This is my cousin Moishe, my father sister Sarra's son, (I don't remember her family name after she got married) wearing a uniform of a soldier of the Polish army. This photo was taken approximately in 1936. She sent it to her parents.
My father's family came from Pogdaytsy. I also grew up in this town. It's a picturesque town in the Carpathian foothills. Its population at the beginning of 19th century was under 15 thousand people, and 6 thousand of them were Jews. There were two-storied stone houses, a catholic church and a big and beautiful synagogue in the center of the town. There was an old Jewish cemetery with engravings in Hebrew on gravestones. Besides the central synagogue there were few smaller synagogues that belonged to craftsmen guilds and there were also Hasidic synagogues and prayer houses.
My paternal grandfather Menachem Mahnes Gliazer and his big family belonged to Hasidim. My grandfather was a craftsman, and was a very religious Hasid. He raised his children to profess Hasidism. My grandfather Menachem and grandmother, whose name I don't remember, died before World War I. They had many children. Some of them died in infantry, and I don't know their names. All children of my grandparents got religious education. The boys finished cheder and the girls studied at home with melamed teachers.
My father's older sister Sarra and her husband perished in the ghetto in Pogdaytsy in 1941. Her older son Moishe served in the Polish army. He escaped to the Soviet army before Nazi troops came to Poland. Moishe was at the front. He perished in 1943.
