Great-grandmother Epsteinova out for a walk with her family

Great-grandmother Epsteinova out for a walk with her family

This is a photograph of me, my older brother Ruben, my mother Marketa Auerbachova, and my great-grandmother Epsteinova. It was taken in Prague in the 1930s.

Everyone loved my great-grandmother very much, she was really a very good person. As children, my mother and aunts and uncles even perhaps liked their grandmother more than their mother. Back then Great-grandma took care of Grandma's household, because she used to go help Grandpa in the store, and so didn't really have so much time for the children. My mother and her siblings reminisced about their grandmother often and with fondness.

Once a week my mother and I used to go visit my grandma and grandpa. Smichov was about 3/4 of an hour away, the streetcars were slow, there was no subway, it was a bit of a trip. First we'd always go to the store, then to Grandma and Grandpa's apartment to see my great-grandmother, and if she wasn't there, it meant that she was out for a walk. She usually went to the river, there was this island there, which was called Jewish, which had a little park on it. That's where we'd find her. She was this kindly granny. She wore a black apron, and in it she always had prepared, as the only relative, some candy. So always when I came to see her, I got some sticky piece of candy. I can't say anything more about her; I was eight when she died in 1936. I wasn't at the funeral, I don't know why. They probably didn't want to burden a small child.

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