Voice/Vision Holocaust Survivor Oral History Archive

Mrs. Roemerfeld - 1982?

Family's Political Affiliations

Did anyone besides your family belong to any other political affiliations? I know that in your town Zionism was very strong because of Ben Gurion.

Well, this I cannot uh, tell you, because I was too young.

Your parents, you don't recall if they went to...

My father was attending meetings, but what meetings I don't remember.

You don't remember. Okay, what about the synagogues? Were there many synagogues in your town?

We had one big synagogue.

And everyone belonged to it.

Right.

And can you tell me about the--how religious it was. Was it Orthodox?

It was Orthodox, yes. Like, the women had to sit separate from the men. And every Friday night everybody went to shul. And that was a must. But uh, as far as, you know, people not being religious, there was no such thing because even the meat that we were eating were slaughtered in private. So the Polish government is no...wouldn't interfere with it. Because uh, uh, like I say the anti-Semitism was very strong. And uh we did not have any powers whatsoever. Although my father was uh, uh, granted a license for uh, tobacco, which it was an unusual thing because he served in the war before and he was wounded. So we had tobacco license in our business. So it was unusual.

It was unusual to have a tobacco license.

Right, right. Because he was wounded uh, you know, they granted him that privilege.

Did you have any Gentile playmates?

Uh, in school?

In school, out of school?

No, no way. We were also uh, like I said, they were segregated even before the war. Uh, we stayed in our own circles. Uh, it was uh, uh, like a no-no to have Gentile friends. Between our Jews we felt very strong we should stick with each other.


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