Selected text
I started going to school when I was six years old. The school was Gutman’s gymnasium [lyceum] in Bialystok. I even remember how we exercised standing on the desks. And one girl peed on that desk, she couldn’t stand it, we were laughing so hard. This school system looked like this then [in the 1920s]: a sub-elementary level, then elementary, then eight grades of gymnasium and the 8th one was the one when you took final exams. So there were ten years of schooling in total before the final exams. Then, in the 1930s, this system was changed, but it’s hard for me to say what it looked like later. So when we came to Lublin there was this issue of what to do with my education. I was then ten or eleven years old. It was in the middle of the school year, so probably I’d have to repeat a grade, I don’t remember which one, 2nd or 3rd grade of gymnasium.
Well, and you’d have to pay for that. So it was decided that I’d go to a public school. And I went to a school, whose principal was Mrs. Mandelkernowa. It was a very good school, on Lubartowska Street. When I graduated from this school I went to a humanities gymnasium in Lublin. It was also a gymnasium, where nothing was taught about Jewry. There were public gymnasia in Lublin, government officials, officers sent their children there. Wealthier people, who could afford to pay, rather wealthy. Jews also attended these gymnasia, but there were very few. These were also private gymnasia, Polish ones, and many Jews attended them, for example Czarniecka’s gymnasium or Arciszowa’s gymnasium for girls, Staszic for boys. And there were two Jewish gymnasia [in Lublin]: Szperowa’s, where my sister went, and the humanities gymnasium which was operated by some Jewish association, it wasn’t a private school, so it was less expensive.
I studied a lot of Latin then, a lot of history, the standards were indeed quite high. I also took French then. It was an obligatory foreign language and, I have to say, these basics which I learned at school were very solid, I can still speak French fluently. But I didn’t get my diploma then. Father was unemployed, you then had to pay for tutors, to be well prepared for the finals. So I decided: I can’t take the finals, because I don’t have enough money. I told Mother and Father. Especially Father was very saddened. He used to say, ‘My children, my daughters, what can I leave you but an education.’ At that time you wouldn’t say ‘Dad’, but ‘Papa’. So I would answer, ‘Papa, but all I do is sit on the other side of the door [the pupil that could not participate in the lessons without paying tuition sat in the hallway, on the other side of the classroom door, where she could at least hear the lessons], you have to pay for everything and you don’t have the money for that.’ And I explained, ‘I will still have time to study if I want to.
Well, and you’d have to pay for that. So it was decided that I’d go to a public school. And I went to a school, whose principal was Mrs. Mandelkernowa. It was a very good school, on Lubartowska Street. When I graduated from this school I went to a humanities gymnasium in Lublin. It was also a gymnasium, where nothing was taught about Jewry. There were public gymnasia in Lublin, government officials, officers sent their children there. Wealthier people, who could afford to pay, rather wealthy. Jews also attended these gymnasia, but there were very few. These were also private gymnasia, Polish ones, and many Jews attended them, for example Czarniecka’s gymnasium or Arciszowa’s gymnasium for girls, Staszic for boys. And there were two Jewish gymnasia [in Lublin]: Szperowa’s, where my sister went, and the humanities gymnasium which was operated by some Jewish association, it wasn’t a private school, so it was less expensive.
I studied a lot of Latin then, a lot of history, the standards were indeed quite high. I also took French then. It was an obligatory foreign language and, I have to say, these basics which I learned at school were very solid, I can still speak French fluently. But I didn’t get my diploma then. Father was unemployed, you then had to pay for tutors, to be well prepared for the finals. So I decided: I can’t take the finals, because I don’t have enough money. I told Mother and Father. Especially Father was very saddened. He used to say, ‘My children, my daughters, what can I leave you but an education.’ At that time you wouldn’t say ‘Dad’, but ‘Papa’. So I would answer, ‘Papa, but all I do is sit on the other side of the door [the pupil that could not participate in the lessons without paying tuition sat in the hallway, on the other side of the classroom door, where she could at least hear the lessons], you have to pay for everything and you don’t have the money for that.’ And I explained, ‘I will still have time to study if I want to.
Period
Interview
Janina Duda