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And after that, when I didn’t want to study anymore, I had to leave the orphanage and start working. While I was still in the orphanage they apprenticed me to a tailor. That was a first-class craftsman! But I didn’t take to that line of work, and he got rid of me. Then they turned me over to another one. I learned fast there; after a month I was better than the other boy, who had been there a whole year. But instead of teaching me, the craftsman sent me shopping with his wife, to carry the bags, so I ran away from there. But I had to go back home – I was about 14 or 15 then.
When I returned home, Mother gave me 25 zlotys. That tided me over for a while, but I had to start working. First I went to work for a cap-maker – a craftsman who made caps, partly by hand and partly by machine. I helped him make caps for veterans of World War I and the Polish-Bolshevik War. But later he didn’t have any more work for me, so I was unemployed again. Finally one of the orphanage board members – a shoemaker by trade – needed to hire a boy, and he hired me, and taught me the trade. I worked as a shoemaker up until the war. First for that craftsman, and then for another one, whose workshop was in a building that had a plum-jam factory in the basement. And that’s why I don’t like plum jam – I saw too much of it being made. Exactly what he did with those plums I don’t know, because I didn’t look inside, but I remember to this day all those plums lying on the street.
When I returned home, Mother gave me 25 zlotys. That tided me over for a while, but I had to start working. First I went to work for a cap-maker – a craftsman who made caps, partly by hand and partly by machine. I helped him make caps for veterans of World War I and the Polish-Bolshevik War. But later he didn’t have any more work for me, so I was unemployed again. Finally one of the orphanage board members – a shoemaker by trade – needed to hire a boy, and he hired me, and taught me the trade. I worked as a shoemaker up until the war. First for that craftsman, and then for another one, whose workshop was in a building that had a plum-jam factory in the basement. And that’s why I don’t like plum jam – I saw too much of it being made. Exactly what he did with those plums I don’t know, because I didn’t look inside, but I remember to this day all those plums lying on the street.
Period
Location
Lomza
Poland
Interview
Umow Henryk