bialystok is a big city and winters were harsh in poland.hat is me bundled up with my parents, as normal as can be. that is a very nice picture of my kindergarten class. you can see how the kids were very normal kids and all of us gathered for the picture. edna: how was that life shattered? how did it change after germany invaded poland in september of 1939? leo: it was an extreme, radical change, of course. the essence was that my father being on the city council was called in by the mayor and they gathered in the great synagogue of bialystok because the city hall had been bombed out. the mayor said to the councilmembers that it is likely that they would all be hostages because they are prominent in the city and he advised them they had to leave or should leave. he rented a truck to take them not with their families, they could not do that, but they could do the 20 or so councilmembers and give them safety for a while. nobody knew where they were going and that was on purpose so that we could not divulge it because we did not know. it was a