Martin Koby - April 20, 1999
Departure of Friend
A...another quick departure.
Yeah, it's okay.
Uh-huh.
It was uh, it was an interesting experience. She had--they were friends, they were intimate friends with uh, uh, an--a minister of the Polish government at the uh, he was the head of uh, the minister of transportation of Poland.
He's a friend of the--like...
Of the Weissburgers, yes.
I see.
This was, you know...
Was he Jewish?
Yeah!
Oh, oh.
See, I used to pick her up. I used to you know, run errands. I have a friend in New York that we used to go together, this man in New York--I think he died just recently. But over there we were buddy-buddies. Just um, he's tall and thin and me short and chubby, like Mutt and Jeff, walk around you know, buddies here. We used to go to Ilona's house and stuff like that. They had typhoid fever, her parents.
Oy.
At the had this beautiful apartment, man. But they contracted typhoid fever and they were on their deathbeds. Who would go visit there?
Yeah.
Besides, it was quarantined. Me and--me--and me and George--me and ??? was his name at that time, ??? uh, we used to be--we, we were allowed to go in the house, into the apartment. We used to do the shopping you know, take her to her art lessons you know, to walk her to school.
And there's typhoid in the house.
Yeah.
Was there, was there widespread typhoid in...
No, just in that apartment.
Just in, just in this apartment.
And uh, we used to--sometimes we were friends, sometimes we were weren't and sometimes there was--you rang the bell and there was nurses you know, white ladies in--we came there one day, oh! We knew it's her birthday. So we got to buy a present, you know. Because I, I.. you know, it's not much to buy. So we went by some gift shop or something. And they had walnuts. We haven't seen walnuts in a long time. They had a big bag. That's not food you know, that's a luxury, you know?
Right.
So we bought a kilo of walnuts.
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