Julius F. and Manci Haarova

This photograph was taken in the post-war period, and shows my father, Julius F., and his future wife, Manci Haarova. The picture was taken in the apartment that we were issued after the war.

Because we had lost our apartment in Venturska Street during the war, we applied for a replacement. At that time you could even be granted a villa left behind by Germans that had been expelled. But my father was careful. He claimed that those Germans would return, and would ask for their property back. Today's restitutions [Restitutions: law regarding the return of property - Editor's note] confirm his words. So we got a small apartment on Hviezdoslav Square. You couldn't even call it an apartment. There were two small rooms and a kitchen. In 1964 I got married, and my wife and I moved to [the neighborhood of] Kramare, to our current apartment.

After my mother was pronounced missing, my father met Mrs. Haarova, and in 1946 they got married. Just like my mother, her husband had also died in a concentration camp. In our family we used to call her Manci. She and my father had met in a store. She was a seamstress, and had a large fashion shop. She employed about twenty people. They used to make made-to-measure underwear. During the time of the Slovak State, she even used to sew shirts for Tiso. Because in the post-war period it was hard to find buttons, thread and similar goods, she used to come to our store to shop. So they met and got married.