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Right after getting married my parents moved into Grandpa’s [Benjamin Menczer] house. Because they didn’t have their own house yet. There was a large front hall there, then a room, or two, then the kitchen and some more rooms upstairs. You could enter the house from two streets. There was no backyard. We had no livestock. We didn’t have electric light at home, but there was a power plant in the town. It gave some light [power], but not too much. Only briefly, two or three hours every afternoon. We, our parents and the five of us: Sara, Dwora, Fryda, Josef [and me], lived at the back [of the house], in one room. [We were] really cramped. It was a dark room with two beds, like a ship cabin without a window.
[Until 1936] we usually [sic!] lived at Grandpa Benjamin’s [Menczer], Mom’s father’s, next to the market square. In 1935 and 1936 – I was 11 – Father built a new house and we moved in there. The house was a couple of blocks away from the market square. The constructing works didn’t last long, it took one year, or one season maybe, I don’t remember [exactly]. Father amassed enough money; he’d been saving, right. I guess [we were doing] rather well. It was a beautiful, large house and it cost a lot of money. Modern, wonderfully arranged. You could tell it just from looking at the triple windows. At first it was all, the whole house was ours. There were two rooms upstairs, so my sisters got one and I got the other little one, and there were spacious rooms downstairs. There were five rooms and a kitchen. Beautifully furnished. Floor parqueted with one-meter-long boards, in squares. Coal stoves, electric light. I remember a rabbi once paid us a visit. It was a rabbi from Father’s homeland, from Kolomyja, and apparently Father invited him over to bless the house.
I remember the prayers at home. And lots of guests came. Father [apparently] invited them.
[Until 1936] we usually [sic!] lived at Grandpa Benjamin’s [Menczer], Mom’s father’s, next to the market square. In 1935 and 1936 – I was 11 – Father built a new house and we moved in there. The house was a couple of blocks away from the market square. The constructing works didn’t last long, it took one year, or one season maybe, I don’t remember [exactly]. Father amassed enough money; he’d been saving, right. I guess [we were doing] rather well. It was a beautiful, large house and it cost a lot of money. Modern, wonderfully arranged. You could tell it just from looking at the triple windows. At first it was all, the whole house was ours. There were two rooms upstairs, so my sisters got one and I got the other little one, and there were spacious rooms downstairs. There were five rooms and a kitchen. Beautifully furnished. Floor parqueted with one-meter-long boards, in squares. Coal stoves, electric light. I remember a rabbi once paid us a visit. It was a rabbi from Father’s homeland, from Kolomyja, and apparently Father invited him over to bless the house.
I remember the prayers at home. And lots of guests came. Father [apparently] invited them.
Period
Location
Poland
Interview
Samuel König