Jakub Bromberg showing a photo of Nacha and Monek Abzac

This is me, photographed in my apartment in Prochnika Street in the 1990s. I am holding a photo of Nacha and Monek Abzac, whom I met in the Lodz ghetto. Their photo is very important to me, because it shows my cousin who had the same name as my mother Nacha Bromberg, nee Wajntraub, and looked a bit like her. Nacha reminds me of my mother.

Mother had two brothers, Josek and Hersz and a sister - Bela. Hersz, Mother's second brother, had a wife named Lea and many children: Natan, Chil, Chaim, Fajga, Nacha, Saba-Szewa and Estera-Malka. He died in 1936 or 1937 in Lodz. Nacha lived in Lodz on Lagiewnicka Street, her husband was Monek Abzac.

I first went to Lwow, then from Lublin to Warsaw and Lodz. That worked out well. I came back to the same place, with a gun in my hand. My dream was to show up like Joseph in Egypt, who came back although everyone thought he had died. I didn't want to go straight to Lodz. I could have made it to Lodz on 19th January 1945 with the Red Army, because I was in uniform. But I didn't want to; I instinctively felt that no one was alive. I spent some months in Lublin and I came here. I thought I'd meet someone. I was disappointed. No brothers, no friends, no father, no mother, no sister, no cousins. No one was left. They all died. I searched, but I wasn't successful. I even visited the ghetto. There on Lagiewnicka Street, in Nacha and Monka Wajntraubs' apartment, I found some letters, photos, documents and that was all. I only managed to find a few of my acquaintances. 

 

Photos from this interviewee