Laszlo and Sandor Nussbaum with their mother Ilona Nussbaum

This is one of the last pictures taken of my brother Sandor and me, together with our mother. It was in 1942. At that time pictures weren't taken every week. I don't know where this picture was taken or in what circumstances, but it's probably an amateur picture. We are in the picture, as young children: my brother, who was 11 years old, and me, with the lanky-legs. Two years after that neither he nor my mother were alive. [Laszlo and his family were deported to Auschwitz, where his mother and brother perished.] My mother obviously had a religious education. It was quite rare in those times for girls to graduate after middle school. My mother graduated. My mother could pray, but she knew only the prayers typical for women, for example before lighting the candle, but she couldn't write in Hebrew. My mother observed the rules of purity. She cooked in a kosher way, the meaty and dairy dishes were really separated; and then my father brought home a pork-steak which we had to eat from a different dish, or we ate it from paper, but my mother didn't taste it. I did, of course. Only my mother didn't. She tolerated it, because she didn't have a choice; she didn't want to or she didn't dare to speak against her husband, but she didn't mix the meals.