This photo was taken in the 2000s, during the ceremony of unveiling of a plaque to honor Icchok Malmed in Bialystok.
In Warsaw I joined the Social and Cultural Society of Polish Jews and was a co-founder and board member of the Association of Jewish War Veterans. That was in 1987. As a group of social activists, we undertook efforts aimed at setting up an organization of Jewish war veterans. I was initially the head of the veteran department for the Warsaw region, and then, for three terms, a total of 12 years, the chairman of the welfare committee.
My first wife had a heart condition and we partly moved out to Sopot, we helped organize the Jewish community there, and there we met my present wife who worked as a conservator. She was a family friend and she helped us organize the Jewish community, the Jewish war veterans association in Sopot.
My second wife, Hanna Domanska, is a Pole, born in 1932 in Poznan, who has lived in Sopot since 1946. When my wife died, fifteen years ago, she became my second wife. During the occupation Hania lived in Warsaw and was strongly moved by the Jewish ghetto and Ghetto Uprising experiences. So it’s no accident that she’s involved in these matters.
At a time when no one dreamed yet about reviving the Jewish community, Hania was already deeply into it as historical monument conservator, being in charge of care over the Jewish cemeteries. And we started writing together, books about the Gdansk-Sopot-Gdynia Jews. We have organized a Jewish festival since 1990. And eventually, bit by bit, gradually, I moved out to Sopot.
