Wacek Kornblum’s little brother Borus

This is my little brother Borus. This photo was taken in Jablonna, on 19th August 1934 . There’s an dedication on the back side: ’Far Manie’ - ‘For Mania’ - my mom’s sister who lived in Paris. It was sent there and thanks to that we still have all this photos.

Almost every year we used to go for holidays with the family, usually to the so called Linia - a row of tourist-health resort towns located on the line Warsaw-Otwock. We went to Otwock, Falenica, once to Swider, many times to Miedzeszyn, once to Jablonna - summer resort towns near Warsaw. And once to Kazimierz. We usually took a train to the Linia, but we took a ship to Kazimierz on the Vistula River, from Warsaw. And our things, because we used to bring everything, we used to send by a horse carriage. I remember we would load things up at 6am and the horse carriage would get to the destination by night.

We used to go for a month, sometimes two. Estusia, mom's niece who used to live with us, would come with us, of course. Once she stayed behind on the train station, she didn't manage to get on the train, and it was a big fuss, was she going to come on the next train or not. She did. 

My brother Borus was born in 1932. Borus derives from Ber - Dov in Hebrew, which means a bear. Now he uses also his Polish name Wladek, or Wladzio - Wladyslaw.

We lived in Warsaw on 42 Sliska Street, in the spot where Jana Pawla II Avenue runs now. A long yard, a gate, which used to be locked at night. The gatekeeper lived there, he had a son whom I was very afraid of for no reason. A tall boy, a lot older than me. We lived in the back premises, on the second floor in a four-story building, in a apartment with two bedrooms, a kitchen and toilet, there was no bathroom. 

When you entered, there was a gas meter, on which I broke my arm chasing after my little brother Borus. There was a mirror over the gas meter. First door on the left led to the toilet. There was a small window high up in the toilet, which looked onto the kitchen. In the kitchen there was a bed behind a curtain, for a servant. There was a living room, there was a large table, folding iron bed, when it was folded it became a type of a table. And there was a couch. I used to sleep on that folding bed, I think Estusia slept in the kitchen, and the third, much smaller room, was my parents' bedroom. There, in the alcove, there was the parents' bed, and a crib where Borus slept. Out in the yard, under the bedroom window stood a garbage can. For Friday my parents used to buy hot challot, which they put on the window to cool them off. And Brother, since he was a huge rascal, would sometimes sneak in and push those challot straight onto the garbage. And I had to run downstairs and rescue them.

Photos from this interviewee