FROM BEYOND THE CRADLE

MY FIRST THIRTY YEARS

by Mat Schwitzer

CONTENTS & FOREWORD
 
Chapter
Part I  Ancestral Triangle
1 My Triangle: Geography
2 Some Slovak History
3 Slovak Jewry as the Middleclass
4 Maternal Family
5 Mother (Alice Schwitzer née Szilard)
6 Paternal Family
7 Father (Štefan Schwitzer)
8 Final Years of an Empire - My Birth
 
Part II  Growing up Between Two Wars
9 Madunice: Anni & Czechoslovakia Born (1917-1918)
10 Pieštany: A Suicide in the Family - Jean Born - Christmas & Easter Customs - First Friends (1919-1922)
11 Home Schooling - First Communion - Harvest - Seaside in Germany - Putting on Weight (1923-1924)
12 Bratislava: Primary School - Skiing (1925-1927)
13 New Farms - Secondary School - Grandmother Hajós Dies - Illness - Parents' Divorce - New Flat (1927-1930)
14 Pastimes & Sports - Switzerland
15 Farming - Local History - Country Pleasures
16 Philosophy & The Arts
17 Politics & Choices
18 Friends - Student Magazine - Matura (first half of 1935)
19 Paris - Glimpse of the Channel - Beach Cricket - Prague (second half of 1935)
20 Hitler Gets (More) Aggressive - Italy - Student Politics - Skiing Bohemia (1936-1937)
21 Anschluss & Aftermath - Slovaks Demand Autonomy - White Cliffs, Shakespeare, Bloomsbury (January-August 1938)
22 Czechoslovakia Crumbles - Last Term in Prague - Escape to England (September 1938-January 1939)
23 Student Movement House - Farm Work - Jean Arrives - World Drifts to War (February-September 1939)
 
Part III  War and its Aftermath
24 Britain Finds its Soul - Goodbye Farming - Hallo London (September-December 1939)
25 UCL - Hitler Occupies Europe - SMH - Dunkirk - Jean Marries - Stratford-on-Avon - International Friendship League - Bamag - John & Jean move to London - Mother moves to Hungary - Hitler attacks Russia (1940-autumn 1941)
26 Bamag - Pearl Harbour - USA Enters War - "Not Fit to Fight" - Invincible London - Family Situation Deteriorates (winter 1941-1942)
27 Stalingrad - SMH Elections - Mussolini's Fate - Devon & Cornwall (1943)
28 Reflections & Transformations
29 Second Front - Dodging Doodlebugs - Patricia Born - Lake District - Family's Fate - Slovakia "Liberated" - Anni - VE Day - Atom Bomb (1944-1945)
30 Continent Revisited - Czechoslovak Nightmare - Wedding Bells (1946-June 1947)
 
Appendices
A Mother's Testament
B Family Trees: Paternal Family Tree - Maternal Family Tree
C Timeline
D Person Index
E Wartime Correspondence 1938-1946
F Visitor's Book 1937-1940
G Publications:
 

© William Schwitzer as co-owner of the Memoirs of M. K. Schwitzer.  You may not copy, reproduce or publish in part, in full or in summary without the written permission of William Schwitzer or of one of the other co-owners of the Memoirs of M. K. Schwitzer.  Please do not link to this website or post it on social media or on any public forum.

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