Passport photograph of Helena Kovanicova

This is my passport photo, taken in Prague in the 1960s. After the war, from November 1945, my husband and I were both working at the same place at Hastalska Street No.1, it was named the National Administration of Assets of the Expatriate Fund. This establishment gathered all of the property that the Germans had confiscated in Czech and in the end left behind. My husband worked in the real estate restitution department, where they also had huge warehouses of porcelain, carpets and all sorts of things that the Germans had left behind. Because the Germans were relatively precise in these matters, they had lists of confiscated property, transport numbers and even the names of the original owners. I worked in the registry there. In September 1950 I transferred to the Housing Company of the City of Prague at 16 Dlouha Street, where I worked until 1952 in the real estate administration accounting office, from where I then went on maternity leave. From 1959 to 1961 I worked for the so-called Rohoplast People's Manufacturing Association, which means that I worked at home. From 1961 to 1963 I worked part-time for Construction Machinery on Jungmannovo Namesti [Jungmann Square] as a personnel and payroll manager and finally from 1963 up to retirement I worked for the Research Institute for Mechanization and Automation, which was also on Jungmannovo Namesti. I had the right to already retire at the age of 53, due to the fact that I had been in a concentration camp. In the end I retired when I was 59, but at the time it made me utterly despondent. I couldn't imagine what I'd do at home.