Voice/Vision Holocaust Survivor Oral History Archive

Hugo Marom - February 8, 2008

Childhood Before the War

You were...were you a soccer player?

I was soccer player. In fact, I have a picture at home somewhere...I played for the Czech national team in England during the war of the under 21s. And we lost a game...my last game was against the English team and we lost 7-1 and I gave two goals. How do you work that one out, professor Bolkosky? Well, I was a left back and in those days in soccer the goal kick was taken by the backs and not by the goalie is today. So, it was a very windy day. There was something like a 14-knot wind blowing against us and when I kicked twice, I kicked the ball off the goal keep and the ball went up and came down behind the goalie who was standing sort of in front of the...very leisurely...in front of the, in front of the goal and went into the net. Twice this happened. So, we lost 7-1 and I scored two goals. Um, I was also taught tennis by my mother but as I said to you I was quite a good soccer player but not, not tennis. I still play tennis to this today but I play more with mind and I ski with my mind rather than by natural ability whereas my brother is exactly the opposite. Um, I think...my brother has a trauma. He does not...he was eight years old when he left, I was nearly eleven. We left in July and I was born the 9th of October so I was nearly eleven, my brother was eight and a half and he has a trauma that he does not remember his parents. I mean he knows when he sees the picture because this is my father, this is my mother but he has no memories of anything except playing soccer with a tennis ball in the park, which I spoke to you about that had the tennis courts. It was a very big park...the largest park in Brno was right under our house. And he...when we went back after...in 1990 after the turnover when the Communists left and uh, he couldn't remember the house or anything of that kind but when we went into this park he remembered exactly where one of the benches was and he remember a stand where they used to sell cold iced sour milk which we used to get. It's like a stand selling uh, sodas and so forth so, one of the most popular drinks in those days was iced cold sour milk, okay? Sour cream if you like. It was more sour...more milk than cream but there was usually something on top and it was sold out of large barrels. Apart from that we used to get pocket money for milk, okay? On the way to school we were to buy milk. Something like most...probably a third of a liter of milk and I used to stop off at the grocery store and with the same money I used to buy sauerkraut out of a barrel which I preferred to milk, which I always thought was something like cod liver oil or something like that that was forced onto us or spinach or whatever. Um, I...

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