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Judita Schvalbova at the age of ten

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Judita Schvalbova at the age of ten

The photo is of me at the age of ten. I don't know who took the photo. It was taken in Zilina in 1946.

At first I attended a school called sirotar in Zilina. After the war, because I had been in hiding for a year and hadn't attended school, I had to write make-up exams so I could start attending public school. After the end of public school I started attending the Girls' Gymnazium in Zilina. I was in precisely the grade where they were making various changes and were trying to form a unified school system. By the time I graduated, I hadn't absolved eight years of high school, but eleven. Among my favorite subjects were biology and geography. I didn't like math and physics at all. My favorite teacher was our home room teacher. Now, in the fall [2004] we had a 50-year high school reunion, and I met him there. To this day I keep in touch with my former classmates from Zilina. Besides school I attended piano lessons for seven years. Today I don't play any more, and I don't know if I'd be able to play anything either. We studied German in school, which I looked forward to very much, as from home I spoke it only conversationally, while in school we improved not only our conversational skills, but also grammar. In my free time I took French lessons.

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The Centropa Collection at USHMM

The Centropa archive has been acquired by the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, DC. 

USHMM will soon offer a Special Collections page for Centropa.

Academics please note: USHMM can provide you with original language word-for-word transcripts and high resolution photographs. All publications should be credited: "From the Centropa Collection at the United States Memorial Museum in Washington, DC". Please contact collection [at] centropa.org.