 650 km from Kiev]. She moved to Mukachevo with her husband. She finished higher accounting courses and worked as an accountant and then chief accountant in a big store. Her husband was a shop superintendent at a factory. In 1953 their only daughter Julia was born.