Voice/Vision Holocaust Survivor Oral History Archive

Abraham Holcman - September 14, 1983

Family Business

Did you get to help out in the family business at all?

Yeah, I did uh, I worked all my life, really.

Starting when you were about how old?

Uh, very young. Uh, because Ma worked at home, so I had to deliver. That's a little help.

You worked delivering.

So, delivering and helping, helping out too.

Uh-huh. Did you deliver just on foot so you'd know the neighborhood?

Sure. Not the neighborhood, quite a, quite a bit to go.

All over the city?

All over the city.

How big was Łódź?

Oh, quite big, quite big.

Uh-huh.

But uh, but we delivered only in our neighborhoods.

Was the neighborhood that you lived in a Jewish community?

Yeah, mostly Jews.

Were the Jews generally segregated from the uh, Gentiles or...

Yeah, they, uh...

how did that work?

In our particular building we, we were fifty families Jewish and one Gentile, which she was the janitor really.

So, it was an apartment building.

Apartment building, mhm.

And uh, I'll bet you it was pretty active, everybody bumping into each other and knowing each other?

No, no...

No?

not knowing each other. I didn't even know my next door neighbor.

Really?

No. Just the kids, we knew the kids.

Okay.


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