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When the fall-winter season came around, we would go to the cheder at dusk, and it was all dark by the time we went home. Once I had this unpleasant adventure on my way home, even though it was still light that day. I was walking home from the cheder, I might have been 12 or 13 years old, and I had by book-bag with me since I had gone there directly after school. And these brats my age attacked me in the street. They started shouting ‘You Jew!’, this and that and the other, they started grabbing me, and choking me, and they jerked at my bag so that all the books fell out – I had both Polish and the Jewish ones with me – and I started crying. Finally someone was walking by, and told them to leave me in peace. I remember how I got my things together, and that was the end of it. Fortunately, it was not wet that day, it was dry, but still I went home crying. But what could I have done, when I was just by myself, and there were several of them, and anyway I was a bit of a weakling, and rather small – even today I am not much of a superhero.
Period
Location
Poland
Interview
Stanislaw Wierzba