Matityahu Mintz about his family, childhood, education in Warsaw, participation in Hashomer Hatzair movement, his trip to Białystok and towards Wilno, and his arrival to Israel.
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An English resume of an interview in Hebrew that took place in Israel, as a part of the Polish Roots in Israel Project. Interviewee name: Matityahu Mintz.
The Family Story
Matityahu Mintz, Professor (Emeritus) of the Department of Jewish History, Tel Aviv University. Born in Lublin on 11.10.1922. His parents were Yitzhak and Perla (nee Blass) Mintz.
Yitzhak Mintz, son of Matityahu and Ruchl (nee Blass) Mintz, was born in 1900 in Warsaw. Matityahu Mintz, the interviewee's grandfather, was a Gur (Ger) Chassid (the Ger Chasidic Dynasty was the largest and most important Hasidic group in Poland) and conducted an orthodox religious way of life. Grandfather Matityahu Mintz died before the interviewee was born. Ruchl Mintz, the interviewee's grandmother, was killed in Warsaw by a German bombardment in September 1939. Matityahu and Ruchl had nine children. Yitzhak was the eldest. They all perished with their families in the Holocaust.
Yitzhak Mintz, the interviewee's father, was a Zionist, a follower of Yitzhak Gruenbaum, a prominent leader of the Zionist movement among Polish Jewry between the two world wars, a member of the Polish Sejm and later the first Interior Minister of Israel.
In 1921 Yitzhak Mintz married Perla Blass and they moved to Lublin, Perla's hometown.
Perla Mintz (nee Blass), the interviewee's mother, was born in 1899. Her parents were Yossef and Chuma Blass. Perla was the ninth of her parents' ten children. Yossef was, prior to WW I, a prosperous man. He owned a country mansion in Filipówka, a very small village located near Góra Kalwaria and Garwolin (southeast of Warsaw). As a result of the events of WW I, Yossef was impoverished and was financially assisted by two of his sons who were affluent.
When Perla got married in 1929, her parents were already very old and Perla lived with them and attended to them. All Perla's siblings with their families perished in the Holocaust. Only one niece and one nephew survived.
As mentioned above, Yitzhak and Perla settled in Lublin after their marriage and lived at 16 Bonifraterska Street with Perla's parents. In 1922 Yitzhak and Perla had their firstborn son Matityahu (the interviewee) and in 1924 they had their second son, Avraham.
Yitzhak was the sales agent of a coal mine in Pszczyna (a town situated in southern Poland, near Katowice). He used to buy coal which was sent to him by freight train to Lublin and then sell it to various clients of his.
Matityahu, started to attend the "Tarbut" Jewish primary school in Lublin in 1928. His parents, who were very anxious about his education, preferred to send him to the "Tarbut" school, which was a good, private school and therefore expensive, and were ready to pay the tuition despite their difficult financial situation. The teaching language there was Hebrew and Matityahu's father was very proud of his son who began to speak Hebrew fluently after a while.
In 1929, within the world economic crisis, Yitzhak's business deteriorated and he became bankrupt. In 1931, Yitzhak returned by himself to Warsaw, his hometown, to better his financial situation. The year after, his family joined him. The following years were very difficult financially for the Mintz family. In Warsaw, Matityahu was again sent to the "Tarbut" private school (located at 20 Pańska Street) where he studied for the next three years, until 1935. He continued his schooling at "Laor", a Jewish high school, and completed his studies in 1939.
While he was a high school student, Matityahu was approached by Mordechaj Anielewicz, who was one of the leaders of the Warsaw branch of Hashomer Hatzair Zionist Youth Movement. He convinced Matityahu to join his movement (September 1937). Anielewicz would later be the head of the Jewish Fighting Organization and one of the prominent leaders of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising in 1943.
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