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After finishing Jewish school we couldn't afford for me to go to high school. I was too young to go to work, too - I was 15. So I had to do what they called a 'department grade,' an 8th one, which still counted as elementary school. I don't know what the idea behind that whole school system was, because there was just one class there. It was a different school, a Polish one, where I studied with Poles, at 2 Pestalozzi Street - I think [Editor's note: after the war Mr. Glazer had problems having that '8th department grade' recognized, because there was officially no such class in the Polish school system, and Mr. Glazer had no papers to prove he had completed it. In order to graduate from elementary school, he had to pass an extra school year]. I remember that I was taught Polish by a man. I also remember him giving me a '2' [out of 5] for reciting 'Pan Tadeusz' [Polish national epic poem written by Adam Mickiewicz in 1832-1834]. Well, I hadn't learned it.
I went to religious studies in that 8th grade too - my own religion, once a week, still with Zipfer. I don't remember where those religious studies classes took place, but somewhere outside the Polish school. It was a democracy, apparently, and the rights of ethnic minorities and their own religions had to be recognized. So they sent me to those religious studies classes from school. When the Poles had their own religious studies, I simply went to mine. But I don't remember anything from those lessons, really. It didn't really interest me, you know how it is with religion... Anyway, I didn't practice all that much, I wasn't a devout Jew or anything. And over time I went to those religious studies classes more and more rarely. I have to say that personally I don't remember, in that 8th class, any jibes because I was Jewish. Either from the teachers or from the pupils.
I went to religious studies in that 8th grade too - my own religion, once a week, still with Zipfer. I don't remember where those religious studies classes took place, but somewhere outside the Polish school. It was a democracy, apparently, and the rights of ethnic minorities and their own religions had to be recognized. So they sent me to those religious studies classes from school. When the Poles had their own religious studies, I simply went to mine. But I don't remember anything from those lessons, really. It didn't really interest me, you know how it is with religion... Anyway, I didn't practice all that much, I wasn't a devout Jew or anything. And over time I went to those religious studies classes more and more rarely. I have to say that personally I don't remember, in that 8th class, any jibes because I was Jewish. Either from the teachers or from the pupils.
Period
Interview
Leon Glazer
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