Roza Weisz

My mother, Roza Weisz, is in this picture as a girl. The picture was taken in Dezso Rozgonyi's studio in Budapest. His studio was on 5 Kalvin Square. It was a prospering studio. He was granted a certificate of merit and a medal at the national exhibition in 1896. My mother might have been about 20 years old here. My mother was a hairdresser. I don't know when and from whom she learned the trade. At that time she didn't work at a hairdressing saloon, but she went to houses. In the mornings she used to go to comb, because at that time, in the 1920s-1930s, it was in fashion that they put artificial hair among the hair and they combed the original hair on top of it, so that it would stand upwards. She even made a bun for those who didn't have artificial hair. The women couldn't do this alone at home, that's why my mother used to go to them. 'I am going to comb,' she always said. This was a technical term at that time. Later she worked very much in the brothels of that time. She went there as a hairdresser, because they had money. My mother and her family lived on Bastya Street, and on 29 Magyar Street there was a brothel on the ground floor. The whores were there and there were grates on the windows on the ground floor, so one couldn't climb in or out. My mother used to go there to comb almost every day. Later, when she got married, we moved to Vamhaz Boulevard and our apartment there had a big room and a small room. My mother furnished the small room as a hairdressing saloon. From then on the customers came there. Most of her customers were from the Great Market Hall, because 10 Vamhaz Boulevard was close to the market place on Vamhaz Boulevard. The wealthy goose merchants and the Jews who dealt with poultry came there from the market. It was very important for them to go to the hairdresser and to bathe on Friday. On Saturday they had to be clean. Only women came to my mother, men and children didn't. Most of them were wealthy Jewish women. My mother later associated with her sister, Hermina, who had a comforter shop on Raday Street. My mother learned the trade from her. It must have been in 1938 or around that time. The shop was on 15 Raday Street and we also moved there, to 18 Raday Street. From then on my mother was there. The four of us lived here, my mother, my father, my brother and I. I don't know why we moved there, probably because of the shop. We had a big kitchen in this apartment and we also had a bathroom. Besides that there was a small room, a hall and a big room, so we had two rooms altogether.