Voice/Vision Holocaust Survivor Oral History Archive

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Natalie Zamczyk - January 30, 1984

No, no, you don't. When uh, when you were growing up, were your parents politically active at all? Were they active in the Bund or in any group?

No, I don't think so, no, no. My father was a workingman; he had to get up at five o'clock or four o'clock. Go, you know, to the slaughterhouse there, you know, and... No, he didn't have. He was tired after that. But they were very uh, my mother was a very generous uh, woman, my father never say a word. I remember she put me al...always, for every holy day she had some rabbis, you know, they were poor, rabbis. They had lots of children, of course. They didn't work. Their women, I don't know what they are doing. So my mother came and took meat and she went with me over there and gave the, the meat to them. And my father said to me, do you think that I don't know that she took? Let her do it, she feels good, let her do it. They are poor people, that's what he told... I remember that every--what is this, the holy day before Pesach? Purim, Purim. Purim, my mother always baked different things and ???, and I was helping. I say, come with me, you have to remember that we have to think about old people also. It was a, you know, during Europe, you didn't have so many old age homes like here, because mostly the parents are staying with children. They always had room for them even the house is small, you know.

Yeah.

But uh, there were, there was a big uh, old age home, the parents, the people what they didn't have children, you know, or something happened that they were there. But they have, they, they take good care of them there. But always on Purim my mother took me and we went there. And, oh yeah, when, I remember the wine, sweet wine she brought and we were pouring glasses, I help her pouring glasses to everybody and serve them with the cake and they were so happy to see it. That's what I remember. That's what stuck in my mind.

Yeah.

But I forgot lots of other things, I think, because I don't want to remember. But those are nice things, what I still cherish.