This is an informal snapshot of my friend, Jadzia Kaufman, nee Rubinsztajn. It was taken in 1938 in Lodz.
I attended a school which seemed quite ordinary to me at the time, but now it seems strange. In Lodz, at 11 Sienkiewicza Street. I remember it very well, it was school number 131.
A school for Jewish children, but it did not have only Jewish teachers. You could say that the Jewishness of this school was limited to two things:
no classes on Saturdays, and Jewish religion lessons, but nobody studied for those, because we all knew that you had a guaranteed 5 [highest grade] for behavior and for religion. I don’t remember anything from religion lessons I attended in this period.
We were being educated in the spirit of patriotism, and this really spoke to me. You had to stand up at attention in front of the eagle [White Eagle – Poland’s national symbol], and of course I remember till this day all the legion songs and the Polish national anthem. We were taught all the patriotic, military and folk songs.
I was in Israel with my sister, at the beginning of the 1990s. We stayed with the husband of my sister Felka, but she was no longer alive by that time. Felka had died in the mid-80s.
We did a lot of sight-seeing, going from north to south. I have friends there, people I know from the organization in the Lodz ghetto. They often visit Poland.
I also have a good friend from elementary school, Jadzia Rubinstein; we are in touch with each other on a regular basis.
