Voice/Vision Holocaust Survivor Oral History Archive

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Herman Opatowski - November 2, 1981

And uh, uh, what, what can you tell me about your brothers and sisters? Were you the oldest, or?

No, no, I was the, I was the fourth down from the oldest. I had two brothers and a sister older than me. And then uh, as I mentioned uh, I am one of nine children.

And what, what did they all--did you go to school or work, or...

Yeah, we went to school. But uh, three, three that are married. And the rest are young. I, I worked with my father in the business. He had uh, now how can I explain it? It's a--it was a uh, government concession was not like here we had a lot of--but there was a different stripe of uh, government. Not, not a state but uh, as I mentioned the government. And with the, with the other, we had some banking, type of banking operation, stock by selling And uh, a little different than, than in America, but, uh... A very nice business, as I mentioned, it was uh, ??? in town and that's it.

And uh, your brothers and sisters worked?

No, nobody is alive.

What, what did they uh, do in the town? Did they also work with your father?

No, no they were married uh, they lived uh, the one was in manufacture with, she lived a few hundred miles away, she was in Łódź, Litzmannstadt the Germans came and they, he was a manufacturer there. And uh, the, the oldest brother, oldest brother was in the same town, but uh, he was a, a builder. Very successful man. And the sister was married uh, let's see, away uh, six hundred miles, five hundred miles away from our town and the husband was a liquor, wine manufacturer. Uh, they, they all, they did, they did very nicely. And the others I mentioned uh, next to me the other, he was in the army. And then the youngest they were still there in school. What else?

Uh, did you have any--did your family have any political affiliations?

Well, well, of course, I--for example I had--yes, I was a Zionist, Zionist. And my father was a Mizrachi. This is a little more a political religious party. They have here too. Like ???. Yeah ???. The others, as I mentioned uh, we were young kids, they were uh, they were students.