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OK, I've gotten a bit off track. I plinked, I plunked, but besides taking piano lessons, it was also necessary to practice. During the summer and fall everything was fine. My musical successes weren't above average, but beginnings were the same with everyone, so I didn't really stick out much in any negative fashion. As much as our piano stood in the dining room, which wasn't heated, and heating it just because of my playing the piano would have been exceptionally unprofitable, my musical career was put to an end. Miss Mikulikova was so angry at me, that when after the termination of our teacher-student relationship I met her on the street and said 'hello ma'am,' she didn't answer and sailed off in front of me with her chin in the air. That's how I ended up. And how did the piano end up? In the year 1952, when we were moving from Pezinok to Bratislava into a small two and a half room apartment at 47 Cervene Armady Street, before that and later Grossling Street, the piano wasn't moved, as it would not have fit into the small apartment here in Bratislava. My parents sold the piano for 4,500 crowns. A year later there was a drastic currency reform [6]. Currency was exchanged at a ratio of 1:50, only regular savings deposits were changed at 1:5. So out of 4,500 crowns for the piano we ended up with, if I'm counting correctly, 90 crowns.
Anti-Jewish laws [see Jewish Codex] [7] began to appear when I had finished the fifth grade of elementary school. I went into the first year of council school, that was still normal. It was the year 1940 and then I commenced my second year of council school, and two weeks after the beginning of the school year they threw us out of there. In one word they told us that students of Jewish origin weren't allowed to attend. What did we do after that? The parents in Pezinok simply got together and found a teacher in Bratislava who commuted daily. He taught all the Jewish children from first up to eighth grade. Once every three months we then went to Zochova Street in Bratislava, where there was a Jewish school. There we wrote exams. This is how I studied for two years: seventh and eighth grade. What came after that, that's a different story.
Anti-Jewish laws [see Jewish Codex] [7] began to appear when I had finished the fifth grade of elementary school. I went into the first year of council school, that was still normal. It was the year 1940 and then I commenced my second year of council school, and two weeks after the beginning of the school year they threw us out of there. In one word they told us that students of Jewish origin weren't allowed to attend. What did we do after that? The parents in Pezinok simply got together and found a teacher in Bratislava who commuted daily. He taught all the Jewish children from first up to eighth grade. Once every three months we then went to Zochova Street in Bratislava, where there was a Jewish school. There we wrote exams. This is how I studied for two years: seventh and eighth grade. What came after that, that's a different story.
Location
Slovakia
Interview
Alica Gazikova