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For the local Jews in Niepolomice, who had lived there since before the war, nothing changed in their conditions except they had to wear the armband. Otherwise, they continued with their businesses. The head of the Judenrat [24], Artur Mames, had a store on the Niepolomice town square, selling iron and farming tools. He had it until the deportations in 1942. The German authorities did not interfere with such affairs. The real danger was still ahead of us, but we couldn't have known that.
Of course we took advantage of the Jewish kitchens, because the money we made was not enough, one couldn't survive on that. I was no longer a small child, already 16, but somehow I was included among the children and both my sister and I were taken in by different Jewish families. My sister was with an elderly couple; he was a furrier. She got lunch and dinner. I was with Mr. and Mrs. Moszajn. I don't know where they were from: such a well-to-do Jew, even if exiled from somewhere else. He must have had some jewelry, I don't know. They also lived in a rented apartment, but they had two rooms and a kitchen there and I went there for lunch and dinner.
The Judenrat organized this action. My father went to President Mames and said that we had escaped from Cracow, that we were left without anything of our own, and the President gave us a card for two meals a day. My father was there with me, and he said, ‘Mr. President, this is my son, but I also have a wife and a daughter.' ‘There are no more cards left,' the President said. ‘You have to share those you got.'
My mother helped in a kitchen, peeling potatoes and the like. And she did something not called for by the Ten Commandments. My mother lost a lot of weight. She had a belt tied tight around her waist, and when she was peeling potatoes and nobody was watching, she would drop a potato in the place of an imaginary breast, for she hardly had any breasts any more, poor thing. I mean, she did, but very thin. She would bring five or six potatoes from such a peeling session. I would bring two pieces of bread and my sister did, too. We basically didn't eat at the house of the people who fed us. We got one meal and for the other they gave us sandwiches, we thanked them and took them with us.
That's how the first two years passed. The summer of 1942 was very hot.
Of course we took advantage of the Jewish kitchens, because the money we made was not enough, one couldn't survive on that. I was no longer a small child, already 16, but somehow I was included among the children and both my sister and I were taken in by different Jewish families. My sister was with an elderly couple; he was a furrier. She got lunch and dinner. I was with Mr. and Mrs. Moszajn. I don't know where they were from: such a well-to-do Jew, even if exiled from somewhere else. He must have had some jewelry, I don't know. They also lived in a rented apartment, but they had two rooms and a kitchen there and I went there for lunch and dinner.
The Judenrat organized this action. My father went to President Mames and said that we had escaped from Cracow, that we were left without anything of our own, and the President gave us a card for two meals a day. My father was there with me, and he said, ‘Mr. President, this is my son, but I also have a wife and a daughter.' ‘There are no more cards left,' the President said. ‘You have to share those you got.'
My mother helped in a kitchen, peeling potatoes and the like. And she did something not called for by the Ten Commandments. My mother lost a lot of weight. She had a belt tied tight around her waist, and when she was peeling potatoes and nobody was watching, she would drop a potato in the place of an imaginary breast, for she hardly had any breasts any more, poor thing. I mean, she did, but very thin. She would bring five or six potatoes from such a peeling session. I would bring two pieces of bread and my sister did, too. We basically didn't eat at the house of the people who fed us. We got one meal and for the other they gave us sandwiches, we thanked them and took them with us.
That's how the first two years passed. The summer of 1942 was very hot.
Period
Interview
Leopold Sokolowski
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