This is a picture of me as a soldier, which my mother Chana Weinryb, nee Sztern, send to my sister Sara Schifeldrin, nee Weinryb in Palestine. The photo was taken in Zamosc in 1938.
In 1937 I was called up. Many Jews dodged service at that time, but I went. It was what my father wanted, too. He said that I would learn to fight, and that that could prove useful later on in Palestine. I served at Wlodzimierz Wolynski, in the 23rd infantry regiment. Later I was transferred to Pogorsk near Baranowicze. They were building a range there and I had an education in construction. We put up wooden barracks for the soldiers and ancillary quarters. There were lots of wolves in that area. I remember how one time our cook went to town to buy some meat. The terrain was marshy, you had to walk on special wooden planking. When he was on his way back he heard the wolves coming. The cook survived, but our meat didn't.
Mieczyslaw Weinryb as a soldier
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.
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