Estera Migdalska with her mother Sara Dajbog

This is a picture of me and my mother, Sara Gitla Dajbog (nee Denenberg). This photo was taken in Warsaw in the 1930s. My mother was born in 1900, and she came from the Kresy, namely from Pinsk. She was the only child, born more than twenty years after her parents had gotten married, when they no longer thought they'd ever have a child. All my relatives in Pinsk, whenever I'd be there, would always be telling me how they were celebrating my mother's birth, how long it took, a week or two, and how my grandparents would basically do just everything for her. My mother completed a high school in Kiev, and I remember that, at home, on the cupboard there rested a medal on a chain, and that it was a distinction for excellent performance at the high school finals. I actually studied the medal often, but I don't remember what it showed. And I think Mother could even play the piano, I remember a photo at home somewhere showing her playing and Father standing beside her, listening. I suppose my parents' marriage had been arranged, in fact, I guess it was typical for Jews in those spheres. My mother came from Pinsk, my father from Kielce, but that's no proof yet because the sister of my grandmother Ruchla lived in Pinsk. My mother was five years younger than my father. I don't know when precisely they got married. I was born in 1930, and there was one child before me that died at birth, so I guess they got married around 1927. So neither was my mother very young then, nor was my father very young. I remember no stories about their wedding. I remember my mother as truly religious. Perhaps she wasn't that strict, didn't wear a wig, but she was, let's say, a progressive religious Jewish lady. I remember her praying. Whenever we were sick, she'd pray for our health. I remember that on Friday she'd light the candles, I remember there were mezuzot at home, and when she was carrying me to bed in the night, I always knew I'd kiss the mezuzah.