My father had a company, he manufactured ties and sold tie textiles. He needed some sort of suitable space for his activities, so he rented that apartment of ours. The largest room of all served as a store.
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Displaying 24601 - 24630 of 50826 results
Harry Fink
Our apartment was in a former palace. It was a huge apartment building with three stairwells and dozens and dozens of rooms. The ceilings were 4.8 meters high. The smallest room was the bedroom, which measured about 68 square meters, about the same as my current apartment. Originally we lived in the third wing. We had four large rooms, a toilet, pantry and kitchen. There was one more small room, which was the children's room, and also a bathroom.
Both spoke German and of course Czech, and my father also spoke Serbian. Among themselves they spoke only Czech.
He'd go to the synagogue and then to the pub. During Sabbath he probably didn't go to the pub, I don't know. They definitely didn't observe Sabbath, maybe only as this little trifle, but not the real Sabbath as it's observed. I absolutely for sure know that they didn't keep kosher, neither did my parents nor my mother's parents. They ate pork at home, as well as meat mixed with dairy products.
Grandpa was a shoemaker. My grandma was of course a housewife. They probably lived well, because they had a multi-story house built on the main square. They lived on the first floor, where they had four rooms, and the rooms downstairs were rented out. Plus in the back there was a general store, so they must have lived well.
I don't remember my grandfather going to the synagogue, and in this regard, I don't know anything at all about my grandmother, because the daughter that she lived with was in a mixed marriage.
Alfred Borowicz
My mother spoke fluent German and could easily communicate in French.
,
Before WW2
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My father was strongly attached to Jewishness. He read in Hebrew.
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Before WW2
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Then there was Krynski, a great math teacher, who expressed himself very clearly and tested our knowledge very thoroughly, but still was very popular.
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Before WW2
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Then came Tomasz Zywiec, the Latin teacher, a wonderful, very likeable gentleman of great culture, the town's elected vice-mayor.
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Before WW2
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I went to university in 1926, but in Czechoslovakia. I was admitted to Brno Technical University after I had been turned down at Lwow University because of the numerus clausus [11]: they wouldn't admit me because I was a Jew. There were many students from Brno in Poland, almost all of them Jews.
,
Before WW2
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Wilhelm, my mother's second brother, was a glazier. He studied medicine, didn't finish it, and my grandfather never forgave him that.
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Before WW2
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Then was the Szmoszes' second daughter, Helena. She studied, chiefly Latin, knew it better than Polish.
,
Before WW2
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He graduated from Jagiellonian University [1] and all his life, since he settled [there] in 1904 after marrying my mother [on 24th December 1904], he was an attorney-at-law in Wieliczka.
,
Before WW2
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My school stood near our house, a boys' gymnasium at the market square.
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Before WW2
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As far as religion is concerned, I had it good because there were no Jewish religion classes, there were very few Jewish students, it didn't make sense financially, and the headmaster said that those Jewish students who wanted to study religion could do so in Cracow. And as I had neither the time nor the desire to do it, I said I wouldn't attend religion classes at all.
,
Before WW2
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Meantime a terrible family tragedy took place. My brother-in-law lived in Warsaw with his daughters, Zosia and Ania. He developed an intestine tumor; the thing went on for two years. He suffered terribly, everything at home went bust. My sister [Irena] cared for him all the time. Fortunately, Jadzia, their nanny from before the war, and her daughter, were there to help. Jadzia took care of the girls, and [Irka] cared for her husband. Then he was admitted into a private hospital on Aleje Jerozolimskie. His condition was serious and he died in 1952. His name was Rudolf Probst but we called him Zygmunt Beczkowski, the name he had adopted during the war and didn't change afterwards.
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After WW2
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Then Janek Kott went down with some infectious disease. I think it was typhoid fever.
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Before WW2
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We had housemaids, usually two of them. One of them was Kasia, a maid from my childhood who at some point got married, but still took care of the children. Then her sister started working for us, Anielcia Puterowna. Both were treated well, like family members rather than on a master-servant basis.
,
Before WW2
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The majority of the Jews in Wieliczka were merchants - bigger or smaller ones. But there were also representatives of other trades. There was a sawmill owner, a brickyard owner, a miller. There was also a certain young lawyer, my father's close acquaintance, Doctor Rosenzweig, who married into the Friedman family. I mention his name because his brother was an outstanding engineer with a PhD from Lwow Technical University.
There was certainly a synagogue in Wieliczka, and there was also a Jewish quarter, called Klasno. That's where the majority of the Jews lived. I suppose if you count Klasno, there were many more Jews than the three thousand I mentioned. It could have been half of the town's population.
Wieliczka had a population of some 10,000, and quite many of those, three thousand perhaps, were Jews. On Saturdays especially they wore the decorative kalpaks, the long black frock coats, and they very much stood out from the crowd. There was certainly a synagogue in Wieliczka, and there was also a Jewish quarter, called Klasno. That's where the majority of the Jews lived. I suppose if you count Klasno, there were many more Jews than the three thousand I mentioned. It could have been half of the town's population. My father surely knew half of all the Jews in Wieliczka in person.
Sabbath wasn't celebrated in any special way in Wieliczka, but the shops were closed, the Jews probably went to the synagogue, but you didn't see that.
Sabbath wasn't celebrated in any special way in Wieliczka, but the shops were closed, the Jews probably went to the synagogue, but you didn't see that.
His brother, Zygmunt, in turn, lived in Cracow and actually sat on the B'nai B'rith board.
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Before WW2
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My father was a B'nai B'rith member all the time, but I don't know anything about what he did there. It was a legal organization, officially registered, a charity. I know they built a Jewish hospital, the city's best. I also know that it was an organization for wealthy people, the membership fees were high, and my father borrowed money to pay his dues. They would organize a charity ball, all the members had to be present, and everyone had to make a donation, a huge one, usually. There was a cause, and they said, for instance: 'we are building a hospital, we need so and so many millions, everyone has to contribute 100,000.' In Wieliczka, only my father belonged to the B'nai B'rith.
,
Before WW2
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She also looked after those poor women. Those were women she knew, poor ones, one was called Escia [diminutive for Estera], another one Ablowa, there were also other ones. They came to my mother with all kinds of businesses. She helped them, gave them things, bought things from them. Escia, for instance, if she got hold of some good quality herring, brought it to us, and my mother said, 'I'll fetch a good price for that for you.' She probably paid her herself, but a better price than the other woman expected.
,
Before WW2
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My father occupied various important posts in the town. Also among the Jews. For instance, he ran the health fund for many years. Before the war, each town had its health fund and together they formed a kind of cooperative. There were two health funds in Wieliczka, one for the salt miners, the other for all the other public and private factories running a health insurance plan. In the latter one there was a board, and my father served as the president of that board for fifteen years.
,
Before WW2
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We buried him at the Jewish cemetery in Cracow, because that was what he wanted.
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Before WW2
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I never went to synagogue; only once I did go, as an amateur, so to say, to the 'Tempel' in Cracow, a synagogue built, I suppose, by the B'nai B'rith [4].
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Before WW2
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My dad wasn't religious but he went to synagogue on every anniversary of his father's death.
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Before WW2
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For Judgment Day, for instance, we pretended and didn't eat too ostentatiously. And my mother's friends often came to check. We basically expected such inspections because, in the first room, where you sat, there was always a loaf of bread, a knife, some butter, for the children to come and eat if they wanted. And at that time [during the high holidays], there was nothing.
,
Before WW2
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