Wedding photo of Ruzena Deutschova

I married Herman Deutsch in 1947, this picture was taken then, too.

He came home after the war, somehow we got together. He called me over many times, when he already had his own jewelry business and he had to leave on business with his partner Kalisch, to stay the night. In the morning, I opened the shop. He had a assistant watchmaker working there, but I also helped out. Sometimes he'd ask me to bake this or fry that. I did it. Slowly, we fell in love. We were married in Prague. The civil ceremony was here in Galanta on December 6, 1947, on St. Nicholas Day. The religious wedding we had in Prague, on December 28, 1947. My husband was Jewish, and that was very important to me. We had the wedding in Prague because my Aunt Etus and Uncle Nachman lived there then.

In Prague, my husband-to-be stayed in the Paris Hotel, and until our wedding, I stayed with my aunt. Directly before the wedding, I mean before the ceremony, my aunt took me to the mikveh. The mikveh wasn't far from the Vltava. First I washed in a tub, then I had to dunk under the water. They told me how to do it. They didn't cut off my hair, and I've never worn a wig. I covered my head, and still do when I go to the prayer house. I only went to a mikveh a couple times in Galanta. The mikveh was open here in Galanta until they tore it down in the 1960s.

My husband borrowed my wedding dress from an acquaintance of his. The veil and bouquet I got as a present. My aunt dressed me before the wedding. In that Prague synagogue, where there is a Jewish clock [Jewish Town Hall on Maiselova Street has a clock with Hebrew letters which moves counter-clockwise], that's where the wedding was. The orthodox rabbi Rappaport married us. The groom was waiting already under the chuppah. My Aunt Ethel and my father's wife, that is, my step-mother wrapped me in their arms and led me under the chuppah. My father and Uncle Nachman stood on either side of my husband.. At the end of the ceremony, my husband broke glasses. After the ceremony, we went to Aunt Etus's house, where a wedding banquet followed. Quite a lot of people came. My best girlfriend, Szidi was there with her husband. They set seven tables. After the wedding, I stayed in the Paris Hotel with my husband. We were in Prague for a week. In the beginning, I called my husband Hermann, but when the children were born, then he became 'Dad'. In front of the grandchildren, I called him 'Papa'.