I was born in Budapest, Hungary, on the 16th of March, 1922.
The capital of Hungary, Budapest, is the largest city in the country, with about a million people in population. It was built on both banks of the Danube. The right bank, Buda is the hilly, more elegant, more expensive and less congested area. The homes have large gardens, most apartment houses are small, 12-24 apartment each. The Castle Hill (residence of all the kings from the thirteenth century on), the beautiful Gellert Hill with one of the many thermal spas in the area, the well-maintained parks, the view rising above the Danube makes Buda fascinating. The left bank, Pest is flat, busy, commercial, with huge apartment houses, bustling with people. Some part of it is industrial zoning, some house big department stores, the boulevards were always lined with stores, banks, offices. Pest is also the cultural center, with many theatres, movie houses, the Opera House, concert halls, outstanding museums, etc.
For centuries, Buda and Pest were two separate cities on the banks of the Danube. All river transport had to be suspended in the winters for months, until the first permanent bridge, the Chain Bridge was constructed over the Danube in the 1840s. It was only around this time, that to unite the two cities was first seriously suggested. The official unification of Pest and Buda took place in 1872. A small territory of Obuda (Old Buda), situated north of Buda, was also attached to the city. These three units formed the capital of Hungary, Budapest. The new capital enjoyed equal rights with Vienna, for in 1867 Hungary acquired the rank of co-dominion with Austria within the Habsburg Empire. World War I ended the Habsburg Empire and Hungary was dismembered, but Budapest remains the heart of the country and one of the most beautiful cities in Europe.
My memories go back as far as I was 3 years old, or little younger. I was a very happy child as I remember. I never had any demands or desires and my mother had a hard time finding out, what kind of candy or toy I would like. There was a toy store near to our home and she took me window-shopping almost every day, as I remember. Dolls where not my favorites, crayons, drawing pads, balls made me happy. I loved those paper dolls you could dress up, also the beautiful printed flowers - I collected them all and arranged them in albums. (This habit stayed with me all my life.)
We were walking a lot, my mother (Aranka) and I. We lived in Pest; near the beautiful City Park (Varosliget) In the middle of the park we stopped at the little candy store where I could choose a big penny-candy- to decide on the color made me feel important. We also passed the little old man with the huge pole of pretzels - I could never understand, why I couldn't pick the top one...
The park had a big lake, full of life, fish, frogs, turtles, ducks, and swans. Feeding them or trying to catch them was a must every time we walked by. Those tiny green frogs were my friends even then.
There was a big castle in the park (Vajda Hunyad Var) - housing the Natural History Museum. I was a little scared of that area. There was a monument - a man hiding behind his big hood, sitting on his marble bench (the 15th Century poet and historian named "Anonymous"). It was a must to go to the other side of the road for safe passing...
I loved to pick flowers, my favorite was the dandelion. I was so proud to present my mother with that big bunch - and she loved it so much...
Summer was a lot of fun in the park, like catching those ladybugs and watching them crawling all over my fingers and then flying away, or collecting snails in a match box just to release them at the edge of the park before we headed home.
My memories from the winter are less vivid. The lake in the City Park froze in the winter and we watched the ice skaters and ice hockey players from the "big bridge" crossing the lake.
I remember a red sled sitting in our hallway most of the time. Once in a while my parents put all those warm clothes on me, wrapping me in a blanket and we headed to the City Park - my father pulling the sled. I could hardly wait to get home, I was so cold...
I loved sitting in the window, watching the snow fall and make the street white.
I also remember catching those snowflakes and watching them melting away in my hand.
The best days were those, when we went to my grandmother's house! My grandmother (Rose), my grandfather (Zsigmond) and my aunt (Elizabeth) lived on the other side of Pest.
Just to get there was great fun. My mother and I, we walked to the tramway, which took us close to my grandparents' house. It was an about 45 minutes ride. I was looking out the window all the time, watching the people walking, cars, bicycles, horse-drown carriages and wagons passing by. Another short walk and we were at their house, going up in that huge elevator to the fourth floor of the big apartment house. My mother left me with them for the whole day!
A wide balcony was wrapped around the apartment, we ate there in the summertime. I remember those heart-shaped holes in the balcony, where I could look down the little park below. Everything was so small down there. I tried to find my grandfather, who - with other older men - chatted the days away, smoking his pipe .
On a nice summer day we sometimes went to the farmers' market. It was a long walk, but I was looking forward to all those interesting things we will see there. My grandmother carried a big basket and I had my own little pink basket, which I was ready to fill with all the goodies. All those fruits and vegetables, flowers, baked goods, preserves, honey and dried fruits, meats, eggs and live chickens were very exciting.
The best days were, when my grandmother had to buy live chickens! It was always my duty to pick one white and one gray or brown. I had to touch them carefully because they were very hot sitting on the sun in those big cages. The farmer tied them together by their legs and we headed home. We always took the tramway going home, since our baskets were quite heavy. They were a lot of people with live chickens on the tramway...I'll never forget those market-days...
We had a nice size cage at the end of the balcony waiting for the chickens to arrive. They were happy in their new home, I filled the water dish, gave them food and watched my first pets to peck, peck, peck...I said good-bye to them when my mother came to pick me up. I never made the connection between them and the wonderful chicken-paprika or chicken soup my grandmother served for dinner or lunch. If I was looking for them at my next visit, she simply said: They are gone, we will buy new ones soon.
I loved to watch my grandmother cook. She was so fast with the knife. She made those home made noodles, slicing 4-5 narrow sheets piled up. We ate it as a dessert, topped with apricot preserve, walnut-sugar mix or ground poppy seed mixed with sugar.
Many times she made strudels. She covered the big kitchen table with a white sheet, sprinkled flour on it and kept pulling the strudel-dough, until it became very thin.
We usually had strudel for lunch, filled with cabbage or cottage cheese mixed with sugar and raisin.
When my mother came to pick me up, she gave us the leftovers to take home.
It was a wonderful treat!...
I did not have many toys at my grandparents' place. My best times were when I played with the "buttons". My grandma had a big red tin can full of all sorts of buttons, many-many different sizes, colors and materials. I spent hours and hours sorting them, creating different patterns on the floor: circles, stars, houses, trains, etc. When I was a little older, I started to make necklaces, bracelets, belts and other interesting things for everybody.
Those buttons were an important part of my early years.
Another fascinating happening was, when the washwomen came to their house.
The laundry room was on the fifth floor. The elevator did not go up there, so we had to walk up on those big-big steps. The laundry room took up a good part of the fifth floor.
I vividly remember the three wooden wash tubs, a big iron kettle on the top of an oven, the "mangle" machine for sheets and other flat clothes, different types of ironing boards and a lot of lines for hanging and drying the clean stuff.
The whole setup was very mysterious and a little scary. The cheerful, kind, big women called me "Little Young Lady" (Kisasszony - in hungarian).
Sometimes I slept over. My grandfather read me bedtime stories. He always started with my favorites: Little Red Riding-Hood, Hansel and Gretel, Cinderella. He made sure, he has something new and interesting for me to listen until I fell asleep.
I think of my grandparents with great love. They lived a long, quiet life, my grandfather was 82,and my grandmother 92, when they passed away.
(My grandfather on my father's side died young, he was dead by the time I was born. My grandmother died when I was 5 years old, but we were never close. Once in a while my father took me to her for a short visit. My mother never came with us - they did not like each other. I only remember sitting there on the floor, cutting out pictures from magazines.)
We lived in a two-bedroom apartment in a quite elegant apartment house.
I remember the wide marble staircase, the dark green tiles on the wall, the big cast iron door and the small elevator. Our apartment had a wide, long hallway, it was perfect for riding my tricycle or pushing my dolls carriage, playing with balls or marbles.
The big kitchen, the maid’s room and the huge dining room were at one end of the hallway.
On the other end a double door opened to the "salon" (a combination of living room and family room). Two doors opened to the two bedrooms. I always had my own bedroom, ever since I remember. Everything was white in my bedroom - I think - but I really liked our hallway the best.
By the time I woke up in the morning, my father was long gone, his workday started early.
(My father (Dezso) started a small cobbler store and developed it to a shoe-manufacturing factory. He had around 200 workers, huge machines in a large factory building. I can still remember the wonderful smell of the leather, I loved to visit him there, it was fascinating! The shoes were sold exclusively in the 5 retail stores managed by his four younger brothers. It was a very successful family business.)
After a nice breakfast it was playtime with my mother until about noon. Our main meal was around 12.30-1.00 P,M, and by that time my father came home. The three of us always had a great time together around the dinner table. Good food, nice conversations, interesting stories - it was the highlight of the day. I had to go to my room to take a nap. My father also had a short little rest most of the time, before he went back to work. The house was very quiet this time of the day.
The afternoons went by very quickly. We always had to go somewhere with my mother, visiting, shopping, strolling in the City Park... By the time I had my supper and was ready to go to bed, my father came home. I was waiting for the bedtime stories only he could tell so well. Before he read one of my chosen books for the evening, I asked for my favorite, a story he made up about a little girl named Judy, who wandered too deep in the forest while picking flowers. The kind animals that lived in the forest, helped her find the way home. I knew the story word by word and if he left out some or changed it from the original, I corrected it the way I expected to hear it. I'm sure, I was asleep by the end of the book reading that followed.
Some evenings my parents left me with our maid. They had an active social life, wide circle of friends, theatre, movies, opera, concerts, etc. These maids were young girls, about 15-16 years old.
They finished their compulsory schooling, 4 years elementary and 4 years middle school near to their small family farm in the country. Their parents sent them to Budapest, to further their education, learn how to cook, clean houses, become a little more sophisticated - maybe stay in the big City for good...These girls became part of our little family for a-while, not staying with us longer than a year, maybe two. All of them were my good friends who told me many interesting stories about their life on the farms.
We lived not only walking distance to the City Park and the Zoo, the Heroes' Square and several museums, but also very near to a beautiful thermal bath, spa and pool, named "Szecheny Strand". Summer was wonderful. We went to the spa on weekends, when my father was not working. It was always crowded, lots of people and children everywhere. They couldn't get me out of the wading pool all day long, except for lunch - in one of the spa's several restaurants. Those days were always too short, it was so much fun. I was too tired to walk home, I remember my father carrying me all the way home over his shoulders.
There was another pool nearby, a big Olympic size pool, no sand, no restaurants, no wading pool, just benches all around. This was the place, where children learned how to swim. On my 5th birthday my parents said, that I am old enough now to take swimming lessons in the summer. I could hardly wait to go for my first lesson. The instructor put a belt around me, attached it to a heavy rope and a pole. I was hanging above the water for quite a while, moving my arms and legs in a breaststroke fashion. He counted: one (arms), two (legs) and carefully let me down into the water. He then started to pull me slowly ahead.
I was supposed to learn in 10 lessons, but I was swimming on my own after a few sessions
and never stopped since... I was in my element for sure! I never forget that great summer.
An other important happening was in that summer: Preparation to start school!
I felt so proud; I was a big girl, going to school in the fall! My mother took me shopping for clothes, backpack, lunch box, I started to grow up...my early childhood ended on a happy note!...
