Voice/Vision Holocaust Survivor Oral History Archive

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Nathan Nothman - November 30, 1982

In public school, did you uh, how much of your class was Jewish would you say?

All of them.

All of them?

I will, I will take this back. Before I went, there was--when I went to school there was a Jews and non-Jews and there was a school where my sister went, completely Jewish, completely Jewish. So we said this, "We do--we would not like to join non-Jewish school." So I remember when they read, when the malamud--that means a person who taught--teached Jewish--took us to a different room, explain us the whole history of the Jewish. And when it came priest to teach them, it was a two mixed up thing. Or I went to the non-Jewish, I mean, combined school I would say for six months and then the counselor to the all-Jewish. And just not 100-percent Jewish. There was no non-Jews in my class.

How large was the Jewish population in Kraków?

Good question. Well, I cannot, I cannot tell exactly--Kraków. A hundred and twenty thousand, 120 thousand--I think 25 thousand--25 percent. I cannot be sure about that because I, I remember that uh, it splits and there was a--Kraków was a big city...

Mm-hm.

...it's a large city, you know. You're talking 1936, '37. And I remember there were a lot of rabbis, yeshiva buchers. There was synagogue, there was a school--Jewish school, you know, teach uh, Ju...Judaism and all. First I went to public school and after we went to cheder--that's the school to learn Hebrew and daven.