Olga Brodova with her son Hanus

On this photograph are my mother Olga Brodova and my brother Hanus. The photo is from the year 1927 and was likely taken in our Prague apartment.

My parents waited a long time for children. They had already been together 15 years when my brother Hanus was born in 1927.

At that time they had already given up hope that they could have a family. My father also already wanted to retire, but when children came, he had to once again restart his business, to support the household.

I think that my mother managed to get pregnant when they were on vacation in Italy, in Venice, that somehow the local climate favorably affected her.

So my brother Hanus was born in 1927 and I was born two years after him, on 18th January 1929.

My mother was a woman with a completely calm disposition, who was flustered by absolutely nothing.

The children could romp about and yell and she would sit after dinner at the table and crack nuts. And the children could demolish the house, or more precisely the hallway, furniture, and it didn't faze her.

But, of course, our father was somewhat more nervous, hot-tempered. When our parents argued, it was mainly in German, so that we couldn't understand them. But eventually we understood them anyways.

Our mother was very gentle, kind-hearted, I remember her being a very gentle and kind-hearted woman.

As a teenager I didn't always act very nicely towards her, that's of course also true, but later she showed herself to be, that's already another story, as a very courageous woman.

Even though she never worked, in those horrible conditions in Terezin that she had to experience, she showed herself to be a very adaptable woman, she worked as a nurse for mentally and physically handicapped children.