We were a very close, very happy family, living in a little town on the outskirts of Prague,
where there were beautiful woods to romp around in and rivers to bathe in, and apart
from school there was a lovely gymnasium which I attended every week. And I had loads of friends,
but my bosom friend was Martha. She was a daughter of a village cobbler,
and came from a completely different background and was catholic, whereas I was
Jewish of course. But there were only a handful of families of Jewish faith in our little town and
in Czechoslovakia which was such a new country. I mean after all, it was only founded in 1918
after the end of the First World War, and I was really a child of the first generation and I
was fiercely proud of being a Czech and fiercely patriotic and it mattered much more than religion.
Religion didn't seem to be of any consequence I always felt what was important is how you
lived not how and where you worshipped. My mother, every Christmas time for instance,
used to have a grand bake. And she was a fantastic cook and she made little parcels of
the goodies which she baked and then gave them to Eva and me to distribute
to the poor and the lonely throughout our town. And she did this religiously
every year and to this day is remaining is remembered for this with great fondness.