Tag #137904 - Interview #99444 (Ladislav Urban)

Tomas got married before his trip to Iraq. It was in the 1960s, at that time I wasn't in Bratislava, but in Zilina. I was just commuting to Bratislava. He married the daughter of Mrs. Hermina Berkovicova from Bergen-Belsen. They were from the East. This lady had lost her husband and had married a colonel. She was then named Kollarova. My brother's wife was Dr. Eva Urbanova. She was a pediatrician, today she no longer works. They lived near Grosslingova St. in Bratislava. His mother-in-law was very active. She fished and rode horses. She was a heavy smoker, even though she had asthma.

My brother and his wife didn't observe Jewish traditions at all. From a religious standpoint, my brother didn't even understand Judaism. He had no relationship to it, because he grew up in fascism, and then ended up in socialism. He was a completely different type from me. He smoked like a chimney, and stank of cigarettes. Alas, he's dead now. He died after a heart valve operation. His doctor, Viliam Fischer, sketched out for him what he was going to do on a piece of paper. I went to see him, because we know each other, and said to him: "Listen, you can't even do this on a cow, five bypasses in one go, plus ones like these!?" "What are you afraid of, what are you talking about, you don't know anything about it." That's what he told me. After the operation, my brother was behind a glass wall and wrote on a large piece of paper that "everyone's a either whore or a prick" My brother is buried at the Bratislava crematorium.