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Before the first action [June 1942] the ghetto wasn't closed yet, and our house remained in the ghetto. But after that action the ghetto got smaller and was surrounded by a partition and the house we lived in was outside the ghetto. So then we had to move. First to Grandpa's, for a week, maybe two. Later even Grandpa's house was outside the ghetto, and we moved into the area of that destroyed synagogue. There we lived above a bakery, also in a two-storey house and we were two big families there in a two-bedroom apartment. The other family, the Franks, we hadn't known earlier, only met them then, in the ghetto. It was a couple with two sons.
Our grandpa lived separately, he was with his second wife then. They had to move out of their house, and moved into a small room not far from us. Everything was not far once they closed everything. Two of Grandpa's sisters moved in with him, the twins: Brajndla and Sara Lea. They were displaced from Dabrowa.
When we were living in the ghetto, despite all the hardships, there were no excuses when it came to keeping everything kosher. Of course, as much as we could. Food still had to be kosher, Mom never broke those rules. We weren't hungry, at least at the beginning. In order to get food, we had to sell things, whatever was left. We didn't have those more expensive things, because furs, etc. were taken away immediately, but we could still find something from some reserves, some jewelry maybe, I don't remember.
The food was quite basic and there was no fish or anything like that. We used to make fish out of eggs then. We would soak a bun in water, hard-boil an egg, mix everything with onion, make balls, and then cook them in a vegetable sauce, just like you make for fish dishes. And it was supposed to taste like fish balls. Sometimes we could smuggle something from outside the ghetto, we used to bring flour, sugar from work, and Grandpa's sisters who lived with him traded it somewhere.
We survived the second action [in September1942], because we all went into hiding. My sister and I hid in one of the basements in our house. I remember that after the last people entered that hiding place, someone on the outside bricked up the entrance. And we managed to save ourselves, and it so happened that Mom and my brother were somewhere else, in some hiding place on Starodabrowska Street, and Dad was somewhere else yet. Dad used to work somewhere, but I don't remember now where it was.
But I remember the Yom Kippur holiday in the ghetto, in 1942. I rebelled then completely and I decided not to fast, which wasn't easy, because we had very modest reserves and hardly anything to eat. Mom did whatever she could to produce something. So she made a kind of potato cake, out of potato flour. It was a big piece, uncut and untouched, so it wasn't easy, but I decided to break the fast and took a bite, and I was as hungry as I would have been if I hadn't eaten anything, or maybe even more. But I proved to myself I didn't die on the spot, because I used to think that if I ate something on Yom Kippur, that meant I would die immediately. Logically I knew it wouldn't happen, but I wanted to prove it to myself. And I did it in great secrecy, no one of my family ever found out that I let myself do it, that on that last Yom Kippur with my parents I didn't fast.
During the third action [in November 1942] I lost my family, only my sister survived. It was in the fall of 1942. On the day of the action my sister went to work, I had escaped from the ghetto a week earlier and stayed at that school friend's of mine I mentioned earlier, Gabriela, her maiden name was Niedojadlo. My sister told me later how it happened. It turned out that our parents were hiding in the same basement as I had with my sister during the previous action, but someone informed on them. It was someone who was taken away. He was at the train station and said he would tell where the Jews were. He was a Jew as well. He thought he would save himself.
Our grandpa lived separately, he was with his second wife then. They had to move out of their house, and moved into a small room not far from us. Everything was not far once they closed everything. Two of Grandpa's sisters moved in with him, the twins: Brajndla and Sara Lea. They were displaced from Dabrowa.
When we were living in the ghetto, despite all the hardships, there were no excuses when it came to keeping everything kosher. Of course, as much as we could. Food still had to be kosher, Mom never broke those rules. We weren't hungry, at least at the beginning. In order to get food, we had to sell things, whatever was left. We didn't have those more expensive things, because furs, etc. were taken away immediately, but we could still find something from some reserves, some jewelry maybe, I don't remember.
The food was quite basic and there was no fish or anything like that. We used to make fish out of eggs then. We would soak a bun in water, hard-boil an egg, mix everything with onion, make balls, and then cook them in a vegetable sauce, just like you make for fish dishes. And it was supposed to taste like fish balls. Sometimes we could smuggle something from outside the ghetto, we used to bring flour, sugar from work, and Grandpa's sisters who lived with him traded it somewhere.
We survived the second action [in September1942], because we all went into hiding. My sister and I hid in one of the basements in our house. I remember that after the last people entered that hiding place, someone on the outside bricked up the entrance. And we managed to save ourselves, and it so happened that Mom and my brother were somewhere else, in some hiding place on Starodabrowska Street, and Dad was somewhere else yet. Dad used to work somewhere, but I don't remember now where it was.
But I remember the Yom Kippur holiday in the ghetto, in 1942. I rebelled then completely and I decided not to fast, which wasn't easy, because we had very modest reserves and hardly anything to eat. Mom did whatever she could to produce something. So she made a kind of potato cake, out of potato flour. It was a big piece, uncut and untouched, so it wasn't easy, but I decided to break the fast and took a bite, and I was as hungry as I would have been if I hadn't eaten anything, or maybe even more. But I proved to myself I didn't die on the spot, because I used to think that if I ate something on Yom Kippur, that meant I would die immediately. Logically I knew it wouldn't happen, but I wanted to prove it to myself. And I did it in great secrecy, no one of my family ever found out that I let myself do it, that on that last Yom Kippur with my parents I didn't fast.
During the third action [in November 1942] I lost my family, only my sister survived. It was in the fall of 1942. On the day of the action my sister went to work, I had escaped from the ghetto a week earlier and stayed at that school friend's of mine I mentioned earlier, Gabriela, her maiden name was Niedojadlo. My sister told me later how it happened. It turned out that our parents were hiding in the same basement as I had with my sister during the previous action, but someone informed on them. It was someone who was taken away. He was at the train station and said he would tell where the Jews were. He was a Jew as well. He thought he would save himself.
Period
Location
Tarnow
Poland
Interview
Gizela Fudem
Tag(s)