Halina Leszczynska with friends

This picture was taken in the 1930s, in Korzew. This is a little village, near Wisniowa Gora, southeast of Lodz. We used to go there for the holidays. This is a picture of me, Halina, and two other children, but I don't remember their names now. I got this picture from my mother's friend Rajzel, she sent her the photo from Sao Paulo, Brazil in the 1970s.

I was born in 1929. There was such joy when I was born. I was pampered and spoiled by my mum. I had great problems, I had this rash on my face. The doctor came and said that my mum should have a mask made of gauze and put some petroleum jelly on it, and you couldn't get it then. That's how it was. There was no stroller, just a kerchief and that's how my mother carried me out for walks. And later they invented strollers and my father's sister Rachela bought one for me in Sosnowiec.

When I was four months old, my dad decided my mom should stop working. He would come home from work very late and he would always bring a piece of cheesecake, make tea and mother had to eat and drink that, so she'd have milk for me.

I started going to school in the mid 1930s. My father wanted me to go to a Jewish school. That's why I can speak Yiddish, because my father and my mother spoke Yiddish to each other, but Polish to me.

Two times a year we'd go to my grandma in Sosnowiec. For the holidays. I'd always go for Passover, they'd have seder, there was matzah. They'd pray and pray, everything was told about how it was in Egypt, how they were thrown out, how long it all took, until we, the children, fell asleep.