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There was a workshop in the yard, the employees were Poles. A scrap dealer, the owner was a Jew. I don’t know what they did in that workshop, I wasn’t interested. Lwowska wasn’t solely a Jewish street, it ran down to Wislok, the river. Opposite [our house] stood a Polish elementary school, a single-story building.
The pre-war Rzeszow was a small town, very many people were jobless, there was a lot of poverty. Life was hard, poor, simply. I remember one [man] who had a store, on Panska Street, I think it was, selling bathtubs, water closets, obviously for those building or renovating their house. So there were people who could afford that.
There were stalls, stores, tiny ones, I remember a little store that sold a bit of everything, and next door there was a beautiful Christian store, the wooden floors were greased, whether with wood tar or some brown polish, so the peasants, when they came to do their shopping, with those cloth bundles on their backs, instead of going [to the Christian store], they preferred to go to the Jewish one, lest they spoil the floor [in the elegant one]. My mother sent me to the Jewish store to buy things on credit, whatever we needed on an everyday basis, whether flour or sugar, I paid nothing, only my mother would come after some time and pay the bill.
The pre-war Rzeszow was a small town, very many people were jobless, there was a lot of poverty. Life was hard, poor, simply. I remember one [man] who had a store, on Panska Street, I think it was, selling bathtubs, water closets, obviously for those building or renovating their house. So there were people who could afford that.
There were stalls, stores, tiny ones, I remember a little store that sold a bit of everything, and next door there was a beautiful Christian store, the wooden floors were greased, whether with wood tar or some brown polish, so the peasants, when they came to do their shopping, with those cloth bundles on their backs, instead of going [to the Christian store], they preferred to go to the Jewish one, lest they spoil the floor [in the elegant one]. My mother sent me to the Jewish store to buy things on credit, whatever we needed on an everyday basis, whether flour or sugar, I paid nothing, only my mother would come after some time and pay the bill.
Period
Location
Poland
Interview
Rozalia Unger