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Franka Charlupski - June 18, 1985

Now, in the ghetto, were there any similar kinds of ceremonies that went on?

Yes, my father did keep kosher, we didn't eat any meat, because there was horse meat. If we did get a rations, however once in a while of meat, it was horse meat. And my father wouldn't eat it. So my mother prepared Shabbos to the best she could from potato peelings, she made some kind of potato latka or a soup or whatever she had whatever she could do. But the Kiddish was an Kiddish and we bentsched whatever. He didn't go to Shul, he done it at home. My father did remain orthodox as long as I seen him he remained orthodox.

Did he have a beard?

Yes, a very short beard, as a matter of fact, my son looks just like my father. [smiling] You should see him.

Was that ever a problem, when he had a beard when they were in Łódź?

Uh, they did shave his beard. Oh there was at one time my parents were caught up uh, in um, they needed a picture, you have to have like another passport, uh, Ausweisschein, which is, it would be a passport, this is what you would interpret it here. And they needed pictures, and my mother was wearing a sheitel, a wig, and my father had to cut his beard for that picture and my mother had to take off her sheitel. As a matter of fact, these pictures remain in my home, my sister brought them back from Poland. Uh, that was the day when they were hanging on the Bolletamarkt, Bollet Platz, that's they were hanging twelve Jews. They did something and everybody had to come out and see it. I remember that picture very well, too.

How did your parents react when they had their pictures taken in that way?

You know, I don't know.

How did you react to see your father without a beard?

It was a shock. `Cause as long as I knew my father, he had a beard. And sometimes I walk by and see the picture now without a beard, I just can't believe it, it's my father.