Harry Friedmann

Harry Friedmann

On this photo, you can see my cousin Harry Hoffman. It was taken in Dzierzoniow, where he was living for a while after surviving the Holocaust. It might have been 1947 or 1948. His Jewish name was Hersz, but he changed it when he emigrated to Australia. He still lives there.

Actually, he was a cousin of my father, not mine. His grandfather and my grandmother were brother and sister.

I don't remember my grandparents. The eldest members of my family, the family that I remember and which was quite numerous, were the sister of my paternal grandmother, and my father's siblings and his family, i.e. his aunts and cousins. I remember some of them, because by the time the Germans started dissolving the ghetto, some of them were still alive. My grandmother's sister was called Deborah Friedman. We simply called her Granny. She lived with my father's eldest sister in Truskawiec, helping her run her business, a boarding house for vacationers. Truskawiec was a popular health resort and, since my early childhood, I often went there with my parents for vacations. I saw Granny there. She spoke Polish with us.

During a certain period in my life I thought about emigration. I was afraid, however, that we were a mixed marriage, without proper education, and that it would be difficult for us to establish a new life in Israel. Besides, my relatives in Israel weren't so well-off and simply didn't notice certain things. In particular the difference between capitalism and socialism, a difference we are able to notice today. It seemed to me it would be difficult for us to adapt to life in Israel. Later we had some opportunities to go to Australia, but we decided against it because of my mother-in-law, who would have been left completely alone here.

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