Wedding picture of Maria and Beniamin Szwarc

These are my parents, Maria and Beniamin Szwarc. It is their wedding picture. It was taken in Lodz, on 11th November 1920.

It is a studio portrait. It survived the war due to a fortunate incident: before the war, my mother had mailed it to her sister, Ruth, who lived in the USA.

My mother and her siblings lived in a single room at 33 Wschodnia Street in Lodz. It was the second floor. Right on the other side of one of the walls of this room there was a restaurant.

And on the day of my grandma’s [Mrs. Biber’s] death, my future father happened to be sitting in this restaurant, having his lunch. And he heard the terrible crying of children.

He went over to the apartment to see what was going on. And he fell in love with my mother.

My parents’ wedding was on 11th November 1920 – they chose this date to celebrate the anniversary of Poland’s independence. My parents were also living at 33 Wschodnia Street, in the same building where my mother lived with her siblings.

Except that their place was a floor below, on the first floor. Wschodnia Street was inhabited by Jews. Not exclusively, of course, but it was a sort of Jewish quarter.

There were some orthodox Jews living there as well. And of course you would hear Yiddish spoken in the street.