I remember I even once went with them to Swider [one of pre-war Warsaw’s favorite summer resorts, some 30 km east of Warsaw] for vacation.
- Traditions 11756
- Language spoken 3019
- Identity 7808
- Description of town 2440
- Education, school 8506
- Economics 8772
- Work 11672
- Love & romance 4929
- Leisure/Social life 4159
- Antisemitism 4822
-
Major events (political and historical)
4256
- Armenian genocide 2
- Doctor's Plot (1953) 178
- Soviet invasion of Poland 31
- Siege of Leningrad 86
- The Six Day War 4
- Yom Kippur War 2
- Ataturk's death 5
- Balkan Wars (1912-1913) 35
- First Soviet-Finnish War 37
- Occupation of Czechoslovakia 1938 83
- Invasion of France 9
- Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact 65
- Varlik Vergisi (Wealth Tax) 36
- First World War (1914-1918) 216
- Spanish flu (1918-1920) 14
- Latvian War of Independence (1918-1920) 4
- The Great Depression (1929-1933) 20
- Hitler comes to power (1933) 127
- 151 Hospital 1
- Fire of Thessaloniki (1917) 9
- Greek Civil War (1946-49) 12
- Thessaloniki International Trade Fair 5
- Annexation of Bukovina to Romania (1918) 7
- Annexation of Northern Bukovina to the Soviet Union (1940) 19
- The German invasion of Poland (1939) 94
- Kishinev Pogrom (1903) 7
- Romanian Annexation of Bessarabia (1918) 25
- Returning of the Hungarian rule in Transylvania (1940-1944) 43
- Soviet Occupation of Bessarabia (1940) 59
- Second Vienna Dictate 27
- Estonian war of independence 3
- Warsaw Uprising 2
- Soviet occupation of the Balitc states (1940) 147
- Austrian Civil War (1934) 9
- Anschluss (1938) 71
- Collapse of Habsburg empire 3
- Dollfuß Regime 3
- Emigration to Vienna before WWII 36
- Kolkhoz 131
- KuK - Königlich und Kaiserlich 40
- Mineriade 1
- Post War Allied occupation 7
- Waldheim affair 5
- Trianon Peace Treaty 12
- NEP 56
- Russian Revolution 351
- Ukrainian Famine 199
- The Great Terror 283
- Perestroika 233
- 22nd June 1941 468
- Molotov's radio speech 115
- Victory Day 147
- Stalin's death 365
- Khrushchev's speech at 20th Congress 148
- KGB 62
- NKVD 153
- German occupation of Hungary (18-19 March 1944) 45
- Józef Pilsudski (until 1935) 33
- 1956 revolution 84
- Prague Spring (1968) 73
- 1989 change of regime 174
- Gomulka campaign (1968) 81
-
Holocaust
9685
- Holocaust (in general) 2789
- Concentration camp / Work camp 1235
- Mass shooting operations 337
- Ghetto 1183
- Death / extermination camp 647
- Deportation 1063
- Forced labor 791
- Flight 1410
- Hiding 594
- Resistance 121
- 1941 evacuations 866
- Novemberpogrom / Kristallnacht 34
- Eleftherias Square 10
- Kasztner group 1
- Pogrom in Iasi and the Death Train 21
- Sammelwohnungen 9
- Strohmann system 11
- Struma ship 17
- Life under occupation 803
- Yellow star house 72
- Protected house 15
- Arrow Cross ("nyilasok") 42
- Danube bank shots 6
- Kindertransport 26
- Schutzpass / false papers 95
- Warsaw Ghetto Uprising (1943) 24
- Warsaw Uprising (1944) 23
- Helpers 521
- Righteous Gentiles 269
- Returning home 1090
- Holocaust compensation 112
- Restitution 109
- Property (loss of property) 595
- Loss of loved ones 1724
- Trauma 1029
- Talking about what happened 1807
- Liberation 558
- Military 3322
- Politics 2640
-
Communism
4468
- Life in the Soviet Union/under Communism (in general) 2592
- Anti-communist resistance in general 63
- Nationalization under Communism 221
- Illegal communist movements 98
- Systematic demolitions under communism 45
- Communist holidays 311
- Sentiments about the communist rule 930
- Collectivization 94
- Experiences with state police 349
- Prison/Forced labor under communist/socialist rule 449
- Lack or violation of human and citizen rights 483
- Life after the change of the regime (1989) 493
- Israel / Palestine 2190
- Zionism 847
- Jewish Organizations 1200
Displaying 18121 - 18150 of 50826 results
Estera Migdalska
There was no school on Saturday. You could take per-fee music classes. It cost little, while permitting many children to start their music education. It is there I started playing the piano. We didn’t have a piano at home. I went to practice at school, or to the teacher’s home somewhere in Waliców. The theory classes took place at the teacher’s home. On Saturdays, we went for ‘solfeggio’ and music theory classes at school. We hurried for those classes after dinner.
,
Before WW2
See text in interview
And I think Mother could even play the piano, I remember a photo at home somewhere showing her playing and Father standing beside her, listening.
,
Before WW2
See text in interview
Upon my mother’s consent, they’d take me to cinema.
,
Before WW2
See text in interview
As for the Warsaw of my childhood, I remember visits to an amusement park, very nice. There was one in the Praski Park. I remember walks down the Vistula bank. In 1939, we went for a walk on the Vistula, the river had flooded, we went to see how it looked, and I remember I returned with my new shoes all wet, because, on our way back, the river was already so high, you had to wade in water.
,
Before WW2
See text in interview
Our family read a lot, and the whole house was full with books by Sholem Aleichem [4] and other Jewish books, though not necessarily by Jewish authors. I read ‘Pinocchio’ [fictional character that first appeared in ‘The Adventures of Pinocchio’ by Carlo Collodi in 1883] and ‘Robinson Crusoe’ [novel by English writer Daniel Defoe (1659/1661-1731), first published in 1719 in Yiddish. Whatever there was in Yiddish, my father would make sure I read it. However, I can’t say how familiar my parents were with Polish literature.
,
Before WW2
See text in interview
If I’m not mistaken, at least six of us were of Jewish origin. There were two sisters, there was a girl with whom we became close friends, there was a girl from a Polish children’s home that was returning to Poland, and, at some station, when the train was standing still, the other kids threw her out off the train because she was Jewish. She fell under a passing train and lost her fingers. The teachers didn’t react at all [36]. Her name was Zlata, I think. She had been left in a hospital, and now she was [returning] with our group. I don’t think she had anyone.
,
After WW2
See text in interview
I remember I was on the beach one day [in Warsaw] and some hoodlums set their sights on me, a Jewish child, and they threw me into water. I couldn’t swim; I could have been six or seven, it was before the war. And again the nerves, someone pulled me out. Also I remember that when you went to the Krasinski Gardens, you’d often meet with aggression. Father came from work one day all shaken – someone had given him a beating. He had been walking through the Saski Gardens. Only later I did find out it was the period in 1937, 1938, when university students were attacking Jews, and it was them who beat him up [15].
,
Before WW2
See text in interview
If anyone acted anti-Semitic, I’d simply stop talking to such people.
,
After WW2
See text in interview
My husband knew from the very beginning about my Jewish descent. In fact, I’ve never hidden it. Neither from my neighbors nor from anybody else. I’ve always felt very strongly Jewish, have never been ashamed of it, and that’s why I think I’ve always been respected, because it seems to me that people always knew that I was somehow strong, insensitive.
,
After WW2
See text in interview
Many of my friends left, after all, many of the people I knew were Jewish. Virtually every day we went to the Gdanski Station [from which the trains carrying Jewish emigrants were leaving for Vienna, where they would decide which country they would ultimately emigrate to] to see them off. Uncle Noach left for Israel, said he was too old to go for any other country, but the younger ones were leaving for Canada, for the United States. They were receiving a passport saying that its bearer was not a citizen of Poland. From Vienna, they went to Italy, or Denmark, somewhere from where they’d go to their ultimate destination.
I wasn’t afraid when the hate campaign was going on, and I kept in touch with those who had left. I told myself that if they tried to harass me, I’d be prepared, but still it hurt. Fortunately, I myself didn’t have to make the decision to leave. Leaving simply wasn’t an option. In another situation, I’d probably have been contemplating the decision, I’d probably have left, if only because of my uncle. But I don’t regret it that I’m in Poland, that I haven’t left.
I wasn’t afraid when the hate campaign was going on, and I kept in touch with those who had left. I told myself that if they tried to harass me, I’d be prepared, but still it hurt. Fortunately, I myself didn’t have to make the decision to leave. Leaving simply wasn’t an option. In another situation, I’d probably have been contemplating the decision, I’d probably have left, if only because of my uncle. But I don’t regret it that I’m in Poland, that I haven’t left.
,
After WW2
See text in interview
I’ve always had the sense, typical for all Dajbogs, that we don’t have to assimilate, that we can be, as partners, as a minority, but still a member of this nation.
,
After WW2
See text in interview
Their home wasn’t Orthodox, but I guess something of the tradition must have survived there, that they didn’t feel assimilated, if they sent the girl to a Jewish school. They probably also wanted to bring her up modestly, nicely, with a lot of knowledge. Not as a petty bourgeois.
,
Before WW2
See text in interview
When I was little, my nanny would sometimes take me there, and there were no conflicts, only sometimes some devotees would be standing at the gate and would start shouting at Nanny for bringing a Jew to the church.
,
Before WW2
See text in interview
There was always a lot of talk at home about World War I. I knew that Poland had been partitioned [6] and became independent, I was raised on that. On 11th November [7], we’d go with Father to the Victory Square and watch the ceremonious change of guard at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier.
,
Before WW2
See text in interview
My father was the most important person in the house, which was because of tradition, I think. I remember everyone had their place at the table and if I sat on Father’s chair when he wasn’t home and my mother saw it, she’d be very angry at me. Everything was subordinated to Father. However hungry we’d be, we’d always wait until he came back and only then sit down to have dinner.
,
Before WW2
See text in interview
Since the very beginning, since the moment they understood anything, they knew we were Jewish. In fact, I took them for all the ceremonies at the ghetto. My husband, if he only had time, went with us, naturally.
,
After WW2
See text in interview
As far as my Jewish identity is concerned, I’ve never abandoned it. Perhaps I was more active in this area at some periods of my life and less in others. I’ve carried my Jewish identity from my childhood to this day.
,
After WW2
See text in interview
He got married but they divorced. They have no children. They have long been divorced and now, for instance, she is in America, her parents are here, and he’s taking care of them.
,
After WW2
See text in interview
It surely wasn’t that Uncle Maks had died, so they must have divorced. For what reason, I don’t know.
,
Before WW2
See text in interview
At the wedding, Michal held the chuppah, which made him feel very proud.
,
After WW2
See text in interview
We got married in 1954. The ceremony was non-religious. The wedding was a modest affair, little more than a simple party. None of us had anything. I had only started working, he had been working for a year but for an extra year had to provide for his brother so that he could study. So we were starting from scratch.
,
After WW2
See text in interview
First it was at the Kasprzak radio plant, but then our division was spun off, and the Warsaw Radio Company RAWAR was established. There I met my husband.
,
Before WW2
See text in interview
Shortly before the war, it could have been 1937 or 1938, he was getting married. And as he had no other family here except us, and the wedding was traditional, my mother was the one to stand with him under the chuppah. I remember I was so proud Mother was the most important person during the ceremony, kind of standing in for his own mother.
The wedding took place at Nowolipie Street. And I remember, you know, children love sweets, that there was food and drink, there was halva in all possible forms. It was all at the same place: the wedding and the buffet. I guess that’s how the Jewish weddings looked like, as that’s the only one that I’ve ever seen. I remember the bride sitting with a white cloth over her face, though I don’t remember whether it was the groom who was taking it off or somebody else. During the war, Jasza spent time in a Soviet labor camp and after the war, when he was passing through Poland, we met.
The wedding took place at Nowolipie Street. And I remember, you know, children love sweets, that there was food and drink, there was halva in all possible forms. It was all at the same place: the wedding and the buffet. I guess that’s how the Jewish weddings looked like, as that’s the only one that I’ve ever seen. I remember the bride sitting with a white cloth over her face, though I don’t remember whether it was the groom who was taking it off or somebody else. During the war, Jasza spent time in a Soviet labor camp and after the war, when he was passing through Poland, we met.
,
Before WW2
See text in interview
So neither was my mother very young then, nor was my father very young. I remember no stories about their wedding. Perhaps they weren’t telling me about that yet because I was only nine [by the time the war broke out].
,
Before WW2
See text in interview
I suppose my parents’ marriage had been arranged, in fact, I guess it was typical for Jews in those spheres. My mother came from Pinsk, my father from Kielce, but that’s no proof yet [that their marriage was arranged] because the sister of my grandmother Ruchla lived in Pinsk. My mother was five years younger than my father.
,
Before WW2
See text in interview
Wisia was one of those better-off kids at school. They not only had a maid but even a governess!
,
Before WW2
See text in interview
During that time, she’d leave me [with a nanny]. I know this didn’t last long, because Mother proved a poor salesperson. I don’t remember a nanny at our home, so I had to be very little then. But later I got in touch with that nanny again because at some point my mother helped them get a basement apartment in our house, and the nanny with her daughters moved in there.
,
Before WW2
See text in interview
As he was a widower, he had a housekeeper, and I think she was Jewish. And I remember sitting on some platform in their kitchen and her treating me with various kinds of tidbits.
,
Before WW2
See text in interview
We went by foot, as we were so poor we didn’t even go to school by tram, to save the few pennies, and it was a long way. It had to be a special occasion for us to take a tram or a horse cab. If we were really very tired, we took the ‘0’ bus that stopped near our street.
,
Before WW2
See text in interview