Tag #120722 - Interview #100343 (Meer Kuyavskis)

My father’s parents lived close by, but I did not see them very often. I do not remember my grandparents treat me very tenderly, give me a hug or a kiss. It was not only with me- at that time it was common to bring up children very strictly and it was very hard to get grandmother’s fondling. My father’s parents were born in Lodz in the 1860s. My grandfather’s name was Fishel Kuyavskiy. I cannot recall my grandmother’s name. She died in 1930,when I was a baby. I just remember that she looked like a lean, petite old lady. She always wore a wig, dark skirt and blouse. Grandpa Fishel also resembled most of elderly Jews- the denizens of our street- not tall, humpty old man with a hat. I remember that grandparents’ had a one-room apartment with a small corridor where grandmother cooked food. I think that grandfather was a craftsman, not a rich one to boot, barely scraping through. When he grew old (at that time 60-year old was considered an old man), grandpa was afflicted with cataract. He was almost blind, and all he could do was pray day in, day out. He often held his prayer book upside down being mocked by his numerous grandchildren. When grandmother died and Fisher stopped working, he lived with his children by turns. He stayed either with his sons, or with his daughter. Grandpa was so religious as it was accepted in Jewish circles at that time- he observed kashrut, Sabbath,went to the synagogue almost every day, when his health permitted. Fisher died at the beginning of 1939 being lucky not to have known all that atrocity that Jews underwent in occupied Poland [1].