This is a picture of my family on vacation in Ojcow, taken in the 1930s.
I am standing in the center. My mother, Bajla Beitner, is on my right and my father, Herman Beitner, is on my left. My brother Natan is standing behind us.
Almost every year we'd go on vacation. We'd leave the city for at least a month, or two. We'd take all our stuff. We'd go near Katowice, to Bystra, to Cyganski Las, sometimes to Rabka, always to southern Poland, Silesia.
I never went to the seaside before the war. Our more distant family would go with us, too, and we'd spend time there together. We'd rent cottages from peasants.
I remember this hotel in Zakopane. We'd live there and eat there. It was a Jewish hotel. The owners were Jewish, the guests were mostly Jewish too.
We met a young married couple during one of those vacations, they were staying in that hotel with us. And then we hiked in the mountains together.
We'd hike mostly in the valleys with the little sisters, we'd climb the Gubalowka, never too high. We were not professional hikers, I didn't have any special clothing, I hiked in my school coat.
