I was born at a very early age in Vienna in 1912. I remember clearly that when I was brought home from the nursing home by my parents, my sister said, ’What did we need him for?’ She was four years  at the time. My father was a very progressive man for the time. He left the Jewish community because he said he did not believe in any God. He was an atheist and declared himself konfessionslos — in German — which means without any religion. My parents were loving parents, they were very good. My father tried to install some culture in us, took us to the National Gallery and other galleries, and of course he had books at his disposal, being a book seller, and later publisher. It was the first social democratic bookshop in Vienna, and later, also a publishing company. My mother spent most of her time in the kitchen because my father came home for lunch and for his little nap after lunch. He opened his shop at eight o'clock in the morning and came back at six o'clock, so he did need a bit of rest some time. I went to school, primary school. We learnt writing, in two kinds of alphabet. We used slate… slate plates with a hard instrument to write with. We… you could wipe the slate afterwards and use it again. I was a very naughty boy. We played all sorts of tricks with… with my chums in the park, every afternoon. We rang people’s doorbells and so what… the usual things that boys do. My father knew the counsellor for education for Vienna and this man had the theory that a corrective (sic) education is better than an individual education at home. So my father put me into a boarding school, but we... we could go home on, weekends. That is if I wasn’t detained for being naughty. Even at school I wasn’t very peaceful, and always up to tricks. Of course, not having any religion, I didn’t attend the class at the time of religious lessons, and my colleagues envied me. I could go into the park and read a book or just wander around.