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In 1937, the year my sister got married, I started working in the ‘Linia i Litera’ print shop. It started out at Krochmalna [in the Jewish district] in a rundown building. I worked in the basement, in this horrible office, somewhere under the stairs. Then a new building was put up, on Grzybowska, I think [in the Jewish district], where the print shop was located on the first floor. I ran the office there: I paid the workers their salaries, typed various things and did some accounting. A real accountant came occasionally to check if everything was in order. I even went to the tax office occasionally; they sent me there to make sure they weren’t getting in trouble. It was a big company, with over a dozen workers and draftsmen employed. I remember I had four bosses: Michal Walersztajn, Jerzy Bursztyn–a bon vivant and a very handsome man–and two others: a type-setter and a machinist who made prints on those printing machines. They printed posters, booklets. I remember how we botched a job once with one of them. We were supposed to print a Philips radio manual. We had plates with the drawings. But even though he checked them and I checked them, we didn’t notice that the drawings were upside down. Nothing happened, because it was on the day before the war broke out. When the Germans came in, the print shop lasted a month or two and was closed down.
Period
Interview
Holder Romana