This is a Poaley Zion group. The first girl from the right in the 3rd row is my, Icchok Grunberg’s sister, Sara Grynberg. The third from the right in the third row is my brother Motl. The picture was taken in the 1930’s, but I don’t know by whom.
Our town was very rooted in Jewish traditions. Everybody belonged to some organization. There were organizations: Poalei Zion, an orthodox religious organization Agudat Israel and Bund - a modern Jewish organization saying 'We were born in Poland and have to make a life fFor ourselves in Poland'. Youth organizations were also very active: there was Beitar, there was Hahalutz, which prepared kibbutzim in Poland. They exercised, went to farmers to learn farming, and they all got together and went to Israel (if they got a certificate, permit from the English). First wave of youth left in 1929 - 1930. My cousin Ester, Necha Szachter, Natan 'Nuske' Szron, Lejbcze Gewura, Idel Rudka were among them… I remember till today when they went to Israel. The arrived in Palestine long before the war. And I remember, if some of them were earning money, they used to send some home
The second sister, Sara, was studying and working, like me. Like all children in our family she was bahvutsinikh [Yiddish: enlightened] - well read, she had various interests. Sara was born in 1918 and completed 7 Polish grades [in a Polish public school]. Later she went to a religious school Beit Yaakov - Bais Yaakov, if I were to speak in pure Jewish [Yiddish]. When she graduated from that school, she was 16. Then she went to Pultusk, to my father's cousin who had a photographic shop. His name was Lis. She studied photography there for two years. She worked when she was 17-18. (She took all the pictures I have from before the war).
Some time later she came to Goworowo with a camera and started fending for herself. With time she opened her own shop and was taking pictures. She took pictures of us, of others. She had her own equipment, although very modest. The shop was in the backyard. She hung a blanket there, as background. She had a chair and her own retouching equipment. I remember when the photographs were lying in water, when they were taken to the darkroom in the vestibule of the house. When the war broke out she was 19.
