Hugo Marom - February 8, 2008
Life in London
And this little boy, Tony, was two years old. Today he's quite a famous textile engineer living in Geneva...he's Swiss by now. His mother is not an...alive anymore and we're in good contact together. So, that's how uh, one of the incidents that I remember very clearly. Another one was that from Cricklewood...71 Shoot Up Hill...we walked to the largest cinema in the world which was called that Gaumont, G-A-U-M-O-N-T, which is on Edgware Road...was at that time called the largest cinema in the world. There was a pianist in front of an enormous stage. There must've been, I don't know, 1,500, 2,000 maybe places...really it was a very large cinema. But we went to see um, went to see a film...it's continuous in England at that time. You walked in at anytime during the film and when it got to the same part again you walked out...
What was the...
...but...
...what was the movies?
I don't remember but one...two things I remember: the organ playing between films...there were always two films and at the end of the second film they played the anthem. It was the first time I heard, "God Save the King," and everybody got up. They've given up this. They used to play it in the theaters in London and all shows. They used to during the war definitely and even many years after the war but now they've given up this practice. Uh, so those are my memories of...
How'd you feel standing...you must have stood up for it.
Yes, of course.
So, how did you feel?
I think that uh, that it reminds me something of which happened two years ago. We were invited as having volunteered to come and fight in the War of Independence...both Martha and myself. She was in the army and I was in the air force. We were awarded the second highest medal of courage by the state of...by Czecho...by the Czech Republic personally by the Minster of Defense and at a very big reception...the two of us...as representatives that they could find of those that volunteered to come to Israel during the War of Independence and of course, they first played the uh, the Czech anthem, which I...which is very, which is very unique in a way...followed by the Israeli anthem. And behind us was standing between seven to ten generals of the Czech, of the Czech Army who were invited and other personnel and whilst they were playing the Israeli anthem you could hear everybody humming behind because it's Smetena's music but...
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