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My brother] Borus was born in 1932. Borus derives from Ber - Dov in Hebrew, which means a bear. [Mr. Kornblum calls his brother also Wladek, or Wladzio – diminutives from Wladyslaw, his Polish name]. I remember when he was born Grandmother [Gela] was lying in bed [she was sick]. In Yiddish ‘brist’ means ‘brisket’ that’s how we call meat: brist. And brit mila means circumcision, but here [in Warsaw] people used to call it brist mila. And Grandma asked me when I came to visit her: ‘Vus makht di mame?’ [Yiddish: ‘what is mom doing’?], ‘Zi makht a brist’, [she’s doing ‘brist’] I answered, thinking about meat and everyone laughed in the whole family. I remember very well when Borus lay in the other room in a bed with a lifted front, with bars, so that he wouldn’t fall out.
Period
Interview
Izaak Wacek Kornblum