Voice/Vision Holocaust Survivor Oral History Archive

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Larry Wayne - 2005

Let me take you back a second. When you were, um, living in Łódź, you went to shul or you went to cheder?

I went to cheder as, as a kid.

So what was Friday night like?

Friday night was a wonderful, wonderful night because even when ultra-orthodox but

[interruption in interview]. Friday night customary for the kids to go with their father to shul, come home from shul. Usually my father always had somebody with him. They used to call it an oyah, a guest, somebody who couldn't afford or didn't have a place to go to have a Sabbath dinner. Used to bring him over to the house and join us. Beautiful candle light with Kiddush and zemirot and singing. And it's was quite uh...

Do you remember the zemirot?

Yes, I do, very well.

Have you done it in the United States ever?

Yes.

You've come back.

Well, in, in, not so much in the United States, when, in Europe when I was with my brother and my sister we always celebrated Friday nights, you know. Although I'm not now, since it's just me and my wife, so we don't do too much of it. But my kids do it usually.

And you spoke Yiddish at home.

Yes, the only language. The on...up, up to about ten years old, like I said, I didn't speak Polish. Because we had no use. It was the--only were among Jews all the time.