Laura Bato and Rachel Berdach

Laura Bato and Rachel Berdach

This photo was taken in Seesen. My grandmother (on the right) Laura was a woman of the Austrian Monarchy. She spoke very little Hungarian, only a few words, and was very funny when she tried. Instead of 'food' she said 'tool,' I don't exactly know why, she made a lot of mistakes like that. I did not know my grandfather on my father's side[Laura's husband] because he died very young.

My grandmother had a younger sister, Rachel (on the left), who was a well-known writer: a novelist, journalist and poet. For instance when Queen Elisabeth of Austria was murdered, the German Writers' Association held a memorial meeting and her poems were recited, poems written for the occasion. Rachel married one of her cousins, Otto Bardach. (He was also from the Berdach family, but due to clerical misspelling of their name, they went by Bardach.) Because they were cousins they did not want to have children, and they did not have any. Rachel was a very beautiful, very graceful woman.

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