Tag #106165 - Interview #88514 (Anna Mass)

I spent two years at the Jewish school together with my sister, even though they didn’t want to admit me, I was only 5. But my sister went, so was I to sit at home? I went with her. And because the teacher was a friend of my mother’s, she tolerated my presence in the classroom. I kept very quiet, unlike on the street. I kept very quiet so eventually she started asking me questions.

And then a decision was made that we should change the school because there was a Polish one right near our house, at Bernardynska, we wouldn’t have to walk to the other side of town. So we transferred to a Polish elementary school number 9.

My sister was taken back a year because her Polish was poor. And I was admitted to first grade. In that school, I was a particularly shy kid. Quiet, calm. I went to the teacher and told her I didn’t want to be in first grade, because I was bored.

That I could read and write, and count, so that perhaps I could be moved to second, to be together with my sister. Later I regretted it a bit when I saw how the first graders played, and there was none of that in the second.

But I went together with my sister and it was like that: I was small and skinny, but had a strong fighting spirit. I mean, at school I was quiet. But if someone stepped on my toes, I knew how defend myself. I was always ugly but I laughed a lot.