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Uncle Aaron wasn’t as well-off as my father. I didn’t understand that as a child, because we had no contact with the poor Jewry at all. Only once, I remember – I may have been seven or eight years old then, I’m not sure, it was after 1930, I had already gone to school, I may have been in the 1st or 2nd grade – my cousin, the daughter of my father’s eldest brother, came to visit us with Uncle, it was winter time. Uncle Aaron was sitting in the living room by the fireplace, warming himself up. Uncle loved us very much, me and my sister. When my father came back home, I told him Uncle Aaron was already there. He came in, and I asked him, ‘Father, can you tell me why do you have so many clothes in your wardrobe, and Uncle walks around in such old things? Why don’t you give him some clothes?’ When my cousin Syma Leja visited us some timer later, for my bar mitzvah, or some other occasion perhaps, she told me she’d never forget that I said that, as long as she lived.
Period
Interview
Ludwik Hoffman