Hugo Schuller with his wife Clairette and daughter Lea

This is our family, photographed around 1917: my father Hugo Schuller, my mother Clairette and I. My father was on leave when the picture was taken. I was at least one year old already. My father was a Hungarian officer, he did his military service in Dalmatia during World War I, my mother visited him there. Then he got a job in Germany, in Hanover at the Hanomag factory, and then he moved there with his wife and I, because I was already born at that time. My father was a furnace engineer, he was employed as such at the factory. He didn't earn too much, but my grandparents complemented it. With the job he got an apartment. My father was an exceptionally smart man, he was interested in astrology, I remember that in his free time he devoted himself to astrology. When my mother was born it was in fashion in the family to give the children French names, that's why she was called Clairette. If anyone talked about my mother in the family they always referred to her as Clairette. I don't think that anyone had French origin, but at that time a little bit snobbish child rearing was in fashion. My mother was very beautiful and very strict and I adored her. I adored her unconditionally. Otherwise she must have been a playful young girl, she put on my grandmother's stage costumes - at that time it was customary that not the theater provided the costumes, but the soloists had to bring their own costumes, and my mother took a liking to them and put on my grandmother's costumes.

Photos from this interviewee