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I must admit honestly, I think I was saved in part because I did not ‘jew’ my speech [Pol. ‘zydzenie’- the tendency to incorporate into one’s spoken Polish certain words, bits of grammar, syntax and intonation that were characteristic of Yiddish]. It was not until later that I realized I did not sound Jewish, like the others did. Because in our neighborhood I had these Polish friends that I played with. And at home, too, I spoke mostly in Polish. Sure, we spoke Yiddish at home, I could speak it, but not as well as I spoke Polish, because Polish was my everyday language. And it was also thanks to the fact that I knew about certain catholic rituals that I ... [was saved]. But that was much later, during the occupation. Nobody spoke Hebrew at home. In fact, I even doubt it if my mother and father knew Hebrew. They read the papers, but these were written in Yiddish.
Period
Interview
Stanislaw Wierzba