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Another holiday – Chanukkah. That was a really big event for me, the lighting of the candles. Besides, the volunteers from the community council would come and bring us all kinds of gifts – sweets, tangerines, oranges, various kinds of cakes. There were packages and there were also fruit baskets. I guess they visited all the Jewish schools with those gifts. I remember how there was more and more candles. Dad lighted them. Later I learned to sing and I sang songs by those candles. Father and I would play various games, we’d dreydelekh, we’d play spinning top. On each side of the top there was a different letter.
At Chanukkah there was also the tree. I remember as if it were today – you brought an evergreen tree from somewhere and decorated it. That was fun! You placed the tree, hung apples, candy on it. I went to visit my friends, there was a tree there, they came to visit me – ‘Look, Felek has a tree, too!’ There was no knowledge of tradition in all that, I learned only later what Chanukkah was all about, what it meant. But in the beginning it was – these guys profess this, those guys profess that. For a Jew, for instance, to go to a church and see the cross, is a horrible thing – the cross! For us, that didn’t matter. I mean, there was no cross at home, you burned the candles. There were two candlesticks and my mother always placed them on white tablecloth. But there was nothing to emphasize that it was a Jewish home, like in some places where you saw all those paintings of old Jews on the walls, the kind of family portraits. There was nothing of the sort.
At Chanukkah there was also the tree. I remember as if it were today – you brought an evergreen tree from somewhere and decorated it. That was fun! You placed the tree, hung apples, candy on it. I went to visit my friends, there was a tree there, they came to visit me – ‘Look, Felek has a tree, too!’ There was no knowledge of tradition in all that, I learned only later what Chanukkah was all about, what it meant. But in the beginning it was – these guys profess this, those guys profess that. For a Jew, for instance, to go to a church and see the cross, is a horrible thing – the cross! For us, that didn’t matter. I mean, there was no cross at home, you burned the candles. There were two candlesticks and my mother always placed them on white tablecloth. But there was nothing to emphasize that it was a Jewish home, like in some places where you saw all those paintings of old Jews on the walls, the kind of family portraits. There was nothing of the sort.
Period
Interview
Feliks Nieznanowski
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