And Mr. Wierzbicki?
With Mr. Wierzbicki, I am still in touch.
Why do you suppose he did it?
Why he did it. Well, he hated the Germans, number one. He knew my father, he used to come shop at my father's store, and then when father was gone he would come when Momma was in the store. Was strange. Whenever he would come into the store, he would go into the back room. We had a storage room in the back of the store. And I remember every time Momma would come home after Mr. Wierzbicki was to the store, she would say, I know he steals, his pockets were always full. You know, small things in the hardware store could be very expensive. And I remember my answering to her, why don't you say something to him. You know I can't, so he steals, so what. I don't know if it was his conscience, if it was because he was against the Germans, for sure he is not anti-Semitic, whatever his motives were, I don't know. Maybe he was hoping for some reward after the war, we had, my parents were very, very well to do, and my father buried a small treasure. Maybe Wierzbicki hoped to, and believe me, if we would get any of that treasure, for sure he would benefit, or get something from Momma, but that treasure was never found.
What about the university professor?
Well, what about him. He was a very nice professor, he was crazy, he would run around naked, one night he came pulling Momma by her hand, both Nina and I said, my God, he's gonna kill her or something. We didn't know where he was pulling her. He wanted to show her a holy light. He pulled her to a window, there was a fire going on somewhere, maybe a bomb fell or what, so he was showing her the holy light and from that time on we lived very peacefully together except he was running around naked.
But he knew that you were Jews?
No. He didn't know. He knew there was a woman with two children they need to stay somewhere. At that point, a lot of people were displaced already from their homes. A lot of people were, including Poles, yeah. But the Jews, we didn't even talk now because they were gone.
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