Voice/Vision Holocaust Survivor Oral History Archive

• Contents
• Map

Mrs. Roemerfeld - 1982?

Uh, what about the size of the Jewish population from the town?

Well uh, from what I read and hear, because I was too young to know and the estimates or whatever a...amount, but from what I hear and read uh, it was approximately twelve thousand Jews, which it was a good size community of Jews. As a matter of fact, when the ghettos started, all the Jews from the smaller towns were uh, congregated into our ghetto. And from there they were shipped to Auschwitz.

I see. Uh, when the bombs fell, did you know that it was the Germans that were...

Yes, yes.

How did you know that?

Well, from my mother and my father what I heard. Not literally uh, from, you know, reading or knowing about politics because uh, as a matter of fact, not too many Jews were aware of the political danger that is tracking them at that time. And naturally, my father was uh, uh, very much interested in politics. I always--I ran out in the morning to pick up his uh, Forward or whatever Jewish paper there was on the stand to bring to him.

Was there a large Jewish cultural life in the--what was the name of the town? Płońsk?

Płońsk.

Płońsk.

Yeah.

Was there a large um, cultural, was there a theater, was there a Jewish theater there?

No, no. Uh, we had some uh, uh, Jewish movies coming to town like Dybuk, you know. Uh, you hea...are familiar with that? I don't know. Anyway uh, so we went to see it, but it was restricted into the Jewish area. It was not allowed to go in a Polish area, because uh, the Jews were always a little lower than the Polish citizen.