Page 87 - Centrum Dialogu im. Marka Edelmana w Łodzi. Zofia Lubińska-Rosset - "Okruchy Pamięci".

thing. In the most difficult moments she cooked radish leaves,
which however were so bitter that practically uneatable.
Potatoes were a great rarity, usually frozen or rotten (they were
probably obtained for special food stamps). They were treated as a
real delicacy. Most often we had to satisfy our hunger with the po-
tato peelings.

As a result of chronic malnutrition and what we were forced
to eat, as well as the inability to maintain basic hygiene, I fell ill with
typhoid, so common in the ghetto. The course of the disease was
very severe and at the same time I got sick with jaundice. My Par-
ents did not want to leave me at the hospital, because from there
one could be at any time selected for deportation (in reality for
extermination). Treatment at home, however, came down to the
fact that my Parents took available food crumbs away from their
mouths to feed me and put cold compresses on my head trying to
reduce high fever. Obtaining any medication, often of dubious
value, was completely impossible for us for financial reasons. For-
tunately, my child's body turned out to be stronger than the dis-
ease!
Also interesting – and I think worth mentioning - is a combi-
nation of fiction with the real world during my favourite daily play
with Jurek Weltfrajd. On the window sill, in the only free space in
a terribly cluttered room, we often set up a play shop. We bought
make-believe bread, eggs, sugar, etc., which were tiny coloured
pieces of pages torn from an old notebook (of course, each colour
meant a different product), and we ate them all without exception,
as if they were real food items. I do not know how to explain it, I
think we were taught not to waste any crumb of food, and we
transferred the notion to the imaginary foodstuffs.

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