Szulim Rozenberg with his sister Ryfka and her family

Szulim Rozenberg with his sister Ryfka and her family

Standing, from left: Ryfka’s husband Rubin, me, and Rubin’s youngest brother, Pinie. Seated: Ryfka with her daughter Dwora and son Icchak, and Pinie’s wife with their daughter.

In 1945, I got a telegram, that they put my brother Ksil away for 10 years 'after Henryk [Erlich] and Wiktor [Alter]' - which meant for Bundism. He had been speaking at the funeral of a friend's father who'd died and they arrested him. Menasze and I decided to leave to Poland. And back before that, Ryfka and her husband had already left. In the meantime she had had another son, Icchak, and when they got to Poland in 1946 she had a daughter as well, Dwora. So she had 3 children: Jakub, Icchak and Dwora, but Jakub didn't survive.

We went back to Poland. When we arrived at Ryfka's address in Lodz, she had gone to Dzierzoniow [60km south of Wroclaw], because she had a nice apartment there and he'd got work there right off. She wasn't there, so I had to go to her. And Rajzla had gone back, to Szczecin. I went to Ryfka, Menasze went to Rajzla, he was closer to her. There he met a woman, and got married there. She was Jewish, Anna Karmazin. They had a daughter; she lives in Paris, her name is Izabela.

In Dzierzoniow I went straight to the organization [Bund], but my sister kept me on a tight rein. And I wasn't used to being told what to do any more. So I went to Lodz. And I gone to the apartment where they were before, got a job straight away, in the Jewish Committee, in records, and later distributing food and the clothes they sent from America.

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