Ludvipol: A Modern Shtetl
The Family Business
per photo, and every person needed two photos. My father came up with some very clever ways to handle the volume. In those days, most pictures were exposed onto glass plates coated with an emul- sion. We traveled with many boxes of expensive glass. My father developed a frame that enabled him to expose one side of the glass, then turn it over and expose the other side, which saved a lot of time and materials. My father had just purchased a Leica camera, which was considered a great innovation because, for the first time, motion could be photographed. But for this job, the older system was used. Every village mayor provided us with housing, food, and ev- erything else we needed. We were welcomed in each village to ac- commodations equipped with clean towels and linen. The hostess would prepare us fried eggs and potatoes for breakfast. Bacon and eggs was popular with the villagers and the Polish officials. The farmers had huge frying pans that held twenty eggs and a pound of bacon. We avoided food like bacon, although we did eat on the farmers’ non-kosher plates on which treif had been served. I believe we ate meat in the evenings. I found this experience very exciting. I saw firsthand how such a major enterprise was handled. We met many people, and we were wined and dined in villages which I had never even visited. Everybody showed us respect because we were with the Polish of- ficials. The family business prospered.
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