This is my family posing for a photo taken in a park in Zagreb in 1939. Our family maid is standing behind us, my mother is seated on the left with myself on her lap.
Next to her is my father with my sister on his lap. The old man on the right must be a family friend.
My family was a typical assimilated Jewish family. Life and circumstances moved us from place to place, but even today I remain a typical assimilated Jew.
I am called Josef (Juski) Baruhovic and I was born on December 21, 1934. My mother and father lived in Pristina, where my father's family was from.
However, my mother wanted to be surrounded by her family for my birth, so I was born in Sarajevo.
We spent a short time there before returning home to Pristina, where I spent my first years.
In 1935 or 1936 my father was transferred to Zagreb and my mother and I went with him.
My sister, Rahela (Seli or Selika as I call her) was born in Zagreb in 1939. She was a very precocious child, something which remains with her until today.
Before the war in Zagreb, we had a non-Jewish servant named Marija who lived with us. She was from a village somewhere near Zagreb.
During this time it was normal for village women to come to the city to work as servants.
Since my father was an officer we also had many military people around our house helping us. My father even had a car and a chauffeur to drive him.
As an officer, my father, in general, socialized with other officers. My mother generally socialized with other Jews in Zagreb.
As my family was Sephardi, my mother probably socialized with the small group of Sephardi Jews living in Zagreb.
