(ca.1935)

This is a supplement of the story about the Cracow folk costume of Fira Melamedzon and her performance in front of President of the Republic of Poland, Ignacy Moscicki, which is described in our book. Besides, we place here photographs and documents connected with the Kluz family which are not included in the „Fira” album.

A few years after having graduated school I was going along the Nowa Street. There was a small shop selling paintings in this street  and I always stopped there, as I was interested in art. This time I noticed a big charming painting in a shop widow. It depicted a girl dressed in a Cracow folk costume, similar to that I used to wear when I was a child. Actually, it presented the upper part of her body, from the waist. The girl was wearing a red beads necklace and she was a dark blonde. Although I was a brunette I felt it was also a little bit my portrait.

As my parents were giving me quite a lot money and I had some savings, I came into the shop and bought that picture. It had been painted by one of  the Kossak’s, but not by this most famous one, I couldn’t have afforded Wojciech’s painting. Jerzy Kossak might have painted it. That picture was special to me. I called it „The Cracow girl” and I hung it above my bed. It was still there when I was leaving for Palestine. I was to come back to sell our shop and take the painting, but the war broke out and it got lost.

*Nowa Street is today Ignacego Paderewskiego Street, one of the main streets of the Poznan Old Town.