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In the 1880s my grandfather opened a hairdressing salon in Cracow, in the Podgorze district [A district of Cracow, set up as a district for merchants and craftsmen; the Austrians exempted the residents from paying taxes, so people from all over the empire settled there. It was a workers’ district. There were some small and larger factories there: Piszinger, Optima – chocolate factories, wine factories, Wassanbergs’ mills, a wire fence factory – those were all Jewish enterprises.]. Several apprentices worked in the salon as well as my grandfather. They learned the trade at his salon and later left to start their own businesses. The apprentices would change every three years. It was a unisex salon. My grandfather had many customers. A cut cost one zloty.
My grandfather was also a feldsher. [The name Feldsher was derived from the German term Feldscher, which was coined in the 15th century. Feldscher means Field barber, and was the name of medieval barber-surgeons. They worked as primitive field surgeons for the German and Swiss Landsknecht until real military medical services were established by Prussia in the early 18th century. The term was then exported with Prussian officers and nobility to Russia. Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feldsher] He applied leeches, pulled teeth and applied cupping glasses. The leeches would always be in a jar standing in the window of the hairdressing salon. My grandfather would get them from Budapest, Hungary. They would arrive once a week, through the mail. They were special leeches – medicinal; regular leeches could harm a human, bite in too deeply, but these would only break the skin and suck the blood. You put them behind the ear, on the mouth, on the gums.
My grandfather was also a feldsher. [The name Feldsher was derived from the German term Feldscher, which was coined in the 15th century. Feldscher means Field barber, and was the name of medieval barber-surgeons. They worked as primitive field surgeons for the German and Swiss Landsknecht until real military medical services were established by Prussia in the early 18th century. The term was then exported with Prussian officers and nobility to Russia. Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feldsher] He applied leeches, pulled teeth and applied cupping glasses. The leeches would always be in a jar standing in the window of the hairdressing salon. My grandfather would get them from Budapest, Hungary. They would arrive once a week, through the mail. They were special leeches – medicinal; regular leeches could harm a human, bite in too deeply, but these would only break the skin and suck the blood. You put them behind the ear, on the mouth, on the gums.
Period
Interview
Jozef Seweryn