Now I'm going to talk about grandpa Adolf Kohn and my father's job. The "Adolf Kohn and the Son" company, a company of varnishes, paints, chemicals, construction materials, wholesale and retail, belonged to both, but they didn't really understand each other. My grandfather was, in his own way, rather primitive, my father was modern, cultured, progressive. When it came to differences of opinion, which often happened, they stopped talking. This was the calmest and best period of time for my father.

To give just one example, suffice it is to say that my father started building the store in 1929. A company called "Adolf Kohn and the Son'' could not exist during the radical right-wing parties and regimes. And in this case, I could say that my father was lucky, he died earlier, and he didn't get to those times. The Romanianization of Jewish businesses and the expropriation of Jewish-owned homes in 1940 strengthened the uncertainty of our future destiny. With the establishment of labor camps, this time still in the country, the Jews were deprived of the opportunity to do paid work, and it was uncertain how long they would be able to resist. The climax of the uncertainty came in 1942 when I was deported to Transnistria.

(...) In this city, of which I have said only a few things, my mother Elsa Kornis had to learn to live, which she succeeded in doing.

When she arrived in Timisoara from Prague and heard her neighbors speak Hungarian, she assumed that they were arguing. That's how this language sounded for her. She later learned it, even though she couldn't pronounce it properly. She understood the meaning very well, then she started to like Ady Endre's lyrics and she even translated some poems very well... These appeared in Timişoara in her first volume of lyrics.

She was amused that most women in society talked about their ability to buy geese. They boasted that their goose had a large liver, they said the weight of the liver and the resulting fat. In Jewish houses it was cooked mostly with goose fat. Calories and cholesterol were not taken into account.

But in Timişoara it was not just about food and cooking. There was a remarkable cultural life here. My mother soon got in touch with the cultural Timișoara. Family friends included sculptor Ferdinand Gallas, painter Berczi Kraus, Oskar Szuhanek, poet and writer Endre Károly, and others. And with Jenny Janura he made a friendship that lasted until old age.

We had cultural evenings where these intellectuals met, but also others. Our house was the site of such meetings. The first years after World War I were quiet, peaceful years. We had a good financial situation, they hired a cook and a nanny for me and Ernö.

My mother knew how to cook only Bohemian dumplings and practically nothing else. At noon we were all together, the meal was served, but we children had to say a short prayer after washing our hands. For my father, it was important not to talk at the table and to eat all from the plate.

I want to say a lot more about my mother because she was an extraordinary human. It is interesting to note that certain human traits accompany them throughout their lives. I give my mother as an example, she adapted to any situation. At least apparently.

She had a hard time parting with Prague. She lost the atmosphere, her friends, her family, but in a short time she felt at home also in Timişoara, in a totally special city, in an arranged marriage. The fact that her three children, as adults, went to three corners of the world and that she was left alone in Romania, she endured it thinking of their well-being.

Géza Kornis, born in 1916 in Timişoara - fragment from Memoria salvată, Volume II, coordinators Smaranda Vultur and Adrian Onică, West University of Timișoara Publishing House, 2009.

When I came here was the little movie theater, the Capitol movie theater, the one in Josephine, and that miserable Apollo, who was full of fleas… They were good movies, but you couldn't stand there because your feet were full of fleas!

The baths of Neptune, the popular bath, were also made by Szekely. The building was once for sale for six million, but no one had the courage to buy it because the building was on the first floor full of water, dampness… Above were houses, it was a good house, but it was not bought.

The park next to Apollo is the oldest park, named Franz Joseph. It was also the most beautiful, there the children walked with their mothers, because there was not so much dust there.

Elisabeta Dauerbach (Porumb), born in 1913 in Bacsko - excerpt from the interview conducted by Mihaela Sitariu in Timișoara in 2003, Archive of the Group of Oral History and Cultural Anthropology, coordinated by Smaranda Vultur.