Suzana Hacker with her brother Ladislav Hacker

Photo of my brother Ladislav Ivan Hacker and me. Photo was taken in Novi Sad, 1936.

We lived in the center of Novi Sad. We changed apartments from smaller to bigger or from bigger to smaller based on how my father's work advanced or declined. We belonged to a middle class intellectual urban family. My parents were part of Jewish life in Novi Sad. My father and mother had permanent seats with a plaque marking them in the synagogue. Father, since he came from a religious family, continued to observe Shabbat, go to synagogue, celebrate the holidays, fasts and the like. 

That was up until he was taken into forced labor. We lived in the center in apartments with three to five rooms. My brother went to elementary school and then gymnasium. He studied painting and violin, which he owned. He was taken to prison at 16 because he was in a communist youth group that made trouble for the occupying Hungarians.  He escapted, joined the Partisans and fought the Germans.   

I was a little girl and I went to an English kindergarten, I had a governess, because immediately before the war father's work went well and it allowed us all these things i.e. so that I could go to the English kindergarten, have a governess and a girl who took me on walks. Before the war we were a family of considerable means from every perspective.  At 8 years old I was deported to forced labor and then Terezin.