Margit Erdos on holiday in Siofok, near Lake Balaton

On holiday at lake Balaton. We went through the Hungarian Post. My mother is standing in the back under the parasol, the woman on the right. My father was the deputy chief cashier in the control cash-desk of a large post office. This was a position of trust and great responsibility, because they dealt with very large amounts of money. As a worker at the post office, he was a government official with every benefit which that entailed. He got a photo identity card, we could travel gratis by train, we could receive something like twenty parcels a year, gratis. In those times the postal service had a private health-fund with private surgery, and it had a private hospital with very good doctors. And there was another interesting thing. Siofok started to be a health-resort at the time when I was ten years old, so this would have been in 1928. Only in the summer was there life in Siofok, so they decided to place a post office there during the summer, and three or life four reliable post-officers were sent there to manage this post office. It included free hotel accommodation, free meals, free beach ticket, plus their salary.

Photos from this interviewee