Ludwik Hoffman with his parents in the garden

On this photo, you can see my parents Natan and Sabina Hoffman and me, when I was three years old. It must have been taken shortly before my mother died. It’s the only photo of my mother that I have.

I know little about my mother. According to some accounts, after the regaining of independence in 1918, she worked in the Drohobycz town hall as the mayor's secretary. I guess that was a distinguishment. After my mother's death, that 'Granny', my grandmother's sister, Deborah Friedman lived with us for some time, but then Father decided to marry again.

I remember my father very well, I remember him from my early childhood. Probably because my mother died when I was three, and everyone knows what it means to be a child without a mother. As I was quite a fretful child, to find me something to do, something to play with, my father would bring me textile samples from work. Those were pieces of various materials bound together with a kind of ferrule. I used to play with it as a child and since then, all my life, I was involved with textiles. At home I played alone. In fact, I was brought up in specific conditions, not like the other children. As my mother was dead, I didn't have much to do with other children, and I developed my first friendships only in gymnasium, when I was a bit older.