Adam Silberring with his brother Ludwik

Adam Silberring with his brother Ludwik

This is my husband Adam Silberring with his younger brother Ludwik. I don't know when the photo was taken, but Adam looks like 12-13 years old. So it was probably 1933 or 1934. The picture was taken in Bochnia. My husband is a chemical engineer. He was born in Bochnia in 1921, the last year to graduate from high school before the war. His was a very assimilated family. His father, Samuel, owned a large printing press and a house. He even used to drive around on business on Saturdays, he said, and the orthodox Jews used to throw stones at him. He didn't give his sons a Hebrew education. He was a believer, because even after the war he used to go to the synagogue at New Year, but he didn't celebrate all the holidays. He died in 1973. Adam's mother perished during the war. My husband has a brother, Ludwik, born in 1925. Both he and his brother studied at the Silesia Polytechnic in Wroclaw. Ludwik lives in Switzerland, he's a professor and has two children. We're not in touch with him. During the war, first the Germans threw them out of their house, because it's a very beautiful house. They took their car, a Steyr. So they, with some cases, as my father-in-law told me, set off towards Lwow. In the meantime the Germans forced them into some labor on the way somewhere, but later they made it to Lwow. His mother and the younger brother went back to Bochnia for some winter clothes. They didn't have any warm things, because there had been a heat wave in September. She was crossing the river San in a boat and the boat capsized and she drowned, but Ludwik was rescued and went back to Lwow. After that the Russians deported them out to the Ural Mountains. I can't remember what the place was called.
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