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The school was on the third floor. A typical class had twenty-odd to thirty students. It suddenly became terribly important to me, and I was impressed, because every student had to have a satin uniform and a white collar. You had to adapt and I was sort of uncouth, coarse, and suddenly I found myself inside that school rhythm of things. But I liked it. I was terribly determined to present myself favorably to the teachers. They didn’t have to drive me to study. I did my homework so eagerly. Gradually they came to like me, told the other kids, ‘Look at Felek, he doesn’t have the conditions you have, you live in luxury, and yet you refuse to study, follow his example!’ And because of that poverty, that misery, I started understanding things. All the students were Jewish, and they came from various backgrounds. I remember that every day we were given milk and a bun with marmalade. Every student got that. And the boys from the more well-off families brought sandwiches and shared with others. I was a good student so they’d invite me home to do homework together. There was always something to eat there, those were Jewish homes, well-off – something I never had at home.
The school wasn’t just about going through the basic curriculum. The curriculum was rather packed. Besides the usual subjects, there were also the Jewish courses to go through, and they were treated as seriously as the others. So there was quite a lot of tension, a lot of homework to do. And, I remember it very well, the teachers were rather ambitious and were determined not to leave anyone behind. There were all kinds of jokes, and yet we disciplined each other. At the music lesson, we liked to make fun – the teacher came, played the violin… You know, like kids.
But how much that school gave us besides the formal education – it broadened our horizons! We visited the Belvedere [Belvedere Palace in Warsaw, official residence of Marshal Jozef Pilsudski until his death in 1935], the Royal Castle, which we saw like five times, the Okecie airport – they took us to all the important places by bus, by streetcar. The whole class went under the teacher’s direction. It seems to me that school gave me much more than just the formal education, it introduced us to the world at large. They took us to the technical workshops, showed how young people studied there.
The school wasn’t just about going through the basic curriculum. The curriculum was rather packed. Besides the usual subjects, there were also the Jewish courses to go through, and they were treated as seriously as the others. So there was quite a lot of tension, a lot of homework to do. And, I remember it very well, the teachers were rather ambitious and were determined not to leave anyone behind. There were all kinds of jokes, and yet we disciplined each other. At the music lesson, we liked to make fun – the teacher came, played the violin… You know, like kids.
But how much that school gave us besides the formal education – it broadened our horizons! We visited the Belvedere [Belvedere Palace in Warsaw, official residence of Marshal Jozef Pilsudski until his death in 1935], the Royal Castle, which we saw like five times, the Okecie airport – they took us to all the important places by bus, by streetcar. The whole class went under the teacher’s direction. It seems to me that school gave me much more than just the formal education, it introduced us to the world at large. They took us to the technical workshops, showed how young people studied there.
Period
Interview
Feliks Nieznanowski
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