The story of Gizela - Afik Shiraz. Abinun Shmuel

neighbor; she used to talk to her in German. Occasionally they would come to visit my maternal relatives who lived in Sarajevo - my grandmother and my father’s side aunt.

In winter, the temperature sometimes dropped to 20 degrees below zero and the water would freeze in the metal pipes. In such cases we would pour hot water on the pipe and hope for the best – if we were lucky, it would thaw the water, and with a little less lucky - the pipe would explode as a result of the temperature differences and had to be replaced. On such days we would had to go to the pump at the end of the street to bring water home. Then we would fix the plumbing and leaving the water flowing all day and all night, in order it will not freeze in pipes. The town is adjacent to two water sources - Drina and Rzb, and in the summer there was great humidity because of the proximity of both. Flow path of the Drina was twisty and when someone acted stubbornly they would say, "It is impossible to straighten Drina," that is, he exhibits stubbornness you can’t straighten it. Rzb, the other stream, would fill with water in winter and very shallow on summer days. I have a childhood photo from the age of ten when we went to a picnic. My aunt came from one side of the stream and my mother from the other side. Mama was worried that my bathing suit would get wet and wanted to take me on her back, and I firmly refused - I was ten, bigger then Mama, why suddenly would she take me on her back? That's why I ran away from and crossed the stream, whose waters reached my knees. My Mama got angry and went home with Cila, and in the picture I have from that day you see me alone, a 10-year-old girl in the company of my mother’s friends, when the only other girl is my cousin who was then five years old. This story illustrates how stubborn I was in those days. Today, after all the years that have gone by, I am quite a compliant person.

This photo was taken at a picnic on the day I grew up with my mother and she returned home with my sister. Here I am 10 years old (third from the left) with my mother's older friends. You can see in the picture how much I was skinny in those days.

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