Tag #156737 - Interview #78355 (Mrs. Gábor Révész)

While my father lived, we attended the Szemere utca elementary school in the fifth district and then to the school in Szív utca for another two years. That’s where I finished the third and fourth grades. We were both very good students. My mother wanted to send us to gymnasium, to a state school, of course, but we weren’t admitted. My sister should have started gymnasium in 1936, but she couldn’t attend a state school because of the numerus clausus.  Those few who were admitted had patronage.20 We didn’t know any people who could pull strings for us. This upset my mother very much, because she had great hopes for us and she wanted us to get an education, which she had been unable to do, and so she enrolled us, meaning first my sister and then me, in a fully licensed private gymnasium. The school was on Andrássy Road.21 It was rather expensive, but she managed to get us a “half-prize ticket” by pleading that we’re half-orphaned. These schools were bound by law to provide lower tuition for a certain number of students, and we fit the quota. My sister attended for four years, and I for two. My sister stopped attending when she chose the industrial drafting school where she applied, and after taking her entrance exam, she was admitted. She was admitted on the strength of the work she did for her exam. After two years of gymnasium, I had to be taken out of school because my mother couldn’t afford the tuition any more.