Grandsons talk to Laja- Laja' life
Laja (Gitla Laja) Rajchbart [born 5 May 1920(sic)]
My FAMILY by Daneal and Geoffrey Blicblau ( grandsons)
interviewed August 1995
"For my Jewish Family project I decided to interview my grandmother. Her name is Laja (pronounced Lonya) and she is 72 years old . She also told me briefly about my grandfather whose name is Nathan and who is still alive" (1995).
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My Grandmother
My grandmother came from a very religious family which had 4 boys and 4 girls (including herself).
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Every Jewish festival her father, Aaron Yitzchak, would travel to a town some while away to learn and rejoice with the Rabbi (a lot of men did this).
Her grandfather, Avrum Zelig, was a "Sofer", he used to write parts of the Torah.
Her mother, Adella, worked from home with something to do with designing materials (my grandmother wasn't sure what she did exactly and couldn't explain it in English).
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My grandmother and grandfather lived in a town called Zdunska-Wola. it had a population of thirty six thousand. This consisted of twelve thousand Poles, twelve thousand Germans and twelve thousand Jews.
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My grandmother doesn't remember her address when she lived with her family, but thinks it was flat ten, Sieradska (pronounced Cheruduska).
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When the boys(her brothers) became the age of Bar-Mitzvah ( thirteen, is when a boy become a man in Judaism) they stopped going to school and went to Yeshivah (a Jewish study house).
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When the girls (her sisters and herself) became Bat-Mitzvah (twelve, when a girl becomes a woman in Judaism) they also stopped going to school and stayed at home helping their mother work.
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Family members of Laja Blicblau ( born Laja Rajchbart)
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My grandmother was in the Wola Ghetto from the beginning of the second world war until 1940 . She was then sent to the Lodz Ghetto until the 26th August 1942. After that she was then taken to Aushwitz concentration camp. She was sent on a 'death' march to Stuthoffe and she was set free by the Russian army in Lowenberg in April 1945.