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I remember Grandma Menia's house from my earliest childhood. It was probably built either before World War I or just afterwards. It was a two- story house and it had three rooms. One was rented out to a poor family with two children, and another to another family with children. As well as Grandma, Granddad and Frydzia, who lived on the second floor, my family lived downstairs; we had a room with a veranda which overlooked the garden. And then there was the carpentry bench as well, because Father worked at home.
So we lived in this one room. Try to picture it: a room of about 16 square meters, a kerosene lamp hanging in the middle. True to the adage that the cobbler's children are the worst shod, some rickety old sticks of furniture. Off to one side there was this peasant stove, which we cooked on winter and summer. There was hardly room to turn round in there really. Everybody slept together - the boys with Father in one bed, one older brother slept on a fold-down bed on the floor - my sister slept with Mama - and sometimes there wasn't room for the fourth, so they'd roll a straw mattress out on the floor. I was with Grandma. And the youngest, Mordechaj, was born in that dark room. There's a joke: why do poor people have so many children? Because wherever Dad goes, Mom is right there. There weren't any windows, just the door straight out onto the yard, and another door into the other room where the tenants lived. It was very cramped.
The lavatory, made with planks, was down the garden. Once a year at night a cleaner came who took the excrement out and scattered it in a field somewhere. I remember that, because for two or three days afterwards the smell hung over the whole street. And so the lavatory cleanout was moved to the winter, so it could be hacked out with something metal, a rod, rather than scooped out with a spade.
So we lived in this one room. Try to picture it: a room of about 16 square meters, a kerosene lamp hanging in the middle. True to the adage that the cobbler's children are the worst shod, some rickety old sticks of furniture. Off to one side there was this peasant stove, which we cooked on winter and summer. There was hardly room to turn round in there really. Everybody slept together - the boys with Father in one bed, one older brother slept on a fold-down bed on the floor - my sister slept with Mama - and sometimes there wasn't room for the fourth, so they'd roll a straw mattress out on the floor. I was with Grandma. And the youngest, Mordechaj, was born in that dark room. There's a joke: why do poor people have so many children? Because wherever Dad goes, Mom is right there. There weren't any windows, just the door straight out onto the yard, and another door into the other room where the tenants lived. It was very cramped.
The lavatory, made with planks, was down the garden. Once a year at night a cleaner came who took the excrement out and scattered it in a field somewhere. I remember that, because for two or three days afterwards the smell hung over the whole street. And so the lavatory cleanout was moved to the winter, so it could be hacked out with something metal, a rod, rather than scooped out with a spade.
Period
Interview
tomasz miedzinski