This is a picture of me, taken in Novi Sad in 1995.
I'm in my second marriage now. My first wife, Vera, was Serbian. As most Serbs, she spent the war at home in Srem [southern Voivodina, the area in between the Danube and the Sava rivers]. My daughter, Olga, is from my first marriage. From my second marriage I don't have children.
My second wife, Ana, was born in Novi Sad. She worked in the hospital. I never met her parents. We are both retired now. I work in the Jewish community as much as I can. I used to hold some positions in the community.
I've always had an exceptional pro-Israeli disposition, and I still do today. I've been in Israel 13 or 14 times so far. My wife worked in Israel for about four months after she retired. It happened by pure chance that we both got jobs in Israel, so we both worked there, at the Dead Sea.
My daughter, Olga, has partly been raised Jewish, and she says she identifies herself as a Jew. She was born in Belgrade on 2nd August 1952. She has lived in Novi Sad ever since kindergarten. She finished medical school, specialized in biochemistry and worked as a biochemist in the laboratory of the medical faculty. I don't have any grandchildren.
I'm a doctor and I've practiced my profession. I wasn't religious since I was raised in the youth movement Hashomer Hatzair, and it wasn't a religious organization. I served in the army towards the end of the war, for only a few months. I'm bilingual; my mother tongues are Hungarian and Serbian. Apart from that I also speak German, and a little bit of English.
After the fall of communism nothing has changed, when the Berlin wall was brought down, nothing essential has changed. We are a secular community, and have no particular religious life. Rosh Hashanah and holidays were celebrated though.
It's difficult to say why I didn't emigrate to Israel. I don't know why I didn't go. My brother thought that he had no perspective there as a lawyer. I had only been a student then, what would I have done there? He didn't go, I didn't go either.
I have received assistance from the Swiss compensation fund and from the Claims Conference.
