Julia Foldesne Altman

This is a picture of my mother, Julia Foldesne Altman, when she was still a young doctor. The photo must have been taken around 1928-29 in Budapest. My mother was born in Gyongyos in 1900. She was a GP and dentist. Her father, Ignac Altman, must have had good connections in the right places because he said that he would like his daughter to be accepted into the Medical Faculty. And given that he didn't join the communist movement during the Hungarian Soviet Republic my mother entered university in the fall of 1919. In 1924 she graduated from the Medical Faculty of Pazmany Peter University and got her dentistry qualifications later. There were Jews in university but not many. My mother said something to the effect that they picked on her because of her name, and she had the worst subject choices at certain exams. She worked during university, too, stuffing geese for example. Once she studied anatomy while stuffing a goose. When she finished university she didn't come to Pest immediately because it was usual, it may have been obligatory to go and work as a doctor in the provinces. She went to Vaja near Nyirbator. She had a suitor there, a Christian boy, who had been at university with her. But nothing came of it, it wasn't serious. My mother came to Pest, there was a dental surgery on Jozsef street for the prisons, and she got a post there.

Photos from this interviewee