Vera Farkas as a child

This photo was made for my passport when we went to visit father’s family in Transylvania.

[My parents] wedding was in 1920 in Kallosemjen, it was held at their place, in the courtyard of their house. They had a marriage arranged by a so-called shadchen [match-maker], my mother was paired up with my father, and then a great and beautiful love emerged from it.

They came to Pest in 1922. I would have been born here in Budapest if my mother hadn't gone down to Kallosemjen to give birth there. At that time, the custom was that the child went home and delivered at the midwife's.

My Jewish name is Deborah. Dvoyrele as my grandmother called me. When I was born, [my parents] already lived in Verseny Street, in the neighborhood of Keleti railway station in a small, one-and-a-half room apartment. Those were old workers' homes. My mum was at home with me.

At the beginning we didn't have servants, then later there was a girl, from somewhere in the countryside, when my mum became quite ill. That was already after my birth.

In 1923 there were already quite nasty times; there was the white terror , and my mother was kicked on the train. It might have been only an accident or it might have been done on purpose; I don't know.

And then her breast got infected when she suckled me, and it was cut open. But it seems she got her heart trouble at that time, and she suffered with it for the rest of her life.

Photos from this interviewee