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Julek Leibel was friendly with my father. They had common business interests. He was his ‘gesheft freund.’ ‘Geschaeft’ [Yid.: gesheft] means ‘business’ in German. And he used to come to our apartment, to see Father. He was a lot older than me, born in 1896, and I was in love with him, I gazed at him like a dog at the moon. All I used to do was serve tea or something, as you do for guests. It didn’t occur to me that he took any interest in me at all. I was a modest girl. What was I? A young girl without a penny, without a dowry, and he was rich, had a car. What that meant back then!
Julek was an independent leather exporter, and my father was a modest Jew, bought the hides himself and then dispatched them. And I was completely surprised and amazed when one day my mother called me into the dining room, where my distant uncle was sitting, the father of my future husband, and Mother said that he’d come to ask whether I would marry Julek. And I was speechless. I said that of course I would. He liked me, and that was it. He even bought me a trousseau. He didn’t buy it, he gave Father money, so that nobody would know, and Mother got me some linens together, what I had to have, so that I’d have a trousseau.
After he proposed to me, Julek was back and forth from Kalwaria Zebrzydowska [approx. 25 km from Cracow], where he lived with his parents, to me in Cracow all the time. It was winter. Along the Kalwaria-Cracow road there were woods nearly all the way, and attacks on travelers happened all the time.
My mother-in-law was afraid that something would happen to him and refused to let him go to Cracow. She demanded a quick wedding: ‘It’s not like you met each other yesterday, you can get married, let her come to you here and that’s the end of it.’ My mother-in-law was called Anna, and my father-in-law Markus.
Julek was an independent leather exporter, and my father was a modest Jew, bought the hides himself and then dispatched them. And I was completely surprised and amazed when one day my mother called me into the dining room, where my distant uncle was sitting, the father of my future husband, and Mother said that he’d come to ask whether I would marry Julek. And I was speechless. I said that of course I would. He liked me, and that was it. He even bought me a trousseau. He didn’t buy it, he gave Father money, so that nobody would know, and Mother got me some linens together, what I had to have, so that I’d have a trousseau.
After he proposed to me, Julek was back and forth from Kalwaria Zebrzydowska [approx. 25 km from Cracow], where he lived with his parents, to me in Cracow all the time. It was winter. Along the Kalwaria-Cracow road there were woods nearly all the way, and attacks on travelers happened all the time.
My mother-in-law was afraid that something would happen to him and refused to let him go to Cracow. She demanded a quick wedding: ‘It’s not like you met each other yesterday, you can get married, let her come to you here and that’s the end of it.’ My mother-in-law was called Anna, and my father-in-law Markus.
Period
Interview
Emilia Leibel
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