and my brother and sister taught me to answer a few simple questions: what my name was, where I was born, the name of my father and mother and that kind of thing. In time, I learned the basics of the Polish language and I was quite good in math, but I have no happy memories of that school. Quite apart from the language difficulties, the Polish children, and even the teacher, looked down on the Jewish pupils and generally made our lives miserable.
We didn’t often gather as a family for a meal. Mother or Lena would just run up from the shop and cook something for the children. In the evenings, it was a little more gathered. On Sundays, we had to close the shop, so we often went on excursions. Businessmen would go to the river. On Saturdays Jewish people did no business and we did not walk long distances, but on Sundays and general holidays we took the chance to do this kind of thing. I remember happy family excursions by the San River, and picnics.
I was quite a nervous child with many health problems and I didn’t eat properly. I often went to the dentist – probably because of my incorrigible sweet tooth. When I was about five, I had some kind of growth on my toe. Someone told my mother about a man who could help; I don’t think he was a proper doctor. He put some powder on the growth and I let out a blood-curdling scream that still rings in my ears. The growth never came back, but I’ve had a scar from that treatment ever since.
Once I had to spend several weeks in Kraków, where a specialist treated my infected ear. I have terrible memories of how he scraped the pus out of my ear each day. But when we came home, my parents bought me a tricycle. This was quite a novelty in Rozwadów.
When I was about nine, my mother took Judith and me to the Carpathian Mountains for several weeks’ vacation. I still have a photo of us standing with a man in a bear costume hugging us. I think this excursion was an effort to improve my health.
We had not actually planned to stay in Rozwadów; my parents still wanted to go to Palestine. Uncle Chaim Simcha and his two boys were already there – I guess they had slipped through before the British tried to stop the influx of German refugees. Father often told exciting stories about what he had experienced in the eight months he was there. He made it sound very interesting and glamorous, so I dreamed of one day going to Palestine, the Promised Land.
Leo and friend, Josef and friend outside
their house in Rozwadów
Josef and Judith at the circus
3.
Religious Life
CELEBRATION OF THE SHABBAT formed the center of our religious tradition. Friday afternoon, Father took me to the mikveh, or ritual baths. First, each one poured a bucket of water over himself and washed with soap. Then we went into a kind of sauna, a steam-filled room with about twenty long steps going up one side. I managed to climb to the fourth step, but the higher steps were too hot for me. After this, we immersed ourselves in cold water. We emerged from the mikveh clean – inwardly and outwardly. Then we dressed in our best clothes and returned home for the lighting of the Shabbat candles. This ceremony moved us deeply, and Mother often had tears in her eyes as she lit the candles.
After the candles were lit, Father, Leo and I went to the synagogue for evening prayers. The ancient melodies sung by the vorbeter (cantor) pierced my heart. I could understand only a few of the Hebrew words, but the melodies and the feeling of those chanted prayers expressed clearly the persecution and suffering of our people, the longing for God and for redemption. I relive those Friday evenings still today when I secret myself away and listen to my scratchy recordings of Yossele Rosenblatt.
If any traveler or stranger was at the synagogue, it was considered a mitzvah (good deed) to bring him home for the Shabbat meal. Mother always hoped that Father would bring someone along and he often did. Father led us into the house singing, “Peace be unto you from the watching angels,” and “Who can find a virtuous woman? Her price is far above rubies.” We washed our hands ceremonially and gathered around the festive table. He blessed the wine and then the challah. The meal then went on for hours: maybe gefilte fish followed by lokshen mit yoch and then a dessert. After the meal, Father read to us from Sholom Aleichem or from other famous Yiddish authors. To close the long evening, we sang many prayers and psalms together.
Sabbath morning we slept in. After a light breakfast – maybe coffee cake – the whole family went to the synagogue. Friday evening was solemn, but on Saturday morning there was a more social atmosphere. I loved to watch the reader open the special cupboard where the scrolls of the Torah were stored, pointing towards Jerusalem. He removed the velvet covering in the prescribed way and laid them out on the pulpit in the middle of the synagogue. My father or other men from the congregation were called up for the special honor of assisting the reader.
There were many rituals associated with the readings from the Torah and the prophets. These were solemnly performed, but a casual, untroubled atmosphere tempered the service. During the long readings, my father sometimes nodded off; another man might then come up behind him, pull on his ears and then pretend that he had done nothing. Shul went on for hours.
During all this, of course, my mother sat in the women’s part of the synagogue. I think they took it all more seriously than the men. Even though she didn’t understand Hebrew, you could see that she felt it in her heart. The younger children could go freely between the men’s and the women’s sections; often I found my mother weeping.
After a substantial meal, we usually settled down for an afternoon’s nap. Sometimes, my father took me with him to the rabbi’s house. In some ways, this was the focus of spiritual life for the men. They discussed Scripture and the Talmud with the rabbi. My brother Leo didn’t come with us; he was busy with his activities in the Zionist Youth Movement.
When the first stars appeared in the evening, we went again to the synagogue. But the real closing ceremony was held at home. We had another meal and sang praise to God who made the difference between light and darkness, between the sacred and profane. We followed Shabbat – “the queen” – to the door and bid her farewell for another week. Then business started again; we had to think about tomorrow.
Sprinze, Mother, Milech, Grandmother, Rahel
4.
Refugees
I WAS TEN YEARS OLD when the war broke out. It broke like a thunderbolt into a sunny summer day. The cultural, religious, and ethnic life of Rozwadów was shattered forever. People were glued to their radios. We soon realized that the invading Germans were advancing rapidly through Poland, and that the Polish army was defeated. Masses of Polish soldiers started retreating through town – among them many Jews. Mother and a few other women set up an outdoor kitchen to cook for the soldiers.
My father’s business was destroyed long before the Germans arrived. First, Polish army officers came and requisitioned most of the sugar and rice. They gave us receipts, but even at the time we had no hope of ever receiving any payment. Afterwards, chaos and riots broke out. Mobs of Polish people wandered the streets breaking into shops and looting. They stole everything that was left in our shop.
We feared that the Germans would send the able-bodied men to forced labor camps, so my father and older brother (then twenty-one) fled toward the Russian border. They returned
