My last name at birth was given as Engelbach, which was my mother’s maiden name—apparently because my parents were married within the synagogue but not at the time under Polish civil law.

Thus I was quite literally a mamzer until my parents legally wed a year later, as is notated in the record. At that time, I took on my father’s name of Epstein. You’ll read in a later chapter how my surname changed again, to Edelstein, in the aftermath of the war.