Abraham Holcman - September 14, 1983
Extended Family
Did you have a lot of family in Łódź?
Oh yeah, a lot of family.
How many uncles and...
Oh I can't...
aunts?
I can't uh, count them all, but a lot of them. Uh, I had uh, from my father's side, from my father's side I had six uncles and ten aunts, something. Because uh, the grandfathers kept dying and they remarried and so on, the step... step-uncles and step-mothers and stuff, a bunch of 'em.
Were uh, was the family fairly close? Did you see your family?
From, not from my father's side. From my mother's side, we were closer.
Uh-huh.
My mother's side uh, we had uh, not many in the city of Łódź, because my mother doesn't come from the city of Łódź, she was born near Warsaw. But uh, she had a sister and, and a grandma who lived in Łódź too.
Did you ever travel to Warsaw as a kid?
No, no.
No.
No, the first uh, train ride I had was going to Auschwitz.
Mhm. Uh, were you... Your family was members of a synagogue, right?
Yeah, mhm.
Was it Orthodox?
Yes, Orthodox, very strict there. Uh, um, I forgot the rabbi's name now. Uh...
But it was an Orthodox, strict...
Orthodox. There were no synagogues. It was really a, a little house in a big building uh, big upstairs. We rented a house and uh, they had the services everyday and plus Saturday. And uh, not a synagogue, just uh, fifty people or so.
Did you go to the services uh, as you grew up daily?
Not daily. Every Saturday.
Every Saturday.
Mhm.
© Board of Regents University of Michigan-Dearborn