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My mother, Olga Breiner, was born in 1907 in Obuda. Until the war, she didn’t work outside the home. As she tells it, there was an intensive cultural life in Obuda. A group of young Jews would go there for balls, to socialize and get to know each other. My uncle, my mother, and my aunt all went. Then there was the Brodi Coffee House. The Brodis were also Jews. They owned a distillery, an ice-making plant, an ash-factory, and the Brodi Coffee House – and Obuda’s citizens would go there, the Jews among them. My father didn’t go there much, because he had a job for which he had to report to work at 1:00 in the afternoon, and he would come home late at night, but my mother did visit the Brodi Coffee House from time to time. My mom and dad read Thomas Mann, Zsigmond Moricz, Jokai, and the European classics. When I was at school, my mom had more time to read. My father, when he was at home with mom in the morning, had time to read too. After the war there was a Joint Kitchen in Zichy Street where the Jewish school was located. My mother started working there, and when that was closed, she went to work for the Wholesale Fabric Corporation where she became an administrator.
Location
Budapest
Hungary
Interview
Peter Reisz