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Our apartment was made up of five rooms. There was a bedroom, den, salon, and dining room. Of course we had a kitchen, bathroom and a veranda too. My father also had a separate office. We had a servant who cleaned and helped my mother with the cooking. She kept house and did the work connected with that. When we had guests, she served them. We had guests quite often. Mostly they were Jews, but non-Jews also visited us regularly. When my mother’s girlfriends came to visit, they would play cards. Male visitors would go to the den, and sit and debate. In those days people entertained themselves differently; today it’s not like that any more.
Various groups of people would come to visit my parents. One was solely a card group. These were men from Christian and Jewish society mixed together, and they played cards together. This didn’t happen any more in the post-war period. In essence they did it only for fun. They only played for halers [smallest unit of currency, 100 halers = 1 crown]. A person could win at most 10 crowns. That wasn’t a huge sum. I think that the change was there only to give the game some purpose. In Presov there were a lot of balls held. There was for example a Jewish Ball, the Matica Ball, the Tennis Ball...Life was very social. [Editor’s note: The Slovak Matica was founded at its founding Majority Assembly on 4th August 1863 at St. Martin in Turciany. Its mission is the development and strengthening of Slovak patriotism, to deepen the relationship of citizens to Slovak nationality.]
My father didn’t belong to any political party. He was without party affiliation, but people in the town liked him. For example, after World War II they would often invite him over, even the Communists, to social gatherings. In the post-war years my father became an honorary citizen of the town of Presov, which brought him significant privileges.
In my parents’ home there was a large bookcase, built into the wall. Imagine how many books it held. It would be hard for me to say what my parents read; I didn’t prepare for this interview and didn’t think about it. For sure my father also had professional literature, that is not only some light tomfoolery. We also used to subscribe to newspapers – during the First Republic to Kassai Ujsag [a newspaper from Kosice].
Various groups of people would come to visit my parents. One was solely a card group. These were men from Christian and Jewish society mixed together, and they played cards together. This didn’t happen any more in the post-war period. In essence they did it only for fun. They only played for halers [smallest unit of currency, 100 halers = 1 crown]. A person could win at most 10 crowns. That wasn’t a huge sum. I think that the change was there only to give the game some purpose. In Presov there were a lot of balls held. There was for example a Jewish Ball, the Matica Ball, the Tennis Ball...Life was very social. [Editor’s note: The Slovak Matica was founded at its founding Majority Assembly on 4th August 1863 at St. Martin in Turciany. Its mission is the development and strengthening of Slovak patriotism, to deepen the relationship of citizens to Slovak nationality.]
My father didn’t belong to any political party. He was without party affiliation, but people in the town liked him. For example, after World War II they would often invite him over, even the Communists, to social gatherings. In the post-war years my father became an honorary citizen of the town of Presov, which brought him significant privileges.
In my parents’ home there was a large bookcase, built into the wall. Imagine how many books it held. It would be hard for me to say what my parents read; I didn’t prepare for this interview and didn’t think about it. For sure my father also had professional literature, that is not only some light tomfoolery. We also used to subscribe to newspapers – during the First Republic to Kassai Ujsag [a newspaper from Kosice].
Location
Slovakia
Interview
Otto Schvalb