Laszlo Nussbaum's family

This photo was taken in Cluj Napoca in 1999. Here you can see me with my wife Silvia and my son Andras. This was taken on the occasion of my wife's birthday. When it is his mother's birthday, my son always pays us a visit if it's possible because he lives in Germany with his family. This is in our house in Cluj Napoca. On the upper right edge of the picture there's a porcelain vase, which was received by my wife's father for one of his anniversaries, because he was the first porcelain specialist in the country and trained many people in this trade. Most of the porcelain in the glass-case was made by my father-in-law. [Laszlo talks about his recent life in the following way:] I have joined the activity of the religious community only now, as an old person. I simply have time for it and I'm disposed to help them, but not on a religious basis. I was a paying member of the religious community all my life. A great number of non-religious activities became interwoven with the community's life. My activity includes, for example, that it was I who assembled the club-library of the Jewish community, and they also asked me to do some temporary tasks, besides. There is an organization in Bucharest, the organization of the ex-deported, which is like an organization for the safeguarding of interests. Because I wasn't only in Buchenwald but also in Auschwitz they asked me if I would be disposed to participate in the Romanian Auschwitz committee, in order to represent the Transylvanian [now Romanian] deported, if there were a commemoration in Auschwitz. The whole thing is not religious, even though it is arranged by the Jewish community. One thing is important: I hate those people who have no ethnic identity. One has to undertake something; to have nothing is the vilest of all. You have to belong somewhere; you can't be just floating in the air. Everybody hates that kind of person, and he can't expect anything from anybody. My ethnic group is Jewish, but I'm not religious. Sartre says that a Jew is a person who considers himself a Jew, and the neighbors consider him a Jew as well. So I claim myself not Jewish in vain. From the point of view of culture I'm a Hungarian; but my Jewish origin is ineffaceable.