Rozalia Unger

This picture was taken in Szczecin in 2005. That's what I look like now, as I'm telling you my story.

My husband and me were party members uninterruptedly: before the war, during it, and afterwards. We were moved by 1968 like everyone else. Only we viewed it from a different angle: for us, those were mistakes committed by our own [the communists]. One generation has to sacrifice its life, its health, for things to change. We couldn't leave Poland because by husband was seriously ill, he had already gone through one surgery, of the stomach, then of the gall bladder. There's no hospital in Szczecin that he wouldn't have been to. I had no one to go with. Me without a job, the children, and him being sick? That would have been like signing our own death sentence, as they say.

I'm a member of the TSKZ, but not active, I just pay my fees. I couldn't do anything even if I wanted to. In the past, I helped. My husband and me had been in the club since the very beginning. There was a time when everyone had gone away and it looked like the club might have been closed down. My husband had a talent, the talent of a social activist, and he organized everything, found a president and a caretaker. He died in 1993, but everybody still remembers him. We have never been to Israel, as we had no money. We have never been abroad, in fact.

I'm old today, 88, and I have trouble walking. But I want to live, don't want to pass away yet. What else can I tell you? Everyone, if they have lived to the age of 88, have stories to tell, but is it important? It's just life!