Sonia Nothman - January 4, 1983
Outbreak of War
Do you remember where you were when the war began? How you heard about it?
Oh, when the war, I was in Łódź. My mother left me. She went and I want to say. That was summer, September I think it was, I think. And it was on a Saturday morning. I remember they walked in from ???. I, I was there at my grandmother's. My uncle's there. We went up at the attic, I remember and I saw marching in, the Germans.
Do you remember how the Jewish community felt then? Were they afraid?
Then, who knew that uh, something like this will happen. Nobody. People run away because they run and they didn't know where. Some people run to Russia, some went further up, out from Łódź. But then they came back. Hey, everybody was afraid, but nobody, nobody would ever dream of a thing like this. People who were--left Poland, Russia, they're alive.
Um, you were in Łódź. Did you go there because you expected war to break out or were you visiting?
No, no, I was visiting. Visiting and my mother went home because she had two sons and she wanted me to stay because I have a aunt there, and my grandmother there. And I have a uncles and cousins. So I stayed.
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