Mojsze Zilberman

On this photo you can see my cousin Mojsze Zilberman. It was taken before World War II, sometime in the 1930s. He was more distant family, related to Grandma on Dad's side. He was very big, tall. He worked as a tailor, was earning. When he came over when I was small, he would give me a zloty. 'Here you are, have a zloty,' he'd say - I remember that. They lived in Warsaw, at 50 Dzielna Street. Later on I went to Warsaw as well, to my uncle Aaron Konski. I remember he said: 'There's so many hungry mouths around here there'll be enough for another one!' And off he went. Went off there and then, and found me a job. I stayed there until the war. Ma, my sister and my brother knew where I was, because I'd left home to earn some money. I lived with my uncle, at 20 Twarda Street. We lads all slept in one big room, my uncle and aunt and their daughter in the other. There was this bed, big enough for five people. And in the workshop was the kitchen and my aunt made dinner there and she'd argue with me for not coming in for dinner. My uncle was a tailor for the army and once, I remember, Edziu the neighbor came round, a Pole, and wanted to learn to be a tailor. And my uncle asked his mother: 'Do you agree? Edziu wants to be a tailor.' And she says: 'Yes.' 'Well then, so be it,' said my uncle, and from then on Edziu got dinner. And later on, that Edziu came to my cousin's funeral; I was there too. When I was in Brest in 1939, I met Zilberman again. He said: 'I've got to got back to Ma, because I left her behind.' He went back to his mother and he died too, they died together.