Tag #108023 - Interview #92969 (Henryk Umow)

Not every street in Lomza had plumbing in those days; on our street they still sold water by the bucket. There were lots of Jews living in Lomza. Almost everyone in the building where we lived was Jewish. I remember there was one woman who made wigs – we called her ‘Szejtel Macher’, which means wig-maker. The assistant rabbi also lived there; I don’t remember exactly who he was and what he did for a living, but that’s what everyone called him. And the owner of the whole building lived on the second floor; he had a butcher shop. I met his son after the war – he had a butcher shop here in Legnica. He gave me meat for free many times. The only Pole in the building was the caretaker. And I remember that I’d play with all kinds of kids – Polish ones too – in the courtyard of the building. Once I heard how they kept saying ‘fucking hell’; I didn’t know what it meant and I repeated it over and over. I went home and asked Mother, and she said it was a dirty word. And I go back to the courtyard and keep on repeating it. I remember that – Mother must have come up with a very deft ‘explanation’ of what it meant. I didn’t understand it until later.