Tag #121977 - Interview #100403 (Stanislaw Wierzba)

And then, naturally, I went to school. When I started school I was 7 years old. I completed 7 years of elementary school, this is all there was before the war – and this was all, my entire pre-war education. I believe the school was on Kolejowa Street; where the rail tracks went in Radomsko. So every day on my way to school I had to cross the tracks, I still remember the path – it went along the embankment. The school was Jewish, I mean, the classes were all taught in Polish, but only Jews went to this school. And then, of course, I went to the cheder after school, in the late afternoon, although I do not remember much of that any more. I can’t tell you whether it was state-owned or Jewish, it was the sort of thing that interested me at the time. Our math professor, I mean teacher, he was Polish, and I remember him because he was such a good maths teacher. But then there was also the lady who taught us Polish, her name was Panska, and her husband owned a printing shop in Radomsko. This Mrs Panska would teach us elements of Judaism, but without the prayers, we did not pray, and there were no special religious rituals at school. Also, at school we did not speak in Yiddish or Hebrew, everything was in Polish. There were portraits of great statesmen, Pilsudski [3], Moscicki [Ignacy Moscicki, president of Poland 1926 - 1939], but no crosses, and no Jewish religious symbols either. The history lessons were all Polish history, the reading and writing was Polish, then there were gym lessons, because we had a small gymnasium, and a small yard for playing sports, and then the other subjects, such as singing, but there were no special Jewish subjects taught.