Ryszard Bilan was born in 1946 in Kraków, he comes from an assimilated Jewish family. Ryszard's parents survived the war in Łódź on Aryan papers, they came from Stanisławów (currently in Ukraine). After the war, he moved with his parents to Kłodzko, where his father runs an upholstery shop. As a result of the occupation, his mother becomes mentally ill and is transferred to a psychiatric hospital - contact between her and her son is severed. The father hires a Christian woman from central Poland to take care of his son. For Ryszard, she begins to play the role of a foster mother - Ryszard also spends a lot of time in the countryside, in Żytowice, with her family, whom - as he says - he adopted. However, Ryszard is soon left alone: ​​his father dies of tuberculosis, and his foster mother breaks off contact with him. As a young boy, he fights for survival: he experiences hunger and loneliness, to support himself, he sells cuckoo clocks found in the attics of former German tenement houses in Kłodzko. He ends up in a children's home, where he experiences a stable life for the first time. He starts studying at a vocational school specializing in glass and crystal processing (he receives a grinder's diploma), and is employed at a glassworks. He lives in the Young Worker's Home, where he experiences the customs of a working class environment full of vulgarity, brutality, and alcoholism. He himself is a misfit, free from addictions: "He doesn't smoke or drink." He starts studying at a technical school - he is chosen by a German - his superior, and he passes his final exams at the technical school. He is transferred to a position in the Sales Department. He plans to study at the Faculty of Economics, as well as an artistic career. His plans for the future are disrupted by the events of March. In 1967, after the outbreak of the Six-Day War, for the first time in his life, he experiences anti-Semitism. He becomes the object of increasing interest and subtle allusions in everyday life. In 1968, he lived with other steel mill workers in the Young Worker's House in Szczytna, where he experienced psychological and physical violence as a result of an anti-Semitic campaign. "At that time, anyone could spit in my face, could abuse me. I didn't even have the awareness that someone was behind me. No one. Not the state, not any religious institution that is called to some morality, to some humanity. Back then, with that piece of paper, you could do anything to me. No one would claim me. I wanted to be a human being, just as I wanted to be a Pole. After all, I was raised here," he says. He and his wife decide to emigrate. They leave by train for Vienna; he wants to go to America, she to Israel, where she had family. After arriving in Israel, they are billeted in Akko, where they receive a new apartment and participate in an ulpan. Ryszard Bilan passes the entrance exams to the Technical University and to a higher art school. Currently Ryszard Bilan lives in Paris. Today he says about himself: "I am a man without a past" - "I had a dog's life, but I didn't want to leave. I would never leave for money", "You had to be very brave to stay and you had to be very brave to leave". INTERVIEWEE NAME: Ryszard Bilan INTERVIEWED BY: Józef Markiewicz RECORDING: Józef Markiewicz DATE OF RECORDING: October 19, 2017 COPYRIGHT TO THE RECORDING: POLIN Museum of the History of Polish Jews Discover the POLIN Museum's oral history collection: https://sztetl.org.pl/pl/historia-mow... Subscribe to our channel: / @historiamowionapolin Watch the POLIN Museum of the History of Polish Jews channels: POLIN (announcements and reports from events at the Museum): / mhzp2013 Virtual Shtetl (history and culture of Polish Jews): / virtualshtetl Polish Righteous (stories of help provided to Jews during the Holocaust): / polscysprawiedliwi Contact for the interview: [email protected] #PolinMuseum #SpokenHistory #marzec68