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What I remember most is Jewish Warsaw. It took in more or less from Stawki, where the Umschlagplatz 8 was later, to the philharmonic on Jasna. In every week I would go for Sunday mornings at 12, those were classical music concerts. I went on my own, or with this one friend who also liked music, Naftule Leruch. At first we were the only ones and they laughed a bit, but later other friends from Zukunft 9 wanted to go themselves, and a whole gang of us went. And sometimes I even got in on the sly, I mean I gave the janitor 20 or 30 groszy and he let me in. And from time to time there was an inspection and they went round looking for people without tickets, but I just sat in the corner on the left, on the second floor, and when they came they just looked at me and went on. I don’t know why, but they probably saw that it would be a shame to take away the happiness that this child got from the concert.
From time to time, very rarely, we used to go for a walk to Marszalkowska. And apart from that we went to the Saski Gardens and there we had fights with the Fascists 10, who didn’t want Jews to get into the garden. There was a summer theater in that garden, and I used to go there from time to time, there was this wonderful actress, a Jewish one, Ejchlerowna [Irena Eichlerowna, 1908-1990], who used to play a doctor. I still remember her acting. And I used to go to the opera for claps, to clap [as a hired applauder]. If they didn’t have anyone you could get in for free, but if there were a few who wanted to, then he wanted 50 groszy. From time to time, if I had 50 groszy and there was a good thing that I wanted to see, I gave him the 50 groszy and you had to shout ‘Encore!’ and throw flowers on the stage. When it was vacation time I sometimes went 4-5 times a week.
From time to time, very rarely, we used to go for a walk to Marszalkowska. And apart from that we went to the Saski Gardens and there we had fights with the Fascists 10, who didn’t want Jews to get into the garden. There was a summer theater in that garden, and I used to go there from time to time, there was this wonderful actress, a Jewish one, Ejchlerowna [Irena Eichlerowna, 1908-1990], who used to play a doctor. I still remember her acting. And I used to go to the opera for claps, to clap [as a hired applauder]. If they didn’t have anyone you could get in for free, but if there were a few who wanted to, then he wanted 50 groszy. From time to time, if I had 50 groszy and there was a good thing that I wanted to see, I gave him the 50 groszy and you had to shout ‘Encore!’ and throw flowers on the stage. When it was vacation time I sometimes went 4-5 times a week.
Period
Location
Warsaw
Poland
Interview
Szulim Rozenberg