With our neighbors, the Burians

This photo was taken in Bratislava on 19th May 1930. The tallest lady in the photo was our neighbor in Lazaretzka Street. She was named Burianova. Standing on her right is my mother, and in the carriage in front of them am I, Henrich F. The three girls on the left and right are Mrs. Burianova's daughters.

Our first home was on Lazaretska Street. Among our neighbors was the Burian family, who weren't Jews. The Burians had three daughters, who used to play with me when I was a little tyke. At that time I might have been about one year old. I still remember it like it was today, Mrs. Burianova washing the stairs and courtyard gallery. She had a pail of water, and I kept tottering around it, until finally I fell into it headfirst; since then, I avoid pails. That's one of my memories. Mr. Burian was a butcher. He'd had diphtheria or something similar, and had a tube sticking out of his trachea [windpipe]. When he talked, he always had to plug it. This friendship, which began on Lazaretska Street, lasted even after we moved away from there, up to the year 1942. By that time the girls were already married off. One of them, by coincidence, married a butcher, the same profession as her father. They had a butcher's shop on Dlha Street, today it's Panska. When meat was being rationed during the time of the Slovak State [3], they'd always give us a bit extra. This lasted up until 1942; what happened to them after that, I don't know.