Wacek Kornblum’s bar mitzvah party

This picture was taken on my bar mitzvah party. It fell exactly on Purim, 5th March 1939. Everyone wanted to be on that photo; they were pushing themselves... This picture was made with the use of magnesia - the electric flashlights didn’t exist. The photographer lighted such powder which made a crazy flash while he uncovered the lense. 

There are standing, from left: my cousin, Estusia’s brother, my cousin Bronka, aunt Zlata’s daughter, Estusia, my mom, my cousin  Stefa Tygiel, Dad, mu cousin Renia, Stefa’s sister and her husband, Elek. Below, drom left: me,  Dawid - Renia’s and Stefa’s brother, uncle Jankiel - Renia’s and Stefa’s father, aunt Chaja - Jankiel’s wife, and Mom’s sister, ‘mime Kayle’ - my father’s aunt Kajle.  It was made in our place, at Sliska Street. There, on the backside is written ‘On Izio’s birthsday’. This was my father who wrote it. Note, that he didn’t write ‘bar mitzvah’. It was only a party in our home, without ‘drisha’ - reading a fragment from Torah.

I had a non-religious bar mitzvah. Every boy who celebrates bar mitzvah first has to learn some part of the Torah at some rabbi's. And then he puts on a tallit, tefillin, but I had nothing to do with that, I didn't know Hebrew, I didn't know any service prayers. The family came to our house and we ate something. Some sisters of Father surely celebrated religious holidays. Interesting, there were some boys, but I never went to any Bar Mitzvah. My parents were anti-religious. Never in my life did I go to a service in a synagogue, not even on Yom Kippur. There were holidays present in our life, because there were generally holidays in the Jewish world: Rudele closed her store, Dad didn't work, the shop was closed. And we went to visit the family.

Photos from this interviewee