Wacek Kornblum’s brother Borus and cousin Renia Tygiel

This is my brother Borus and our cousin Renia. It was taken in Miedzeszyn, 1938.

Almost every year we used to go for holidays with the family, usually to the so called Linia - a row of tourist-health resort towns located on the line Warsaw-Otwock. We went many times to Miedzeszyn.

Aunt Chana and Uncle Jankiel Tygiel had three daughters, and one son. The third daughter was Renia, a very pretty woman, lived with her parents, and married, before the war, Elek, who was mildly cross-eyed. Elek was a taxi driver, when he was to take a test to become a taxi driver, I questioned him about where what streets were, and he would tell me off hand how to get there. He used to drive a German car, a Steier.

My brother Borus was born in 1932. When we wanted to escape from ghetto, there was a problem with Borus who had a very dark complexion. I don't know if he looked like a Jew as a child, but he surely stood out. And Dad also knew he had to save both his children, he knew he didn't have a lot of time. He was afraid that if I left first, he'd lose touch with Feld and Borus wouldn't leave. (Jehuda Feld used to come visit Dad from the Aryan side. He had something to do with the Bund underground). 

It was easier to send me away at the last moment because of my looks. That's why Borus was to go first. Dad talked to Fel who found on Gilarska Street, in Praga, a railway man, Polish, his name was Duriasz, who agreed to take in a Jewish boy from the ghetto, for money. It was the beginning of December 1942. We said our goodbyes and Dad took him to the gate and Feld moved him. On the Aryan side a woman was waiting for him, probably that Duriasz's wife. Duriasz, of course, was getting money only for some time, later he wasn't, but he was a very decent man, as opposed to his second wife. And Borus sat there in a shed and lived out his own, huge, story.

Photos from this interviewee