Kati Andai's mother Margit Brichta as a young woman

My mother in the 1930s. I observed very soon that my father's family looked awry at my mother because she didn't fit into that family. They were all conservatives, with an old fashioned, and not modern, Jewish mentality; my mother had progressive mentality; in 1926 she had her hair shingled - which was a terrible deed - and she smoked. No woman dared to do this in my father's family. Her dressing, her behavior? She wasn't provocative and anything, but she was fashionable. Besides she was younger than them. They were envious of her and didn't love her. My mother didn't really come with us on holidays to grandmother's place. But there were occasions when mother did meet the relatives, too. For example, my richest uncle, Sandor, when he rented a flat in Budapest, had to be visited. She went once or twice to my other uncle, these were visits: for birthdays or holidays. I went [to pay a visit to our relatives] with my father more often, and I understood that that's how it was. My mother had her own circle of friends, from which she kept me out. I don't know where they met each other. She was very independent. My mother had a very strange girlfriend from Kassa, who wasn't a Jew, her name was Gitta Kolacskovszky. She was an ugly little old maid with very unusual and modern opinions. She was very free with her speech. She spoke calmly about topics, which one didn't really speak about. My father was very angry with her, and he said it was she who encouraged [my mother] to smoke.

Photos from this interviewee