Voice/Vision Holocaust Survivor Oral History Archive

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Natalie Zamczyk - January 30, 1984

Um, and you were married when, what year?

I was married in, in January 1, 1933, yeah.

And then you left with your husband and moved?

Yeah, and later I moved with my husband, we rented a, in new neighborhood there, apartment. My husband had one store in, in their family apartment building in Podgorze and later we open another store there, not far removed. He wanted in different neighborhood. But we didn't stay there long, maybe two years and later we moved back to the old neighborhood and we had only this one store. Because in 1933 like here was the depression, you know. And that's what we couldn't make it, because those people uh, there was mostly uh, Gentile people were living, you know. And was a depression, they didn't have money and we couldn't keep up the business. So we went back to our old business, and there we stayed 'til the end of the war, yeah.

What type of store was it that you had?

We had a, a, a bicycle, children buggies and uh, and cosmetic we had also, you know. It was a nice store. And uh, my husband later he went to Warsaw for special course, you know. Radio, this time radio started. Well, he came back and... We had, the store was big and in the back was uh, you know, was another place. So he make like a, how you call this uh, he hired a man and the man was fixing the uh, bicycle and somebody came and bought a part to bicycle, he can get, put in right away and there for him, for extra. So that was the store. It was very good store. And I was working with my husband there because I had a maid at home. In Poland we had maid at home. I had a maid at home, later when my son was three years old, four years old I hire extra uh, college girl even for half a day, for four hours that she was going with him. And she, you know, and she talk to him because I want to, you know. That was my life, you know. Yeah.

And you, you were doing secretarial work, you said, at...

No, when I was married no.

Okay.

I quit. When I was married I quit the work, yeah. I quit the work because my husband needed me in store. We had two stores from the beginning and later even the one store I was helping him. We were very busy, very busy. I remember we were, we were always open Saturdays also. Because we are not religious and Saturday was the biggest day. This, this was a neighborhood where the working class was mostly. And we had mostly not Jewish clientele, because bicycle and all the other things, you know. We had Jewish also coming there, you know. And uh, so we were very busy. Yeah.