Tag #138808 - Interview #99363 (Judita Schvalbova)

My mother Melania Donathova, nee Pickova, was born on 17th January 1910 in Horni Hricov near Zilina. She attended high school in Zilina, so she had a high school education. Before the war my mother didn’t work anywhere, because she married relatively early and devoted herself to running the household. My father, Jozef Donath, was born in 1901 in Budapest. First he attended high school in Zilina. In 1919 he was among the first graduates that graduated in Slovak. My father and mother attended Slovak schools. After graduation my father completed training as a customs declarer and then began to work for the family business. The job of customs declarer was very important in a dispatch company, because goods being shipped out of the country had to go through customs. My father was a very good-natured man. He never laid a hand on me, I don’t at all remember ever getting a spanking. My mother was the stricter one, she would sometimes even smack me.

It’s hard for me to recall details of how my parents met. Young Jewish people used to meet in Zilina, and somewhere there they met. They were married in 1931, but I don’t know the exact date. I wasn’t born until five years later. Our family’s financial situation was very good. I think that we lived well. We had nice furniture, my mother liked nice things. She liked buying china, part of which I have in my collection and the rest is from my grandma Pickova. My parents dressed in a modern way, always according to the fashion of the day.