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Then they started building the wall [April-May 1940]. At the beginning we didn’t know what it was, because they didn’t build it continually, but pieces on various streets, so that nobody realized they would be connected. Then they created the ghetto and there were passages in the walls, and as long as there were passages, that man kept on coming. They used to search people on those passages, but he was a huge man and he used to hang those handbags, without boxes, on himself, under his coat, and he just seemed much heavier then, he also bribed those guards. He came a few times when it became more difficult to get inside and outside of the ghetto [in January 1941 the penalty for leaving the ghetto without a pass became stricter], he kept coming to bring money, but once he came, took the handbags and never returned. He most likely couldn’t get in any more.
At first, before the ghetto was created, I used to go to secret classes in the Krynski gymnasium [the pre-war, Jewish, mathematics-biology oriented Magnus Krynski gymnasium was located on 1 Miodowa Street [22]]. Wladek [Borus] also took those secret classes, at the beginning I used to walk him to Pawia Street. [Mr. Kornblum’s brother writes in his memoirs the secret classes on 1 Pawia Street were taught by Miss Greta and Miss Cylia. Wladyslaw Dov Kornblum, The Last Descendant: Memoirs of a Boy from the Warsaw Ghetto, 2002]. Later, after some time, to Smocza Street. [In the ghetto] he often used to go to Gesia Street, to a so called garden, those were classes for little children, children would get together there in the summer and there were caregivers. They even taught them something there.
In the ghetto, when my parents realized we would most likely be separated [Mr. Kornblum most likely refers to summer 1942], Dad wrote down the address of his brother in America and I put the piece of paper with this address on it into my wallet that Dad made for me. [My parents] also sewed canvas backpacks for us, and we put in there a change of underwear, extra shoes, things like that, so that in case they’d catch us and take us away, we’d have it with us.
At first, before the ghetto was created, I used to go to secret classes in the Krynski gymnasium [the pre-war, Jewish, mathematics-biology oriented Magnus Krynski gymnasium was located on 1 Miodowa Street [22]]. Wladek [Borus] also took those secret classes, at the beginning I used to walk him to Pawia Street. [Mr. Kornblum’s brother writes in his memoirs the secret classes on 1 Pawia Street were taught by Miss Greta and Miss Cylia. Wladyslaw Dov Kornblum, The Last Descendant: Memoirs of a Boy from the Warsaw Ghetto, 2002]. Later, after some time, to Smocza Street. [In the ghetto] he often used to go to Gesia Street, to a so called garden, those were classes for little children, children would get together there in the summer and there were caregivers. They even taught them something there.
In the ghetto, when my parents realized we would most likely be separated [Mr. Kornblum most likely refers to summer 1942], Dad wrote down the address of his brother in America and I put the piece of paper with this address on it into my wallet that Dad made for me. [My parents] also sewed canvas backpacks for us, and we put in there a change of underwear, extra shoes, things like that, so that in case they’d catch us and take us away, we’d have it with us.
Period
Location
Warsaw
Poland
Interview
Izaak Wacek Kornblum
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