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One story: I caught a cold before the war, got very high fever. And it turned out I had pleural exudate. I was ill for a very long time then. I was in bed for almost eleven weeks.
I put on eleven kilograms of weight because that’s how they fed me. Then I went to Miedzeszyn, there was a Bund sanatorium there. There I caught quinsy, had an ulcer in my throat. I was choking. And that last night, the worst one, I was pacing around the room and thinking: if only my mother was here, she’d surely help me.
And I hadn’t written home I was sick. I didn’t want them to worry. Besides, what am I, being sick while in sanatorium? And my father woke up in the night, my mother stands by the window and says, ‘You know, I feel she’s choking there.’ And she sent me a wire.
The ulcer burst in the morning.
I put on eleven kilograms of weight because that’s how they fed me. Then I went to Miedzeszyn, there was a Bund sanatorium there. There I caught quinsy, had an ulcer in my throat. I was choking. And that last night, the worst one, I was pacing around the room and thinking: if only my mother was here, she’d surely help me.
And I hadn’t written home I was sick. I didn’t want them to worry. Besides, what am I, being sick while in sanatorium? And my father woke up in the night, my mother stands by the window and says, ‘You know, I feel she’s choking there.’ And she sent me a wire.
The ulcer burst in the morning.
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Anna Mass