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Anti-Semitism was something I encountered as early as in Lwow. Sometimes the tertian, this is the gymnasium janitor, would come to the class and warn us not to go near the university because anti-Semitic riots had broken out there. Later, in Drohobycz, I remember an action in which the brother-in-law of the above-mentioned garrison commander, a major who lived in our house, took part. That brother-in-law was a student, member of a Polish student fraternity [corporation] [13] that in the Christmas period organized an anti-Semitic action consisting in selling the so called ‘academic fish’ to Christians. Most of the fish traders at the time were Jews, and, to prevent Christians from buying from them, the students would sell the commodity themselves.
The major had a son, a little boy three or four years old, who would often stand on the stairs when I was going back home from school and cry, ‘Dirty Jew! Dirty Jew!’ One time I just couldn’t control myself, and I answered, ‘You son of a bitch!’ A few days later the major asked my father for a talk and threatened him that I’d be fired from school for offending the honor of the Polish army. I wasn’t afraid because, firstly, I didn’t go to a public gymnasium, and, secondly, war was coming up. So that’s how it looked more or less. We were, as young Jews, isolated, met in small peer groups, and we knew about anti-Semitism and its manifestations.
State-owned companies had stopped hiring Jews, and in my gymnasium some of the teachers were from as far away as Cracow, as, despite their degrees, they weren’t able to get a job there. That’s how it looked.
The major had a son, a little boy three or four years old, who would often stand on the stairs when I was going back home from school and cry, ‘Dirty Jew! Dirty Jew!’ One time I just couldn’t control myself, and I answered, ‘You son of a bitch!’ A few days later the major asked my father for a talk and threatened him that I’d be fired from school for offending the honor of the Polish army. I wasn’t afraid because, firstly, I didn’t go to a public gymnasium, and, secondly, war was coming up. So that’s how it looked more or less. We were, as young Jews, isolated, met in small peer groups, and we knew about anti-Semitism and its manifestations.
State-owned companies had stopped hiring Jews, and in my gymnasium some of the teachers were from as far away as Cracow, as, despite their degrees, they weren’t able to get a job there. That’s how it looked.
Period
Interview
Ludwik Hoffman