Julius Engel with friends from Hnuste

Julius Engel with friends from Hnuste

This photograph was taken in 1942 in Novaky, and is of my father, Julius Engel, and his friends from Hnuste.

My father was born on 21st November 1900 in Muranska Lehota, My father had three years of council school and then was a merchant by trade. Business can't take a break, and if my father would have taken a break from the store for a week, he'd have lost customers. The store had to be open. That was the basic idea of our whole existence.

My father was relatively authoritarian, and quite dynamic. More of an extrovert than an introvert. With a very friendly nature. Communicative, good-hearted, but it took me a while before I realized that. He was 166 cm tall, and relatively fair-haired, which many times helped him, that he looked quite Aryan. He loved us immensely. But the times we lived in were hard. I’d say that in this regard he crossed a certain line of tolerable parenting methods, but I can understand it. Taking into account the time that he lived in, and taking into account the worries that he had to deal with.

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