Larry Wayne - 2005
Military school memories
Was there a religious class as well? Did everybody go off to do their own religious hour a day or whatever?
No, we didn't have any religion. Hebrew classes.
But not at the gymnasium?
At the gymnasium, oh yeah.
At the gymnasium ???
Oh no, custom, that was not... Uh, Yitzhak Katzenelson, one of the most famous uh, uh, Hebrew poets. I still remember an experience whereby a, a famous poet, Chaim Nachman Bialik in 1932 visited us in the school. Might have been '33.
And did he read?
He died in '33.
Did he read?
He died uh, shortly afterward.
Yeah. And did he read from his poetry?
Yes, a lot, you know. And, and he and Katzenelson were very close, close friends.
But you went...
So I was going to gymnasium and uh, uh...
And you stopped going when the war was happening.
When, when the... Yeah. When the war broke, broke out I imagine I became like a lieutenant in the Polish army.
But did you go the front?
No there wasn't enough time. Honest. And also we had our own uh, Jewish military units under the uh, uh, aegis of the Polish government. Like, there was a, like a, a ???, uh, what they had training of, and, and, and armed combat in uh, in being a soldier.
Who was Seloviza? Seloviza?
No, uh, Joselewicz . He was a, a famous when I was an officer of the Polish army. Berek, Berek Joselewicz was the name.
So you had military training of some sort.
Yeah, yeah. It was compuls...besides that, you know, the, the, part of the gym classes was always military training too. Once you were in the gymnasium it was a different story. You came under, under, under a different thing like public schools.
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