The Horse Adjutant the store, their family had four children, all boys. I once heard those boys were consid- ered “One of the flowers of the city.” Three of them ended up in Auschwitz concentra- tion camp with me. The other went to Russia. All of them were older. When I was 12, the youngest, Usher, was about 20 years old, and the oldest, Joshua, must have been 25 years old. I don’t know much about the one that went to Russia. The rest were all in the Polish army before the war. I remember them coming home at the end of 1936 for the Jewish holidays. They showed up mounted on fine steeds with sabers dangling from their side. Being a child, all I wanted to do was to draw their swords and ride one of those steeds. I thought I would make a fine, gallant, young soldier, with gleaming buttons and adventure painted all over my face. I tried to touch one of their sabers, but they wouldn’t let me. I always admired those boys. Besides being soldiers, they also had specialized bicycles designed for the mountains. I admired those bikes, too! Moving along the street, I came upon Herbach Unger’s stores; he had two. One sold flour and the other sold fabrics. It was their son, Simon, who would help to save my life in Auschwitz. And off the main street, over on Sądecka Street, the Hirsch family had a kiosk selling cigarettes. I went to school with their son, David, and we played stickball together. His home became the demarcation denoting the beginning of the Jewish ghetto when the German occupation came to town. My tour of Grybow would be incomplete in the eyes of a child unless I mentioned the candy and variety store owned by a Catholic family. Their candy store was not lo- cated on the main street with the rest of the stores but instead near the river, under the bridge. I remember this well because my very close friends Moshe, Roman, and Max Blauner -- three brothers -- and the rest of their big family, lived nearby. If I were lucky, when I went to visit them, I could buy candy. Most of the time I could not afford to buy anything, so it was torture to walk by the store on the way to the Blauner’s. I used to eat dinner there at least once or twice a week, so I often thought of those candies. My own experience as a boy was one in which I felt no particular discrimination from our Catholic neighbors or the community at large. On the contrary, I considered many of them my good friends. I attended The Adam Mickiewicz School. The es- teemed Director Korzeń directed the school. We were not separated by race. I stayed in the back of the class and hoped I would not be called upon or hit. As far as I remember, we were just one big happy class, getting yelled at equally; they punished all the kids. I never felt ostracized for being a minority. The only place my religion even came up in the context of school was when Catholic subjects were taught. During those times,
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