This picture was taken in Prague in 1931. This is a photograph of my sister Mimka (Emilie Bassova, nee Justizova) and I.
Mimka was six years older, and as children we'd snap at each other every little while, argue and call each other names, because she had a red pencil case which even had a zipper, and I had a brown one that had no zipper. Dumb trivialities like this bothered me, even if mine was from much better leather, for example. But as a small child I was always ill, the flu and bronchitis and so on. At that moment my sister would of course have done anything for me, mostly she'd bring me glass figurines or something like that. So during that time we loved each other, but as soon as I got better, we'd be at each other again.
When we were in England during the war, Mimka was more of a mother to me than a sister. I don't remember us ever arguing there. There were more of us who had a sibling in England, but I don't think that anyone had a sister like I did. She was absolutely unique in how she took care of me.
As I say, she was an amazing person, she was exceptionally kind. Not only to me, she was willing to do anything for anyone. When she found out that someone wasn't well, right away she'd go bake something and take it to him and would look around at what she could arrange, help out with and so on. Many times it was even to the detriment of her own family. During the postwar years there was nothing, and we had double nothing. But my sister would have done anything for anyone. However, when she took a dislike to someone, they were finished. She'd no longer communicate with them. Either black or white.
