Page 118 - Centrum Dialogu im. Marka Edelmana w Łodzi. Jesteśmy drzewami wiecznymi.

HADASSA WIZENBERG ISRAEL
TEL AVIV
DRZEWKO NR 331
TREE NO.
Hadassa Wizenberg was born in Łódź on 10 December 1927 as Elka
[Edzia] Karo. Her mother, Sara Horowitz, was one of seven children. She
came from Zduńska Wola, where her father, Jakub Horowitz, had a work-
shop. Hadassa’s father, Nechemia (Haiman, Heniek) Karo, came from Łódź.
Her grandparents ran Bar Angielski (English Bar) at 23, Piotrkowska Street.
Her grandfather, Szaja Karo was religious and grandmother Szejndle man-
aged the business. “I remember the revolving door of the restaurant. And
that grandfather had his permanent place at the table and people would
often come to him for advice. He was a wise man”, Hadassa recalls. When
the Germans ordered Jews to move to the ghetto, my grandfather said that
he would not move. Indeed, he did not go to the ghetto, he died in January
1940. He was buried in the Jewish cemetery in the Ghetto Field. The family
keeps his religious books and souvenir bottles from Bar Angielski, found after
the war.
Nechamia (Heniek) Karo was the eldest of nine children, born in 1899.
During World War I, he was in the Piłsudski Legions, he also took part in the
Polish-Soviet war. Piłsudski’s cult survived in his family. He got married soon
after the war. He worked at a factory owned by Wuttke, a German, but he
left in 1936, when he and his brother-in-law, Baruch Horowitz, opened a wool
materials warehouse at 27, Piotrkowska Street.
Hadassa, called Dziunia at home, was an only child. She studied at a private
girl’s middle school in Piramowicza Street. She also attended eurhythmics
classes and had piano lessons at home with a private teacher. She lived in a
tenement house at 15, Zawadzka Street (now Próchnika Street), in the right
outbuilding on the second floor. She clearly remembers the layout of the flat,
she can draw every part of it. “As a girl from a good home, I never went out
alone, I did not know the children who played in the courtyard. I could only
see them playing from the balcony”, she says. Her parents had a rich social
life. On Saturday evenings, they would go to the dance at the Tabarin club or
Casanova, and they would often go to the theatre. “Helena Kowalska, a Pole,
whom I loved very much, took care of me. She also cooked. Mama baked
delicious cakes: a cake with a crumble topping, cheesecakes, poppyseed
cakes, apple pies and an oblong chocolate cake”, Hadassa enumerates.
“I had a very happy childhood, I was loved, my parents loved each other,
it was nice and joyful”, she says. The Karos would take their daughter to
Poniatowski Park, to morning screenings at the Rialto or Capitol cinema, which
was right next to their house. Hadassa remembers that the last film she saw
with her father was Suez. “I fell in love with Tyrone Power, the main character,
that’s why I remember it”, she says.

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