Andor Almasi in Kolozsvar

I found this photo together with others trodded down in the wood-shed. One can see the Mathias statue in Kolozsvar in the background. My brother-in-law’s family lived in Kolozsvar, this is my first husband with my brother-in-law’s child. My brother-in-law was called Izold Almasi. My husband visited him in Kolozsvar, he took a walk with the child, and they took a picture. I didn’t know this boy. I suppose those were such times, I couldn’t travel much. The photo was taken at the beginning of the 1940s, even the clothes show this. The same happened to the whole family what happened to them... None of them came back.

I finished school in 1927-28, I already knew my husband, because his elder brother, Izold Almasi was a bank director for a while in Toplica. He moved then to Kolozsvar, he was transferred there to a bank. He had a family and children. There is a photo too, my husband is on it with his brother's son in front of the Matyas statue [in Kolozsvar]. His wife was called Irma, she was from Segesvar [today Sighisoara]. My husband, Andor Almasi was already enrolled at the university in Kolozsvar, he was a correspondent student. He studied to be a lawyer. He got his doctoral degree in Kolozsvar [at the University of Law]. Nagyvarad, Iasi and Kolozsvar had such universities. Back then one didn't have to get a doctor's degree in all places, Kolozsvar emitted the diploma only if he took his doctorate. Fortunately there wasn't any university in Marosvasarhely yet, that's why it was cheap, it was a small town with 45 thousand inhabitants. In summer he always came to visit his brother, there was the Banffy bath, he liked bathing, so we knew each other. And it came once to my sister-in-law, to Irma's mind to put me in touch with her brother-in-law. She was successful. Thus he came more and more often.

In 1940 my husband didn't get paid from the Bar. Only the Jewish lawyers [didn't get paid]. Then they obliged him to accept a Christian lawyer partner. But he had no means. He couldn't deal anymore, they weren't allowed to. That would be bread and butter for a lawyer. They behaved badly, because there were a lot of lawyers here, 90 percent of them were Hungarians of course. And none of them offered him to solve at least the current cases. None of them. No. And a Romanian lawyer turned up, who didn't care much of his office, he was a landowner. It was written: dr. Micu. He paid my husband well. Otherwise we wouldn't have had a little reserve. He had a more normal way of thinking, respectively he was considerate. And he didn't support much the Hungarians because of their behavior. Maybe three or four of the lawyers were Romanians. Maybe… But the Romanian wasn't kicked out from the association. My husband had to pay a certain percentage after his work. He says: 'I know, I know the situation, I don't even want to take it.'

This was a small street [where we lived], where petit bourgeois lived, and elder persons than me. I was everyone's Belluska. Because everyone had some sort of 'stomach-ache'. For example 'Oh Belluska, we inherited a piece of land, ask your husband where we should submit this document.' Belluska asked it. The other: 'We bought some land…' or 'We would like to build here. Would you mind compiling a request?' My husband did it. And in 1940, from one moment to the other, when they saw us - though we didn't wear the yellow star yet - they looked at the sky, as if I didn't exist. I had this bad luck, but not everybody did, so I couldn't conclude something general.