1st May Parade

This is a photo from the 1st May Parade in Klodzko in 1946. I?m in the front of the group. I was a member of the ZWM - the Fighting Youth Union, and I was made an instructor with the municipal board. And, if you please, I - a Jew - was elected chairman of a branch of the ZWM numbering over 180 members. As soon as military operations ended we were able to go back to Poland. We left in January 1946, and arrived in Klodzko in February. Our repatriation journey took almost four weeks, in very primitive conditions, in cattle wagons. When we first arrived we were in a little village called Gieszcze Puste, and then we went to Klodzko. A Committee of Polish Jews was set up and Wajcman became its chairman. A fairly large group of Jews settled in Klodzko after the war. A number of artisan cooperatives were founded: a tailors' cooperative, a cobblers' cooperative, and there was a branch of the ORT. Joint began to send us some aid, food and other necessities, and some people started to work. We were all given some apartments that had belonged to Germans, that were more or less furnished. And there in Klodzko I started work for the Jewish Committee as head of the youth division. We organized events for young people: various types of events, festivals, ghetto ceremonies; there was a coordination commission for Jewish organizations. That was 1946.