This is a picture of me (on the left) and my brother Rudolf , taken in Topolcany in the 1930s.
We also used to go on vacations, but the whole family never went together. The business couldn't close. They actually weren't even vacations. My parents used to go, each separately, to spas, so for treatments. According to their philosophy, if a person did go somewhere, it had to be necessary for his health. Otherwise it was a waste of money. My father used to go to Karlovy Vary and Luhacovice. My mother used to go to Karlovy Vary.
I'll tell you one anecdote: My mother's brother Maximilian, the pharmacist, was very well off, and he and his wife set out to Opatija, to the seaside. To explain to his parents why they were going to the seaside, he told them that he had to go for treatments, because he had lumbago. To the end of her days my mother thought that that's why he'd gone there. Later, long after they were already dead, I told her that if he had wanted to treat lumbago, Piestany was just on the other side of the hill. They lived in Hlohovec. But I didn't succeed in convincing my mother. That was a typical Jewish attitude towards vacations back then. Only spas were recognized as being appropriate for vacations. My parents even went to Karlovy Vary for their honeymoon.
