Friends forever

Telephones were rare in Ruzomberok in the 1920s, so for those who had them, they were a real novelty. Two young girls, Alice Glasnerova and Helena Ackermanova lived in houses on opposite sides of the road, they could wave to each other from the windows, and it would only have taken a minute for them to meet and talk, but the excitement of the new technology was too great to resist. Alice would wave across to Helena, who would then know she was about to telephone and be prepared to answer on the first ring. Such excitement to be able to chat to your friend without ever leaving your house.

Alice and Helena were firm friends, even though Helena was a year ahead of her at school, the Pierist Catholic school that both girls attended. They were quite a pair, both daring and full of life. They were very clever girls and ready to question traditional views and the status quo; the telephone was not the only aspect of modern life that they embraced. As they were Jewish, they were excused from the school’s religious instruction, but went to the rabbi instead. However, after several ‘ideological clashes’ between the two girls and the rabbi, he asked Alice’s father not to send his daughter for further instruction!

When Helena was in the seventh grade and Alice in the sixth, a new professor came to the school – Professor Martinec, a left wing social democrat, who had already fallen foul of the authorities, but who did not temper his views once transferred to their school in Slovakia. Not only did he bring to life the Latin classes and classical literature he taught, he gave Marxist literature to any willing to learn. These included Alice and Helena, also Eduard Urx, later to become an editor of Rude Pravo, the Czech communist newspaper.