This is me, my husband Kuba Ekert (the first from the left) and our friends. The photo was taken in a village near Warsaw in the 1990s.
When at the beginning of the 1990s a revival of Jewish life began in Warsaw, I was rather skeptical. I remember that when I learned that some beginnings of a Jewish school were attempted [Lauder School], I thought it fake, strange and at odds with the reality around. But it turns out I was wrong.
Sometime later, at my friend’s birthday, a young handsome man, a director, was introduced to me. I started talking to him and all of a sudden I was dumbfounded: I realized he was wearing a yarmulka. A young man in a yarmulka would have been unthinkable a few years earlier! I continue to meet people who came to feel some connection to the Jewish world; not always through the synagogue, sometimes they simply discover a sense of a community. I was wrong. Maybe even what was done thus far means an enduring revival.
My husband worked also as a volunteer in the Jewish Historical Institute. He collected materials. He was an engineer by profession but a historian by temperament. He was always interested in the history of the Jews and was very knowledgeable. As for those times, he knew that history incredibly well. I couldn’t fathom where he knew all of that from. Kuba died six years ago [1998].
