Michael Fryd was born in 1936 in Wolomin, a small town in Poland near Warsaw. Nazi expansionism was starting, and it was a difficult time for Polish Jews. In Wolomin, Jewish families faced vandalism and attacks that sometimes rose to the level of “mini pogroms.”
When the Nazis occupied Poland, Michael’s family was forced to move to a Jewish ghetto. Michael’s father, Saul Fryd, was a shopkeeper by trade. In the ghetto, he was unable to rebuild his business.
All that people bought was food, and he had no access to other goods, even if people wanted to buy them. It was through the persistence and ingenuity of Micheal’s mother, Evelyn, that the family survived.
