At the age of 12, I stopped attending the Talmud Torah school and switched to a supplementary evening school at [2] 29 Karmelicka Street. The teacher who examined me was very pleased with my Yiddish. My mother was the first to teach me to read and write Yiddish. Even as a child, I also devoured all the Yiddish newspapers that my father used to bring home to read, such as Der moment, the Folkstsaytung,246 and later also the Ekspres.247 It used to cause my mother much aggravation, but reading the papers simply becamea passion for me.
At the age of 12, after leaving the Talmud Torah school, I started working at the same trade as my father in our own home. He used bring work home because small master craftsmen were afraid to have the work done intheir homes since the workers were not enroled in the sick fund. I spent half a year working for my father, and then I started working for a friend of his.
At 14, I finished supplementary school. At that time I went to the Medem Sanatorium for the last time. I was drawn into the children’s self-government activities, wrote an article for the children’s paper. I became very active in the SKIF children’s organisation, had a lot of friends from Yiddish primary schools. Then I become a member of the Tsukunft youth organisation. At that time, I started disliking my trade. I don’t myself know why, but one morning I announced to my parents that I would no longer be going to my work,and I never went back to it. I didn’t work for half a year.
One day I was strolling along Nalewki Street with a friend of mine. In the gateway to No. 36 there was a small print shop. My friend, who was also looking for a job, said to me, “You know what? Go into the print shop andask whether they need a boy”. I went in and was taken on at a wage of three zlotys a week. And so, by mere chance, I became a printer and remained one. It is possible that I was inwardly drawn to that trade because of my great respect for the printed word. Initially, I was no more than an errand boy. Anyway, I worked there for only half a year. Then I went to work for a relative of mine who ran a print shop. With him, I learnt the trade properly. I specialised in typesetting and machine operation. I worked in that print shop until the outbreak of the war, i.e. for 6 or 7 years, and learnt the trade
