Fryda Majtlis

Fryda Majtlis

This picture was probably taken in the 1930s at a photographer's studio in Sosnowiec. I don?t know the name of the photographer. This is Fryda Majtlis. My father Dawid Birencwajg's niece. Her mother, Rachela Majtlis, was my father's sister.

My father, Dawid came from Sosnowiec. His father's name was Abram, his mother was Tema. There were six children in all. Four daughters and two sons. One daughter was called Rachela, the second one Sala, the third one Laja, and the fourth one was Bluma. And my father's brother was Judka. Rachela married Maks Majtlis, and they had one daughter, Fryda, Frydziunia.

When the war broke out, we were in Lodz. My father decided to go, with other men, to save Warsaw. He came back after two months. My mom told him: 'Listen, there's no point in you being here.' So he said: 'My two friends are crossing to the other side', that's how they'd say it, to the other side of the Bug. So my mom said: 'Go together with them.' She had arranged with my father that if, God willing, he'd be alive, she should look for him in Bialystok , where he could get registered in a waiters' union, or in Lwow. We couldn't get a message from him, because my father didn't know where we were. My mother found him in Lwow. My father rented an apartment, we slept on the floor, there were these huge cockroaches and it cost 5 zloty a night. We managed to get used to all this somehow, we weren't so scared anymore and we found out that the brothers-in-law were there. Rachela Majtlis, also came for a short time, but later left. She went back to Sosnowiec.

Rachela Majtlis and her daughter Fryda didn't survive the war.

Open this page