I find it difficult to write about myself and in particular, to call to mind my horrendous experience as a young boy in German-occupied Poland. Whenever I attempted to write my biographical sketch, I would first write my date of birth. Then in one sentence, I would state that during the time of Poland’s occupation my parents perished and that from April 1942 until May 1945 I worked for farmers in various villages--as if this was a perfectly normal thing for a young urban boy to do.

I avoided mentioning the details of my experiences during that period, I even attempted to exclude them from my thoughts. But I have discovered that one cannot run away from oneself and those experiences that are imbedded in one’s memory.

In spite of the fact that more than half a century has passed since the period of the German occupation of Poland, I have decided to write about my experiences and to describe what happened to me in that dark period.

Within my memoir are fifteen photocopies of German documents obtained from the Archives of the Jewish Historical Institute in Warsaw, and from the State Archives in the town of Otwock. These German documents exemplify the patterns of Nazi persecution in occupied Poland. During these times Public Notices were posted requiring that Jews hand over their furs, or forbidding them to leave the ghetto. Such postings also included a notice to the general Polish population that providing assistance to Jews would, like any transgressions of a Nazi directive, result in a death sentence.

I have tried to relive those dangerous days and tell about the general conditions of life in the Otwock Ghetto.

My memoir covers a period of several years, describing how I survived in the ghetto and how afterwards I wandered the countryside, working as a herdsman or as a farmhand. All of that time I was in constant danger of being recognized as a Jew. I also describe how on the end of 1943, I was able to obtain "Aryan" documents, which enabled me to survive.