Miriam Brysk - February 7, 2004
Going to Lida
How--it must have been difficult to get out of the city.
It was diffi...unlike the, the shtetlekh that were captured, like Lida was captured, in Warsaw it was too big a city to put, put things in place right away. They had to be more gradual steps that were needed to do. So that the Warsaw ghetto wasn't formed for quite awhile after they captured--whereas in Lida, the ghetto was, you know, a month later there was already established--less than a month later established ghetto.
That was in...
That was in, in '40, in uh, when was...
Forty-one.
Forty-one, yeah.
When they, when they...
In June.
...when they invaded the Soviet Union.
Anyway, so we went--my aunt and, and I and my mother went to Lida--were reunited with uh, with their, their, with their husbands and my uncle Sevek was there. And uh, everybody had, you know, my father was working at the municipal hospital and the, the, the other two had found jobs. And uh, we lived in my grandmother's place. And things were actually pretty comfortable for us because my father was, was earning well. And uh, Lida for me was a kind of a new thing because unlike in Warsaw where I was always playing supervised at the parks, you know, they had to know who my friends were and all that. In Lida the kids were on the street. And I didn't speak Yiddish and they used to--I, you know, I came from Warsaw with these short little stylish dresses, not like the peasant dresses they wore in Lida and they would say Madele ???. So, so we were very, very comfortable in Lida uh, even though we were under Communist, there was no--in our personal lives we didn't lose anything while being there.
And your father went right to work in the hospital.
Oh yeah, yeah. And they were just glad to have him.
Let me show you this, see if you can [pause] This is the ghetto. [pause] Jewish--it's written very ??? it's the Jewish section.
I have a better picture of the ghetto.
Oh, okay.
Let's see, if you give me one second...
Sure.
This is called Sefer Lida.
That's where this came from.
Is that where it comes from? I think I have a better picture of, of it there.
Oh, we've got all this stuff. ???
I remember when they were, when they were--I think there was a better picture of the ghetto.
???
Yeah, but I thought there was a better picture over here. The problem with this book is it's in Hebrew. And I--written by, you know, by people in America. In fact I know these--my--in fact, my father should be in this picture somewhere. I know some of these people. That's my father. This is the place where the killing fields. This is my father. [long pause] Some of it is in Yiddish. This part is in Yiddish. This, I can slowly make my way through, but forget it if it's in, if it's in--and I have pictures, by the way, that I can give you of the relevant people if you want them as part of your archive.
Yeah, well we'll make copies and put them out with your interview.
I thought they had, I thought, I thought they had a picture of the ghetto somewhere. It was across the street in ???
Okay. You remember the street names.
Well, two of the streets.
Do you remember where you lived there?
We lived on Targowa Street.
Targowa Street.
You won't find it because this is just--this is not a detailed map of Lida, but I can--if you want one I can probably un...unearth one somewhere.
No, no it just thought it might, it might, sort of, jog your memory a little bit, but you don't seem to need any jogging.
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