Read A Lucky Child: A Memoir of Surviving Auschwitz as a Young Boy for Free Online Page A

not reach another Polish city. The fate of Jews was basically the same in all of them, and life in
     Kielce during those years was no worse or better than it would have been elsewhere in Poland.
    My first recollection of Kielce is our one-room apartment (kitchen included) on the third floor of an old, somewhat run-down
     apartment house on Silniczna Street. The building was part of a four-building complex that surrounded a dirty courtyard. To
     reach our house, one had to go through a big gate, which opened onto a noisy street. We were assigned the apartment by the
     Jewish community council of the city shortly before the ghetto was established in early 1940. At that time, the German police
     (the
Schutzpolizei
) and the Gestapo ordered all Jews to move into the area of the city containing the largest concentration of its Jewish population,
     which was also among the most run-down parts of the town. We did not have to move because we already lived there.
    Until my father got a job as a cook’s helper in the
Schutzpolizei
kitchen outside the ghetto, we had very little to eat. During those early days, food could still be bought from the outside.
     The more prosperous Jewish families lived relatively well compared to us, since we had hardly any money, even after my mother
     sold almost all her jewelry. In his new job, my father would return home every evening with a large canteen of food. He usually
     hid pieces of meat under the mashed potatoes and vegetables he was allowed to take with him. By midafternoon each day, my
     mother and I would already be waiting for him and our one good meal. From time to time, we were invited by wealthy families
     in the neighborhood to join them for a Sabbath meal. I remember looking forward to these dinners because of the food. But
     I also dreaded them because they were always preceded by what seemed to me to be interminably long prayers.
    Soon, I too found a way to get some food and on rare occasions even a little money. Because religious Jews are not allowed
     to work on the Sabbath or on Jewish holidays, they may not perform most household chores on those days, including lighting
     ovens and fireplaces and turning on lights in their homes. These chores had in the past been performed by non-Jewish servants
     or Poles hired for that purpose. When these people were no longer allowed to enter the ghetto, I was asked by some of our
     neighbors, who knew that we were not observant Jews, to perform these functions. That is how I became a
Shabbat goy
(a Sabbath gentile). I liked doing these chores, not only because I was paid for them but also because in that way I got
     to know many families in the neighborhood and was able to see what their homes looked like and how they lived. I was fascinated
     by the appearance of the very orthodox Jews — their long
payess
(sideburn locks), their
tzitzit
(cloth fringes), their black hats and caftans, as well as the
talaysim
(prayer shawls) and the
tefillin
(phylacteries) they wore on their arms and foreheads when praying. But the majority of the people in the ghetto were not
     orthodox and dressed just as we did.
    Once all Jews had been moved into what became the Ghetto of Kielce, the area was surrounded by walls and fences and guarded
     by Jewish and Polish police as well as the
Schutzpolizei
. There were many children in our neighborhood, and I soon had lots of friends. In those early days, some Poles were still
     allowed to come in, mostly to sell vegetables, milk, and firewood. When winter came, Polish farmers would enter the ghetto
     with their horse-drawn wagons to sell firewood, which was very expensive. We kids would wait for them and jump on the backs
     of the wagons, hoping that the drivers would not see us before we had a chance to grab some of the wood and run off with it.
     If a driver saw us, he would try to slash at us with his long whip. Sometimes he would succeed, despite the avoidance techniques
     we developed over time. Besides needing the