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My wife and I own the apartment that we live in. Our son has his own house. We’re more or less middle class. We have what we need. When my mother returned from the concentration camp, she lived with us in this apartment until 1968. She died in June.
I read almost all the newspapers, books not so much. I’m not a bookworm. Here and there my wife and I got to the theater when there are some interesting performances. We’ve got it close by. When we were younger we used to go to the movies. Now, when there’s television and we’ve got satellite TV, we watch that. Television has reduced theater and cinema attendance quite a lot.
The way that my weekday looks is that I look for work to do. Something always comes up, when I have to fill in or arrange something. My son is a doctor, from the morning he’s at a job which he can’t leave. And when he needs to arrange something, I take care of it. I have a cottage on Zobor [Zobor: a hill by the city of Nitra (588 m above sea level), in the Tribec mountain range – Editor’s note], where I go to cut the grass, or I go to town. We don’t sleep over at the cottage on Zobor, though we have furniture there. We’ve got gas, water and electricity there, but in the evening we always go home and come back the next day. We don’t grow anything there, and just have fruit trees there. In the beginning we had a vineyard, but got rid of it, because it was always being decimated by starlings.
When I was employed, I used to go on vacations depending on what the opportunities were. In the beginning we used to only go to Balaton, to Yugoslavia and to Bulgaria. For a long time I worked in Sportka, in soccer, and because of this I used to travel abroad, to Germany, Switzerland, Italy and Austria. Well, and now all we do is go to spas here in Slovakia. Our favorite place is Piestany, it’s close and we’re content there.
We used to take our son with us on vacations too. We went to the Tatras often. Well, and later, when he was bigger, he used to go do brigade work. We also used to go on vacations with my brother and his family. When we were on vacation in Yugoslavia in 1968 [17], news began spreading that the Russians would occupy us. We were afraid, and I think that we wouldn’t even have returned from there. We had friends there, and they were inviting us to Switzerland. As our whole family was there, we were very seriously considering it. Well, but three days before they occupied us [18] we returned from the vacation. When we were at home, we had a hard time deciding what we should do. Then we stopped thinking about leaving. We also used to go on company vacations, we were in Romania, but we weren’t very satisfied there. It wasn’t as clean as we’d have liked. Other vacations we took ourselves, not through the company. We also had good, friendly relations with Hungarian sugar refineries. They had a guest house at Balaton, and so we used to go on exchanges. We liked going to Balaton very much, it was very pleasant, they especially had good food. As far as this goes, Hungarians are excellent. My favorite there was csirke paprikás, or chicken paprikash. Then they’ve got excellent bean soup, and crepes. In a word, everything they did was good. They were very hospitable, also when we went on a business trip to a sugar refinery. When they came here, we had problems returning the favor. They’ve also got good Tokai wine. I’m not a big wine drinker, I’m quite a moderate alcoholic. They’ve got excellent pear brandy in Hungary, peach brandy too, but the pear brandy is better.
I went on business trips to Western countries later, mainly after 1989. Not much during socialism, just to Hungary. And as far as the canning industry goes, once we were in Bulgaria.
I read almost all the newspapers, books not so much. I’m not a bookworm. Here and there my wife and I got to the theater when there are some interesting performances. We’ve got it close by. When we were younger we used to go to the movies. Now, when there’s television and we’ve got satellite TV, we watch that. Television has reduced theater and cinema attendance quite a lot.
The way that my weekday looks is that I look for work to do. Something always comes up, when I have to fill in or arrange something. My son is a doctor, from the morning he’s at a job which he can’t leave. And when he needs to arrange something, I take care of it. I have a cottage on Zobor [Zobor: a hill by the city of Nitra (588 m above sea level), in the Tribec mountain range – Editor’s note], where I go to cut the grass, or I go to town. We don’t sleep over at the cottage on Zobor, though we have furniture there. We’ve got gas, water and electricity there, but in the evening we always go home and come back the next day. We don’t grow anything there, and just have fruit trees there. In the beginning we had a vineyard, but got rid of it, because it was always being decimated by starlings.
When I was employed, I used to go on vacations depending on what the opportunities were. In the beginning we used to only go to Balaton, to Yugoslavia and to Bulgaria. For a long time I worked in Sportka, in soccer, and because of this I used to travel abroad, to Germany, Switzerland, Italy and Austria. Well, and now all we do is go to spas here in Slovakia. Our favorite place is Piestany, it’s close and we’re content there.
We used to take our son with us on vacations too. We went to the Tatras often. Well, and later, when he was bigger, he used to go do brigade work. We also used to go on vacations with my brother and his family. When we were on vacation in Yugoslavia in 1968 [17], news began spreading that the Russians would occupy us. We were afraid, and I think that we wouldn’t even have returned from there. We had friends there, and they were inviting us to Switzerland. As our whole family was there, we were very seriously considering it. Well, but three days before they occupied us [18] we returned from the vacation. When we were at home, we had a hard time deciding what we should do. Then we stopped thinking about leaving. We also used to go on company vacations, we were in Romania, but we weren’t very satisfied there. It wasn’t as clean as we’d have liked. Other vacations we took ourselves, not through the company. We also had good, friendly relations with Hungarian sugar refineries. They had a guest house at Balaton, and so we used to go on exchanges. We liked going to Balaton very much, it was very pleasant, they especially had good food. As far as this goes, Hungarians are excellent. My favorite there was csirke paprikás, or chicken paprikash. Then they’ve got excellent bean soup, and crepes. In a word, everything they did was good. They were very hospitable, also when we went on a business trip to a sugar refinery. When they came here, we had problems returning the favor. They’ve also got good Tokai wine. I’m not a big wine drinker, I’m quite a moderate alcoholic. They’ve got excellent pear brandy in Hungary, peach brandy too, but the pear brandy is better.
I went on business trips to Western countries later, mainly after 1989. Not much during socialism, just to Hungary. And as far as the canning industry goes, once we were in Bulgaria.
Location
Slovakia
Interview
Bedrich Hecht