While attending school, I became familiar with a group of boys from the nearby town called Piotrolesie. They were all younger than me and some of them lived in the Children’s Home for orphaned children. I visited them from time to time to play soccer. While visiting them I discovered two things: I met a girl there called Cesia, who lived with her mother and two younger sisters in Radzyn-Podlaski during the occupation. Her mother worked in the office of a co-operative called Spolem, under a false name with false "Aryan" documents.

My second discovery was a boy, in the Children’s Home, several years younger than me. One day, in the fall of 1946, I arrived on my bicycle in Piotrolesie to play soccer, like I used to do often. During the intermission of the game, I asked a boy where he came from. He answered that he was from Wohin. Upon hearing this I became intrigued and inquired: "Is that the Wohin not far from Radzyn-Podlaski?" The boy confirmed it, and I suddenly was moved by a recollection of a tragic event. I told the boy briefly of the massacre of several Jewish families in that town at the end of February or beginning of March of 1945 in which only one boy was saved. My new acquaintance looked at me and said: "I am that boy, and my uncle, with whom I lived, was among the murdered people." After the game ended we parted, not saying any more to one another. At that time nobodywanted to remember one’s tragic experiences.

The autumn days were often not favourable for bike riding or playing soccer, therefore I stopped visiting the boys in Piotrolesie. Later on, I lost all contact with them.

Now, while writing this autobiography, I acquired a copy of the file of that boy from the Children’s Home which I received from the Jewish Historical Archives in Warsaw. The boy was called Mendel Cienki, born in 1932, in Wohin.

I became comfortable in this little town. After completing service in the army I returned there, and professionally worked as a photographer. I was also busy preparing for studies at the University in the Faculty of Law, which I chose not to finish because at the time, I preferred a career in photography.

As time passed I moved and opened a photographic studio in another town, but in spring of 1969, I left Poland, and settled in Denmark.

One year later I emigrated to Canada with my family where I began a new life, and where I presently reside.

At the beginning of my story, I mentioned that for half a century I did not intend to return in my memory to those years of German occupation, and what is more, to go back and visit the places of my wartime wanderings. But people’s opinions and feelings change with time. Thus, visiting Poland in 1993, I decided to return and see some of the places and people with whom I had lived during those years of occupation.