Magyar Hírek, 1988 (41. évfolyam, 1-22. szám)

1988-05-06 / 9. szám

THE CHILD-PHOTOGRAPHY OF SUZANNE SZÁSZ

Photographing children, that is photographing them well is very difficult. And yet their posture, their grimaceSjthe way they look at this or that, express their emotions far better than words. Together these elements perfectly mirror the frame of mind of the child. When Suzanne Szász, a photographer who has her home in the United States, committed herself to child-photography in the early fifties nobody guessed she would become one of the best in the world. She was inspired by a sudden flash when she noticed four and a half years old child who always looked sad in the summer children’s camp, where Suzanne Szász spent a few weeks. She made enquiries and found out that she had just had a little sister and he had been sent to the camp to enable the parents to devote a few quiet weeks to the little new-comer. She then found that from the movements, behaviour and postures of small children—and of course also from the photographs taken of these—a generally valid emotional alphabet could be decoded about which Benjamin Spock,

the child rearing expert of the time had written: “The pictures of Suzanne Szász prompt us to watch our children carefully, and recognise their emotions.”

The artist always works alone using minimal equipment. She simply moves in with the children to take photographs of them. She knows well how to look indifferent and stay unnoticed so children keep on doing what they normally do even when she was with them. That was the only way she could produce her pictures on which every gesture of the child identifies with what he is doing right then.

Suzanne Szász has published ten photo albums and books on photography. Her work has been shown at the exhibition rooms of the American Parents’ Magazine on seven occasions and she also held an exhibition at the International Centre of Photography. Her pictures are loved and appreciated not only in the United States but also in Japan and Western Europe.

JÁNOS BODNÁR

The Minerva Family-Assisi

There is a narrow side-street in the garden suburb on the slope of Gellert Hill in Budapest. The Minerva Family-Assistance Service, a private enterprise established in the early eighties, operates in a three-storey villa at the far end of this street. I rang the bell before nine in the morning. The proprietress Mrs Judit Urbanek, opened the door. The room into which she showed me looks fairly ordinary: bookshelves, paintings on the wall, a low table with armchairs around it, a cat stretching in one of them. A small desk stands in the corner near to the door, but the two rows of folders on the shelves above it indicate that business is also done there.

“Yes, this is also our office” explains Mrs Urbanek. “When we started our service back in 1982 we thought this was going to be just a temporary arrangement. Unfortunately have not been able to obtain a proper office since.”

“Why and how did you start this family-assistance service?"

“Formally we set up an employment agency, but essentially it is an organization providing a service for people in need. Problems that cannot be solved alone, unaided, may crop up in everyone’s life. For instance when a child is sick in a family, and both parents are at work, and we are asked to get someone to look after the child that is not a simple employment agency matter for us but a service that helps the family to cope.”

“Are your services free or is there some charge?"

“Our services are not free but the fees we charge are very low. Sometimes we have to send ten people in succession to an elderly person until they establish a rapport, until the nurse proves just the right one. This is why 1 say that our work is more than ordinary employment agency activity, these employment relations must also work as human relations.”

The phone rings. Mrs Urbanek picks up the receiver.

“Yes, I rang you yesterday” she says to the caller. “A nurse is needed in the 13th district by an elderly lady who has just came out from the hospital after a broken hip. Her sister cared for her until recently, but she cannot do that now since her sister is still bedridden. The other lady is also past eighty. You have to be there daily from half past nine to one in the afternoon. Right, have a look at them and call me back.”

She sits down again and we can continue.

“The government social service cannot cope. This old lady was also sent home from hospital since she is judged to have recovered from the medical aspect. But site still cannot take care of herself, since she is still confined to bed.

These are the instances where we, private organizations are really needed. Indeed, the government social service does provide meals for helpless elderly people, but they need more than that, at least some kindness.”

"And do you provide that?"

“Unfortunately not completely. We only try to do so within our limits. We cannot offer care free of charge, since we have to maintain ourselves, but we try at least to keep the charge low and to comfort people.”

The phone rings again. A bearded man going gray and wearing a grey pullover comes in and picks up the receiver allowing us to carry on talking.

“He is my right hand and the left one, my bookkeeper and my husband” she says introducing him.

When the husband finishes the call he sits down with us. Answering the question in the eyes of his wife he says it was a woman speaking dialect looking for work.

“Probably she was a Transylvanian Hungarian” muses Mrs Urbanek. Lately the Hungarian Reformed Church has been providing organized help to Transylvanian refugees wanting to settle here. The job-seekers give our address also to each other. Those, for whom we found work so far are doing well everywhere, they are hard working and reliable. I am glad to be of help to them.

“Our service involves not only the elderly but also children, Mrs Urbanek continues. So far we have organized children’s camps each year at Dömsöd. Our youngsters stayed in the local camping area in the care of teachers. Due to the nelv general income tax we cannot run this camp this year. We did not want to raise the price, but could not pay the teachers otherwise. I believe we will have problems unless the general income tax act revises the classification of our work. That is that people endeavouring to care for elderly and poor people should not have to increase their charges by the steep rates of the income tax.”

"You have lately acquired fame with your kindergarten^ which is helped among others also by the Soros Foundation. Would you tell us something about it?"

“I mentioned already that we do not intend to limit our work to that of an employment agency. Many people asked us if we could find suitable people to care for their handicapped and retarded children. As things ar , a trained nurse ÄTarges up to one hundred and fifty forints an hour, which the average Hungarian family just cannot afford.

“Some sort of a kindergarten would be needed, I thought. Government kindergartens are available

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