Leon Salomon - June 18, 1990
Family
All right, let's go back to the life before the war, tell me a little bit about your family and life before the war in Maków ?
Maków was another big city. I would say compared to the city of 15,000 residents, out of which half of it were Jewish people. A lot of were involved in commerce among the Jewish people and also most of them were tradespeople, such as tailors, shoemakers, even ???, which is a ??? is a guy who carries baggages on his back to the bus station, so on.
What did your father do?
My father was an accountant who was working for a volunteer, we had a Jewish, it is called gemilut hesed, not a bank, but call it a bank, which the city use to contribute each week a few cents and from that, we use to make free loans to the society, to the people.
He was the accountant?
He was the accountant for it, at the same time we also had a store of ??? which is children's dresses and underwear and things like that.
How large was your family?
The family consisted of seven people, my parents and five children.
Brother, sisters?
One brother and three sisters.
Your brother was older?
My brother was the oldest. I was the third.
What about extended family, grandparents, aunts and uncles, cousins?
We had a lot of uncles and cousins and grandparents from both sides, you know.
Could you estimate a number, how many people?
If you take into consideration cousins and grandparents and so on and so on, I figure around between forty and fifty people, roughly.
And how many survived in the war?
The only survivor is myself, I had a cousin who passed away a few years ago, his name was Pabren Salomon, I think he was UJF president of America. Another cousin, a brother of his, also passed away and myself, that's it.
Three of you out of about fifty people?
Out of fifty, yes.
© Board of Regents University of Michigan-Dearborn