Ferenc Leicht

I am in the picture at the age of 2, in 1931.  

When I was born two my two great grandmothers also lived with us. I didn't know any of my grandparents, but I did know my two great-grandmothers. They both came to Hungary from Vienna [Austria] and they outlived their children. One of my great-grandmothers, the mother of my maternal grandfather was Katalin Herczfeld, but she called herself Kadi [Hungarian for cadi], so in my childhood I thought that she must have been a Muslim judge in her youth, then I found out later that she had been a fraulein, a governess. She only knew German practically, that's why she pronounced the name Kati as Kadi, and that stuck until her old age. I thought that she was my Kadi grandmother, she was about 80 years old when I got to know her. She was born in 1852 and she died in 1936. My other great-grandmother, the mother of my maternal grandmother, was called Betti Weisz. She was also a fraulein all her life. She was born in 1850, and she died in 1932. I didn't have any great-grandfathers though, because they both had a child without getting married. 

I was 3 years old when Betti died, I think she had skin cancer, and I was 7 when Katalin died. As a matter of fact she raised me, because my parents worked day and night, and I was committed to her care. She was very-very nice, she always took me on a walk in the Pap Garden, which was about 200 meter from our apartment, and I could play there, My parents used to say that when I was very small she took me by the hand and she adjusted her steps to mine, and when I grew older and I wanted to hurry, I dragged her after myself. She loved me very much, and I loved her very much, too. She did everything in the world for me. They told me that when I was small and slept, she sat by the baby carriage and flapped the flies away with a green branch. She didn't like her own grandchildren, and they didn't like her either, but I was the oldest great-grandchild and she loved me very much.