Juraj Fischer with his relatives

In this picture you can see all the Fischers. Third from the left is my husband Juraj Fischer, and I?m fourth from the left. The boy is my grandson, Petko (Peter). The photo was taken sometime during the 1980s. My husband died on 9th May 2007. During the toughest times, our grandson Peter Cizmarik helped us. He even moved us from Lucenec to live with him in Bratislava. After his death, everyone suddenly remembered my husband. The funeral took place at the Jewish cemetery in Lucenec, and was arranged by our grandson Peter. Before the funeral, he was getting phone calls from the Office of the President and from the French, British and Israeli embassies. Peter took to the funeral his grandpa's uniform, awards, and also a gift-wrapped bottle of calvados that my husband had received on the 60th anniversary of the Allied landing in Normandy in June 2004. He also brought three copies of an older edition of the novel ?Count of Monte Cristo.? After my husband had taken a ship from Beirut to Marseille during the war, he ended up on the famous island of If. On the same one where they?d once held Count Monte Cristo prisoner. In his interview for Domino forum in 2004, my husband said with an undisguised sense of humor: ?After three days on the island of If, we went to the town of Agde, where the Czechoslovak army was located. There I got an army ID number, and they assigned me to the anti-tank artillery. To be more exact, they assigned me to one mare mule that was supposed to pull a cannon. The mule was such a bastard ? excuse the expression ? that the more energy you expended on her, the more odious she was. Then one farmer gave me some advice: my boy, you?ve got to be gentle with her, pet her, say come little mule, and she?ll go herself. And it really worked.? During the first 20 minutes of the service, our grandson showed the beginning of Spielberg's film ?Saving Private Ryan.? Those that have seen it know that the scenes in it are naturalistic. Maybe too much so. Like the reality on the beaches of Omaha on 6th June 1944, and many days afterwards. After representatives of the town, the Ministry of Defense and telegrams from the Office of the President, the chargé d'affaires of the Embassy of Great Britain, Tom Carter expressed his condolences in person. He spoke of how his country immensely values and respects people like Juraj Fischer. After all, from year to year there are less of them. The first secretary of the French Embassy, Xavier Rouard, spoke in a similar spirit, in Slovak and without notes. The merits and works of the deceased, were also praised by the consul of the Israeli Embassy, Chaim Levy. He then also participated as the only one of the diplomats present in the second part of the funeral at the Jewish cemetery.