Tag #109005 - Interview #77965 (Jankiel Kulawiec)

Losice was a Jewish town - a shtetl. It was a small town - about 4,000 inhabitants, of which I joke that 99.9 percent were Jews and the rest Poles. [Editor's note: in Losice the Jewish population numbered 2,708 (70% of total population) in 1921, and 2,900 before the outbreak of World War II.] All around the square only Jews lived, and in other quarters Jews and non-Jews lived mixed together. Most of them were very poor, but there were rich ones too. They had wood yards; one was very rich - I can't remember his surname or his first name any more. And the fancy goods stores, and various others. The rich ones stood out, and that's why the Poles have it in their minds that Jews are rich. But no-one saw the poverty. The Jews married among themselves for the most part, but I can vaguely remember that once the daughter of an orthodox Jew married a Pole, and they had to leave Losice, because her father simply renounced her.