דן הדני

I  was registered in the local Jewish community of Lodz as Dan Zloczewski.    Various reasons caused me to

change my family name, that was actually Polish. The sabras of the settlement and immigrants from many

countries who served with me in the IDF  Navy, did not know how to pronounce my Polish name therefore

called me mostly by my first name Dan' plus a letter of affection Danny - Dani.

 

The atmosphere of David Ben-Gurion, whfromo persuaded the IDF soldiers, and new immigrants, to move 

from their complicated foreign name into an Hebrew name. I decided to add at the beginning to my first

name one letter the “H” one, which actually mean"The" - (The Dani)

 

My father's family had many children. His family was a religious one, typical of that period of Eastern Europe.

We had no special contact with the uncles and aunts. I also met my grandparents very rarely.

 

My mother's family, I hardly knew, because they lived in the city of Drohobycz, very far from the city of Lodz where we lived. Three years before the war, they moved to the city of Krakow and here we visited them only once. A long distance between the cities did not allow repeat visits. In fact, my mother's origin was from Vienna, from Austria. After World War I, they moved to Poland to the town of Drohobycz in Galicia, near the capital, Lvov, and later moved to Krakow.

 

My father, by nature, broke conventions. When he had to enlist in the Polish army, he chose to serve in General Haller's army, known as anti-Semitic in the full sense of the word. Despite this, he volunteered and was well received there. His unit served in the area of ​​the town of Drohobycz, where my father met my mother. When World War I ended, my father was discharged from the army, married my mother and took her to his hometown – Lodz

 

My family adapted to the mood of the period, which prevailed among the young people of Polish Jewry. The progress that came to Poland after the First World War, and thus the assimilation revolt, penetrated not only into the Jewry of Poland but into the Jewry of the whole of Europe. Mainly because the young people left the villages and ghettos. Assimilation caused heresy, change of clothing, form with the development of the mind.

 

As a child aged 4-5, I remember sights, when on Saturdays it was forbidden to turn on aShabbat an electric light in the appatment. We sat in the dark until the end of Shabat and lighting the Havdalah candle.

 

In contrast, a few years before the war, my sister and I were allowed to turn on electric lighting. Kashruths, though we kept at home strictly,   but, outside the home, were not so meticulous.

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Our house was open. I remember how people gathered here, in the evenings for frequent eagles, party members and politicians. My father was an active member of the Poalei Zion party. I remember the political debates in our house on the burning issues of those times.

The exclusion was laden with many party members. I especially remember as a child hearing the heated debate over Stalin's Soviet - run doctors' trial.

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As a kid, I used to play chess. For my age in those days, aged 7-8, I played quite well. More than once I have beaten adult chess players. My father used to take me to trainings, kibbutzim, before they immigrated to Israel.

 

Sometimes we also used to go play in a huge and very beautiful public park located in the center of Lodz. The huge park, fenced around it with a beautiful French-style iron fence. There are only four wide gates, for the passage of horses and world carts usually these gates are closed on a lock. Only one narrow gates, weres open for human passage. One Saturday during the game of chess, a group of young Poles, armed with fists, broke into the garden and carried out a pogrom against the Jews. I saw a group of students, wearing uniforms and a hat with the symbol of a Jewish high school. We were sitting not far away, when the Polish hooligans burst into the chapter and attacked the group of Jewish students. I saw one student get hit by a fist in his jaw, the jaw immediately fell apart from his face. The gang immediately noticed that all present were Jews.

 

A larger disaster caused the deaths of about 20 young Jews, because of the narrow gate through which victims tried to escape. Urgence of the frightened who tried to escape. In their flight from the thugs, they trampled on those who fell to the ground.

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