Wedding picture of Hela Biber

This is a wedding picture of my aunt, Hela. It was taken in Lask in 1935 or 1936. I do not know who took this picture.

It survived the war due to a fortunate incident: before the war, my mother had mailed it to her sister, Ruth, who lived in the USA.

My two aunts, Sala and Hela, lived in Lask. I spent many Spring breaks, I mean Easter breaks, at my older aunt’s place there. I would stay for two weeks each time.

I think once I went with Renata, but a few times I went on my own. My parents would put me on the train, and then my aunt, Sala, would pick me up in Lask. They lived right opposite her husband’s mother, at Tylna Street 9.

Hela was married off using some matchmakers. Her husband made men’s shirts, or maybe it was long underwear. On Fridays he would go to the market and sell what he had made during the week.

They had a daughter named Anulka, born two or three years before the war. I used to go to their apartment in Lask, they lived in the main square. You walked through a small kitchen into the room.

There were two beds to the sides, and as you entered the room you faced the table.

After the war we found out that my mother’s two sisters, and their entire families, were killed in Lask. Apparently, they took all the Jews to the cemetery, and shot them.

Their children were also killed: nephew Daniel, Sala’s son and Anka, Hela’s daughter.