Apolonia Starzec with her friends in Kaminsk

I got this photo from my friend Lusia Abramowna from Piotrkow. It is me and my friends on holiday in Kaminsk in 1931. It was our favorite holiday place, near Radomsko, where we regularly spent the summer holidays. And one Friday I was cycling back from there to Radomsko, it wasn't far, ten kilometers. I'm passing the synagogue and I see small boys starting to throw stones at me, that I'm offending their feelings. And I didn't realize, didn't know it was forbidden to cycle on Friday night. I don't remember my mother lighting the candles, ever. And there are my class friends in this photo, but I don?t remember their names... I was always the youngest in the class. I never went to elementary school. There were several gymnasia in our town. Two for boys, one for girls, and the coeducational private one, ran by Mrs. Weintraub. Ludwika Weintraub came from Piotrkow, I think. She was the school's owner and headmaster, a Jewess. Mrs. Mittleman, our craft and design teacher, a doctor's wife, mother of two daughters. A wonderful woman, she taught us many things, the useful ones. A professor named Brumberg. He taught biology, if I'm not mistaken. And Mrs. Palusikowa. I think she taught us math. There were also religion classes, in Polish. Of my schoolmates I remember, for instance, Blumsztajn senior, Sewek's father. We lived in the same house, us on the floor above them, and we completed the gymnasium together. Other schoolmates: Sznajder, a very talented boy, Plawner, he reportedly survived in the Czestochowa ghetto. When we grew up a bit, we became involved in other matters, not only our private ones. Community work. Some were Zionists, members of the so-called Shomr. Brumberg was the leader of the Hashomer Hatzair guys. I didn't belong anywhere because I wasn't interested in the Jewish movement.

The Centropa Collection at USHMM

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