Julia Foldesne Altman

This picture of my mother, Julia Foldesne Altman, must have been taken around her graduation from high school, which was in 1918. The photo was taken in Budapest. My mother was born in Gyongyos in 1900. She first finished for years at Uteg Street middle school and then she graduated from municipal high school for girls in the 4th district. Her father, Ignac Altman, must have had good connections in the right places because he said that he would like his daughter to be accepted into the Medical Faculty. And given that he didn't join the communist movement during the Hungarian Soviet Republic my mother entered university in the fall of 1919. In 1924 she graduated from the Medical Faculty of Pazmany Peter University and got her dentistry qualifications later. A fellow student of hers was Laszlo Nemeth, who was a real anti-Semite at that time and acted as one, too. [Nemeth was an outstanding 20th century Hungarian prose writer and playwright.] There were Jews in university but not many. I only know of a certain Sari Neumann in her year, she was a rabbi's daughter and her father also wanted her to be a doctor. My mother said something to the effect that they picked on her because of her name, and she had the worst subject choices at certain exams. She worked during university, too, stuffing geese for example. Once she studied anatomy while stuffing a goose. My mother later worked as a GP and dentist.