Irene Sobel - September 8, 1998
Father Becomes Ill
Did your parents come to visit?
My--yes, well. Uh, my father came to see us. Not long after we were placed in the orphanage, I don't know, a months or two. And I remember him vividly coming on a horse. I don't know where he was able to--got the horse. But he came on a horse and this is the first time I have ever seen my father on a horse. He was a tall man, I don't know, six foot. And I watched him dismount the horse and I was so very impressed. And all the children looked. When he left, on his way he saw a group of children. They stopped him and they asked him if he knew where this and this orphanage was, where the orphanage for the Jewish children was. And he directed them. He told them where to go. One of those children, one of the older boys, his name was Volek, he's the one who, who became my brother-in-law and he told us how he met my father and what a handsome man he was and so on. And he was nice to them, and, and he said, and say hello, I have two children there, their names, say hello. This is the last time I saw my father. Shortly thereafter, there was a epidemic of uh, dysentery, infectious diarrhea.
Dysentery.
Dysentery. And he became ill. My mother was told. And there was some communal, I don't know, hospital or some communal center where all those sick people could go, and they had no medication, no antibiotics. My mother was told that there, an antibiotic could be gotten in some other village or whatever and she walked the whole, she walked the whole night.
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