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Today, everybody has a bathroom, and it’s a normal thing nowadays, but it wasn’t like that back then. As it happened, my grandparents didn’t have a bathroom inside, when they lived on Michalska Street. In fact, the toilet was outside also. That’s what apartments were like then. So for that mikveh, I think, there was still a need then. Today there isn’t.
In the center of town, the businesses were 70 percent Jewish. The main reason for that was: my grandparents’ contemporaries weren’t allowed to go to university, they weren’t allowed to study. Farther out, outside the center, there weren’t many Jewish businesses.
During the time of my youth there were many Jewish lawyers in Bratislava. They also built a Jewish hospital during that time, in Sulekova Street. They employed only Jewish doctors, not only from Bratislava of course, most of them came from the countryside.
This hospital was first-class, especially the maternity ward, but also the other wards. It was so good, that when it was nationalized [see Nationalization in Czechoslovakia] [13], they evaluated it as the best in the whole city.
We went to different markets to shop. There was one where the old market-hall is now, on SNP [Slovak National Uprising] Square. In the old market-hall you could get everything. They sold fowl on the first floor. The goose-women were all Jewish, and many came from Dunajska Streda, from Galanta.
We naturally cooked with goose-fat – many cooked with goose-fat – my mother bought geese quite often from one certain goose-lady whose name was Mrs. Dressler. I think she was from Bratislava and always trustable. If the lady said, this one’s got a big liver, then that goose had a big liver.
There were stands in front of the market-hall, shacks, and they sold the nicest fruits and vegetables there. There was a separate vegetable market, across from the Manderlak building on that square. [Editor’s note: After WWII the Manderlak was the highest building in Bratislava, referred to by old Bratislava inhabitants as skyscraper.]
Bulgarians sold their wares here, too. [Bulgarian gardeners occupied a significant part of the vegetable produce market around Europe. The Bulgarian gardener migration started around the turn of the 18th and 19th centuries. They entered Slovakian territory at the end of the 19th century.
In the center of town, the businesses were 70 percent Jewish. The main reason for that was: my grandparents’ contemporaries weren’t allowed to go to university, they weren’t allowed to study. Farther out, outside the center, there weren’t many Jewish businesses.
During the time of my youth there were many Jewish lawyers in Bratislava. They also built a Jewish hospital during that time, in Sulekova Street. They employed only Jewish doctors, not only from Bratislava of course, most of them came from the countryside.
This hospital was first-class, especially the maternity ward, but also the other wards. It was so good, that when it was nationalized [see Nationalization in Czechoslovakia] [13], they evaluated it as the best in the whole city.
We went to different markets to shop. There was one where the old market-hall is now, on SNP [Slovak National Uprising] Square. In the old market-hall you could get everything. They sold fowl on the first floor. The goose-women were all Jewish, and many came from Dunajska Streda, from Galanta.
We naturally cooked with goose-fat – many cooked with goose-fat – my mother bought geese quite often from one certain goose-lady whose name was Mrs. Dressler. I think she was from Bratislava and always trustable. If the lady said, this one’s got a big liver, then that goose had a big liver.
There were stands in front of the market-hall, shacks, and they sold the nicest fruits and vegetables there. There was a separate vegetable market, across from the Manderlak building on that square. [Editor’s note: After WWII the Manderlak was the highest building in Bratislava, referred to by old Bratislava inhabitants as skyscraper.]
Bulgarians sold their wares here, too. [Bulgarian gardeners occupied a significant part of the vegetable produce market around Europe. The Bulgarian gardener migration started around the turn of the 18th and 19th centuries. They entered Slovakian territory at the end of the 19th century.
Location
Slovakia
Interview
Katarina Löfflerova