This is a picture of my mother Henryka Bodenstein. The photo was taken in Lwow. I don’t know who took it, but I do know that I was already born. My mother died when she was only 42 years old.
My mother was born on 23rd March 1900 in Lwow, I remember the date exactly. She studied what today you'd call biology, at the Jan Kazimierz University in Lwow. But she never worked a single day in her life. Neither Mama nor any of her sisters. They had help at home. Of course. They had cooks, there was a nanny. As I remember my mother, she was beautiful. She had chestnut-brown hair, dark eyes, very fair skin, and beautiful hands. At first she kept her hair in a bun, but then suddenly she started cropping it.
I don't know how my parents met, but it was a marriage of love, that's for sure. The wedding took place on 29th June 1921, on Peter and Paul. I remember that because it was an anniversary that we celebrated every year. I remember my parents' wedding photo. My father was dressed in his lieutenant's uniform and when they left the Tempel, his officer friends held up their sabers. There was a photo of that at home. I know they were wed by Rabbi Freund.
I remember that every day at 12 noon my mother went to a café that was called Roma, on Akademicki Square. There she'd meet with her friends, and then she'd come back home. We, the children, had had our dinner earlier. Mother waited for Father to come back from work. I guess they ate their dinner at three, perhaps half past three. After dinner, Father played patience. He never slept during the daytime. Mother would take a nap, and at seven in the evening they'd go out. That's how people lived then. They'd go to a restaurant, a café, to friends' homes.
