Tag #106496 - Interview #78221 (Daniel Bertram)

I had gone to cheder, to two cheders, but they didn't teach writing there at all. There we only translated from Hebrew into Yiddish. And you paid for that. The students didn't understand anything. Only the ones that understood Yiddish. And as I didn't know Yiddish, I didn't understand. And the rebbe never translated into Polish. And no one asked what it meant. He thought that we all knew Yiddish. I didn't tell my parents. My parents were never interested. They didn't care about anything; they had just the business on their minds. And when I couldn't sign my name, Dad didn't help me by saying 'beyt, reysh...' [bet, resh in modern Hebrew, the first two letters of the name Bertram]. And because of that I had to repeat the second grade and I lost a year.