This picture was taken in Legnica in 2004. That's what I look like now as I?m telling you my story. Unfortunetly I don?t have any of the old photos of mine, nor those of my family. They were stolen at the beginning of the Second World War when the Soviet troops came to my town - Lomza. And later I didn't take too many photos, but even those I did take, I don?t know where they are now. I don?t see well and thus I?m not able to find them.
I have been living here in Legnica already for almost sixty years. And so I live from day to day. Every day I?m prepared to be here for the last time. I?m 86 years old already, working on 87. I can barely see anymore, not even my own writing. I?ve already got a place waiting for me in the Jewish cemetery in Legnica. All that's left is to move in there. But I don?t mind, because the one thing I?m sure of is that I?ll live until I die.
Henryk Umow
The Centropa Collection at USHMM
The Centropa archive has been acquired by the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, DC. USHMM will soon offer a Special Collections page for Centropa.
Academics please note: USHMM can provide you with original language word-for-word transcripts and high resolution photographs. All publications should be credited: "From the Centropa Collection at the United States Memorial Museum in Washington, DC".
Please contact collection [at] centropa.org (collection[at]centropa[dot]org).