Leopold Sokolowski and his relatives in Zakopane

This is me, Leopold Sokolowski, and my family in Zakopane. I don’t know the man standing first from left. Beside him there is my mother, Taube Federgrün, my father, Albert Federgrün, Aunt Mania and her husband, Uncle Chaim Schnitzer. I am standing in front. This picture was taken in 1928.

My father, Albert Federgrün, Abel, was born on 1st September 1896. He had three brothers and a sister: there were five of them altogether. Uncle Adolf was really Awawie, Uncle Snil was Samuel, the youngest uncle, Dolek, was David, the one sister was Regina and her husband Moniek was Mojzesz Griner.

My mother's name was Tonia or Taube, nee Schnitzer. She was born on 14th April 1895, most likely in Nowy Targ. She finished two grades of elementary school. She was a big woman. My father was thinner. My mother was an unhappy woman, because her hearing was bad, probably because of the scarlet fever she contracted when she was a child. That influenced her contact with the world. She stayed at home more. Because of that, she didn't have a circle of friends. She got occasional jobs at richer families. She did the laundry and fixed the clothes she washed. It took two days to do the laundry of a large family. She ate there, and sometime, in addition to the pay, she brought home some food-some bread or cake. I remember she used to do the laundry for a baker's family. In addition to that she used to sew trousers for a seller who went to trade fairs, for example to Nowy Targ. The garments were already cut out and she only sewed them together. Those were cheap work clothes. My mother made some extra money this way.  

Chaim or Henryk Schnitzer was younger than my mother. I don't know which year he was born, perhaps in 1900. I was born in 1924 and he got married soon after. Before the war, Uncle Chaim lived in Zakopane and in Nowy Targ, until 1939. He died with his wife and daughter, I think, during the Holocaust; the daughter was younger than my sister, so she must have been born around 1932.