Who am I anyway?

The last board of the novel, in the published album - the largest drawing, surrounded by extensive text (prepared by Olga Wróbel on lettering cards).

Abraham Rotfarb as a child was fascinated by the world of Jewish holidays and traditions. I recall these memories with a completely different feeling than the vivid memories of my weekdays [...] I had a beautiful dream... Jewish one - he wrote about that period. Education opened my eyes, awakened me from this religious dream, from this wonderful eternal poetry of the nation - and it converted me to realism. The departure from the child's trusting religiosity raised questions about his identity: “I, a poor assimilated soul! I am a Jew - and I am a Pole, or rather I was a Jew, but evolutionarily, under the influence of the environment [...], under the influence of speech, culture and literature, I became a Pole too. I love Poland. Its speech, culture, and most importantly - its liberation and the heroism of the struggle for independence, tickles my heart, affection and enthusiasm. But I do not love Poland, which hates me for no reason! […] I attribute it to you, anti-Semites, my inferiority complex and the fact that I do not know who I am - a Jew or a Pole!”.

In his text sent to the Jewish Research Institute in Vilnius Rotfarb asks a rhetorical question in the poem Młodość [Youth]: Why wasn't I born | In the lion's den in the desert”. The poem ends with a reference to the urban reality of Jewish Warsaw: The labyrinth of streets is trapping my freedom | And the aimless moments and the enormity of torture | It poisons my blooming young life… ”.