Larry Wayne - 2005
Death of father
So when you left did the family walk through the street carrying whatever you could?
Whatever we could, yes, whatever.
So what did you take?
Whatever we could get, take. We didn't get the furniture, everything else, just what could take with us. Just whatever, just clothes. We couldn't...
Suitcase.
We were lucky we had a place to go to, it was our cousins. And then afterward we got this, a little place, a one room across the street, as a matter of fact.
Also on Limanowskiego street.
On Limanowskiego, across the street we got a room. And uh, uh, was my mother and the five children, six children...
What do you remember...
all in one room.
What do you remember about when your father died? It must have been very difficult.
Well, my father was a... We had a bakery, like I said. You know, my father got very, very sick. When, what he had actually was a ??? on the back of his neck and there was no penicillin and so, and it went to his brain. In the last two weeks before he passed away he was in a coma. And I was just a young kid at that time, myself. All I knew that my uncle came out and he said, ???, you became a orphan.
That must have been hard for your mother.
Very, very hard.
And she kept the bakery going.
She kept the baker...kept the bakery going, everything else. Not only that, she kept it, like I said it was kinda still orthodox family. And then during the war, in the beginning of the war we still had the bakery and the people had to come and stay in line. So food we had in the beginning of the war because we had the bakery.
Did you move the bakery with you?
No, no, no. No, how could one, eh? Move a bakery.
[laughs]
The bakery was in Bałuty.
No, the bakery was in Łódź, our bakery was in Łódź.
And you kept it going.
Oh it was going in the beginning in the war 'til all these decrees came out.
Okay, and then you bought it.
No, let's say we lived like, we lived over here
[taps on table] and we had a bakery near here.
Yeah.
But when we had to leave we couldn't take the bakery with us. ??? everything.
© Board of Regents University of Michigan-Dearborn