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I started attending gymnasium when I was 14 years old [1936]. It was a vocational gymnasium of the Polish Women’s Association in Katowice. An all girls’ school. We learned sewing, corsetry. I didn’t want to work in that profession, but my parents sent me there.
Because I wasn’t such a great student they sent me to a vocational school, so I’d learn a trade. There was also a public girls’ gymnasium [in Katowice.] But I wasn’t a good student, so perhaps those general subjects would have been too difficult for me? I didn’t like studying.
My friends from elementary school and from Akiba went to the gymnasium with me, for example Mala Lobel. There were some who attended the Hebrew Gymnasium in Bedzin. It was called the Firstenberg Gymnasium [opened in 1930, currently High School #2.] Classes were taught in Polish there. There was also a Jewish trade school in Bedzin.
My gymnasium was very decent: there were quite a few students, the building was very nice. It was in the Silesian Technical Research Plant, where there was a technical school for boys. We were in a separate part of that building.
There were practical classes and general subjects. We learned German and French. But the study of foreign languages was not very serious. I remember one professor – Mrs. Fik. A great teacher of Polish. I think she must have been a communist. There were also [Christian] religion classes at the gymnasium. I left the classroom for religion classes. Jewish teachers didn’t work there.
There weren’t many Jewish students. There were few of us in the class: this friend of mine [Mala Lobel], me, Pola Fiszer and one more – she commuted from Dabrowa Gornicza. We didn’t feel anti-Semitism at the gymnasium.
There was also this Aniela Gora, a Pole. I was friends with her. She lived on 3 Maja Street. I used to go to this Aniela’s house and she’d come and visit me. But usually there weren’t that many close relationships between Polish and Jewish girls.
I attended the gymnasium for three years, until the war broke out. I graduated from the gymnasium. It was called the semi-final exam [an exam after four years of gymnasium; secondary school consisted of a four-year gymnasium and a two-year lyceum.
Because I wasn’t such a great student they sent me to a vocational school, so I’d learn a trade. There was also a public girls’ gymnasium [in Katowice.] But I wasn’t a good student, so perhaps those general subjects would have been too difficult for me? I didn’t like studying.
My friends from elementary school and from Akiba went to the gymnasium with me, for example Mala Lobel. There were some who attended the Hebrew Gymnasium in Bedzin. It was called the Firstenberg Gymnasium [opened in 1930, currently High School #2.] Classes were taught in Polish there. There was also a Jewish trade school in Bedzin.
My gymnasium was very decent: there were quite a few students, the building was very nice. It was in the Silesian Technical Research Plant, where there was a technical school for boys. We were in a separate part of that building.
There were practical classes and general subjects. We learned German and French. But the study of foreign languages was not very serious. I remember one professor – Mrs. Fik. A great teacher of Polish. I think she must have been a communist. There were also [Christian] religion classes at the gymnasium. I left the classroom for religion classes. Jewish teachers didn’t work there.
There weren’t many Jewish students. There were few of us in the class: this friend of mine [Mala Lobel], me, Pola Fiszer and one more – she commuted from Dabrowa Gornicza. We didn’t feel anti-Semitism at the gymnasium.
There was also this Aniela Gora, a Pole. I was friends with her. She lived on 3 Maja Street. I used to go to this Aniela’s house and she’d come and visit me. But usually there weren’t that many close relationships between Polish and Jewish girls.
I attended the gymnasium for three years, until the war broke out. I graduated from the gymnasium. It was called the semi-final exam [an exam after four years of gymnasium; secondary school consisted of a four-year gymnasium and a two-year lyceum.
Period
Interview
Wygodzka Irena