We were born and raised in a spacious white house in the middle of a large garden which belonged to our father; in front of it there was another house, larger still, that was grandfather’s and then some smaller buildings such as the stable, the washhouse… The village, called Maria-Radna, is located in the valley of the Maros river surrounded by low-lying hills belonging to the Transylvanian Alps chain, all within the territory called Transylvania, the biggest region of the Central European country of Austria-Hungary, for centuries the great empire of the Hapsburgs. Transylvania was a land rich in grain, corn, orchards and vineyards. All the cities in Hungary were well connected by rail. The streets were wide and clean, though not yet paved. At the time, there was peace and the country was well-governed and orderly. Or at least so it seemed. About a century ago the official language of those areas was the German of the Austrians, but after some time the Hungarians managed to introduce their own Hungarian language. At a certain point, at the time of my great-grandparents and grandparents, in order to avoid obeying the central government the Hungarians had introduced Latin in the government offices rather than give in to the imposition of the German language, so that my grandmother still remembered her Latin.
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