Laszlo Galla and his son G.

This photo was taken on the 50th birthday of my son, G., in 2000 in Budapest. As you can see, we're both having fun, because my other son is on stage doing his show. We're very strong believers in humor. It was a birthday event, which was especially organized for G.

G. was a mediocre student until he was 13 or 14, when he decided to be a hotelier and from then on, he went up, and found his place very well, everywhere. After finishing the eight classes of middle school, he went to the Catering Technical School; that was four years and he graduated from there. Then he spent a year in the Beke Hotel kitchens, where he got a chef's training, and then he went to the Commerce and Catering Academy, which was for three years. He graduated from that one, and afterwards he did two years of supplemental courses at the Economics University, got his doctoral degree and became an economist. I spent two years in Tanzania and G. was there for more than a year - he was given a sabbatical by the college, and worked there in an English-Tanzanian hotel chain with great results.

G. knew he was Jewish but he wasn't circumcised. This subject was always, how shall I say, in the air, especially in the first years, when we were not far removed from it - you know, he was born in 1950 and the Holocaust lasted until 1945, but I never thought of, how shall I say, 'holding a course' on it. They had Christmas in their childhood. I didn't go to synagogue, and didn't live a religious life. Perhaps we spoke of Chanukkah, but no Chanukkah candles were lit at home, that's for sure. So he didn't grow up in the religious spirit. But he thinks of himself as Jewish. Perhaps more so than I do. He married a Jewish woman.