(1935-1938)

Adek Engel from Lublin, a student of agriculture at the Poznan University, was not in love with Fira. He was her true friend, although staying in the shadow of others. After finishing the third year of studying he gave up his education in Poznan and left. His mom died, so he may have come back to Lublin, or have moved to the Warsaw University as there are a few photographs of him and Fira taken in Warsaw at the beginning of 1939.

Before Engel left, Fira with her friends, Adek, Boria Szapiro, Lolek Gerner and her cousin Pola Melamedzon, called Policzka, went for a few walks around sunny, late spring city. Pola had been living in Poznan for almost a half a year then. She was helping in the Melamedzons’ shop since Fira’s father went to Palestine. Lolek Garner, a sixteen-year–old schoolmate of Jerzyk Dymant, a younger cousin-brother of Fira, often visited Fira begging her to agree to go with him for holidays to Zakopane. He said that his parents would let him go only if she accompanied him. Yet Fira hesitated.

We also place here Adek Engel’s documents found in the Archives of Agricultural University of Poznan, containing his personal  data and his handwritten „school” curriculum vitae.

The name of Adek Engel is placed on the list of Jews from Lublin and its surroundings, who were in the Majdan Tatarski ghetto of Lublin in September 1942. In November 1942 the Jews from this ghetto were brought to the Majdanek concentration camp and murdered. Information about Engel can be found at http://db.yadvashem.org/names/search.html?language=en, after entering his data.