Bogdan was Daniel

16 Sunday Aug 2015

Posted by Marysia Galbraith in Family, Israel, Kolski, Names, Warsaw

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A photo from my grandmother's papers of Mirka (Rachel's daughter), Rachel (Babcia's sister), Czesław Mochorowski, and Nelly. The boy who is standing is Bogdan, Rachel's grandson, the son of Samek and Nelly. I don't know who the man on the right or the boy at the very bottom are.

A photo from my grandmother’s papers of Mirka (Rachel’s daughter), Rachel (Babcia’s sister), Czesław Mochorowski, and Nelly. The boy who is standing is Danek, Rachel’s grandson, the son of Samek and Nelly. I don’t know who the man on the right or the boy at the very bottom are.

Following up on yesterday’s post, cousin Nelly Kolski Kampf who is the granddaughter and namesake of Nelly Kolska Mochorowska and daughter of the standing boy in the photo, wrote:

The child in the picture named Bogdan is my father. He was born as Danek Kolski and during the war his name was changed to Bogdan to help him to hide and when he came to Israel he changed his name again to Daniel (Danek) Kolski.

He was with my grandfather Samek my grandmother Nelly, Babcha Rachel and Mirka together in the Ghetto.

The name Bereda was mentioned by my father (who was a child during the war) that help them to escape from the Ghetto.

So Bogdan was Daniel; he was also Danek. Some cousins call him Dani.

Daniel/Bogdan/Danek/Dani Kolski c. 1949

Back of Danek's photo. The first word was corrected, but probably meant to be something like

Back of Danek’s photo. The first word was corrected, but probably was intended to be “Najkochańszej” which means “most beloved.” The printer stamp shows the photo was from Poland.

This is a photo of young Danek. Written in Polish on the back in a child’s hand is: “To my most beloved grandmother, Bogdan.” I can’t make out the word on the front though it clearly begins with a “D” and is in an adult’s hand. He was born in 1937, so he would have been around 7 when the war ended. Danek looks here like he is about the age of my almost-twelve-year-old son, so this was after the war–around 1949?

I asked Nelly (Kampf) if they used the term “Babcia” at home. She said yes; her parents spoke Polish to each other, so Danek’s grandmother Rachel was called “Babcia.”

Samek and Nelly (Służewska) Kolski’s wedding photo.

I met Nelly (the granddaughter of Samek and Nelly), her husband, and two younger children at Pini (another grandchild of Rachel’s) and Pnina’s house in Israel. I felt an immediate strong connection with her. She brought her father’s family album, as well as pages from a book about the Jewish history of Włocławek. I’ve been going through old photos and notes, but creating a narrative out of everything is taking too much time. Better to post this update now and get to the rest of the story in a later post.

Nelly and her husband Nir, February 2015

Cousins–my son Ian on the left and Nelly’s son Asaf on the right. I see a resemblance between Asaf and his grandfather Danek.

Babcia and her sister Rachel

16 Sunday Aug 2015

Posted by Marysia Galbraith in Bereda, Family, Kolski, Polish-Jewish relations, Post-World War II, Warsaw

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Halina Piwko Bereda, Nelly Kolska Mochorowska, Rachel Piwko Kolski

There was one silence that drowned out any mention of a relative very close to us– my grandmother’s sister Rachel.

I grew up knowing Babcia (the Polish term for grandmother) came from a large family, though on the rare occasions this was mentioned, it remained unclear how many siblings she had. The number of siblings was fluid, probably in part because even simple quantitative questions like this often have no absolute answer. It depends on temporal factors–who was living at a given time–and also on who was counted. As best I can tell, my great grandmother Hinda gave birth to twelve children; two died in infancy, leaving ten; one more committed suicide as a teenager and another died in her early twenties during childbirth, leaving eight; The older siblings died before I was born–one in the 1920s, two more in the 1940s, and another probably in the second half of the 1930s. This left four sisters, two who lived into the 1960s, one who died in the 1980s, and my grandmother who died in 1993. From oldest to youngest these four were Sarah, Hanna, Rachel, and my babcia Halina.

My mom told me about Sarah (though we called her Lusia), and I knew Hanna (whom we called Nunia) well, but I don’t recall any mention of Rachel. This is despite the fact that she was the sister closest in age to my grandmother. I’m sure that part of the reason for this silence was that it would have been difficult to talk about her without revealing she lived in Israel, and that would have further revealed she and the rest of Babcia’s family were Jewish. Another reason I never heard about her may well be because Rachel passed away when I was just five or six years old. Still, I was only a few months old when Sarah died and yet I did know about her.

I just don’t know; I can only guess why no one told me about Rachel.

When I first started to learn about Babcia’s family, I thought that maybe there wasn’t any contact between Halina and Rachel, but the more I find, the clearer it is that relations were not cut off between them. In fact, the secret of our Jewish heritage was hiding in plain sight. No one denied it. They just refrained from talking to my generation about it.

It’s likely Babcia never had much to do with her oldest siblings. Liba was 22 years older and married with two children of her own before Babcia was born; Jakob was 20 years older and Abraham/Jon was 17 years older. Abraham and Efraim/Philip (12 years her senior) moved to the United States when Babcia was just ten years old. Sarah, though two years older than Philip, stayed in Poland until the 1930s so Babcia probably knew her better. Still, Philip visited Poland regularly; he seems to have valued family and worked to maintain relationships. He sponsored a steady stream of relatives to the US, including eventually Babcia and my mother.

I have found some fragments—bits of information and partial vignettes—confirming Rachel and Halina were in regular contact, and even came to each other’s assistance during and after World War II. Some traces suggest, however, that these two sisters may not have always seen eye to eye.

I remember being told that “Papa” (what my mother and my grandmother called Zygmunt Bereda, my grandmother’s second husband) saved a number of Jews during the war. It seems possible Rachel was one of them. She spent some time in the Warsaw ghetto. After her husband Pinkas Kolski died in 1940, she escaped with her youngest child Mirka and spent the rest of the war on the Aryan side under false papers. Papa had both the connections and the money to arrange such things. Stanley, Sarah’s son, credits Bereda with saving Jews including family members. Aunt Pat (the wife of Bereda’s son and namesake) told me last month that when Mirka came to the US in the late 1960s, she went out of her way to find Uncle Sig to thank him because his father (namely Zygmunt Bereda) saved her and her mother. I wonder if anyone else in the family knows this story. Did Rachel and Mirka tell their descendants anything about this? That would have meant acknowledging they had Catholic relatives; was there a mirrored silence about that among my Jewish relatives?

Immediately after the war, fortunes reversed. Babcia and Papa’s properties were mostly destroyed and they lived for a time with Rachel and the Mochorowskis. The Mochorowskis’ connection to the family is interesting. Rachel’s son Samek was murdered by Nazis in 1942. His widow Kornelia (Nelly) remarried an engineer named Czesław Mochorowski. Babcia, Papa, and Maria (my mother) are listed as residing at two addresses in 1945 “u Mochorowskich” which means “at the Mochorowskis’ [home].” One was on Lwowska Street in the Mokotów district which was not bombed because it was where the occupying Germans had lived; the other was across the river in the Praga district that was not severely damaged, either.

What led me to discover that Babcia lived with Rachel after the war was the electronic database of Warsaw ghetto survivors. But why were the Beredas (Halina, Maria, and Zygmunt) in this database? As far as I know, they never lived in the ghetto, and Zygmunt was never a Jew. Further, I was under the impression that Babcia and Mama had hid their Jewish roots for years before the war, and especially vigilantly during the war. Why would they report themselves as Jews after the war ended?

It’s a good thing the Jewish Historical Institute (ŻIH) in Warsaw keeps the original records. Even though they don’t answer the basic question why my family was listed at all, the original documents contain additional information about them, information that was not recorded in the digitized database. The archivists at ŻIH also explained to me that immediately after the war ended, all surviving European Jews were asked to register, not just those who had been in the Warsaw ghetto. Over 58,000 names were collected in Poland.

Paper was hard to come by right after the war, so the registry cards from 1945 are written on the backs of old business records (accounting information and the like) cut into small rectangles. By 1946, printed “information cards” had spaces for specific data, including name, age, residence before and after the war, profession, and means of survival. I will say more about these cards in a future blog post. The key point here is that Halina, Maria, and Zygmunt Bereda were listed at the same addresses as Rachel Kolska and Nelly Kolska (later Mochorowska). In other words, although Babcia’s father declared her dead after she married a Catholic (Bereda), Babcia and her sister Rachel were on good enough terms in 1945 to share an apartment.

A photo from my grandmother’s papers of Mirka (Rachel’s daughter), Rachel (Babcia’s sister), Czesław Mochorowski, and Nelly. The boy who is standing is Bogdan, Rachel’s grandson, the son of Samek and Nelly. I don’t know who the man on the right or the boy at the very bottom are. This was probably taken in Warsaw right after the war ended.

I recently came across another document linking Babcia and Czesław Mochorowski. In a letter to George (Halina’s son and my mother’s brother), my grandmother included Mochorowski in a list of people he should visit on his trip to Poland. I don’t know the year this was written but There is no mention of visiting Nelly, so it was probably after her death in 1957. I believe George visited Poland in the early 1960s. Significantly, in the letter Babcia explained who Mochorowski was: “Samek was my sister’s son, he was murdered by the Germans and his wife, Nelly, married Czesław Mochorowski…but during/after the war/ we lived in the same apartment and he called me auntie and Papa uncle [she uses the diminutive form of uncle, wujaszek].”

While I was visiting Israel in February, a few of Rachel’s descendants told me an anecdote that may well point to ongoing correspondence between Halina and Rachel even after Rachel moved to Israel, but also some tensions. As the story goes, a sister of Rachel’s fell out of touch for three years after Rachel sent her a letter in which she had written on both sides of the paper. This was somehow offensive to the sister. The cousins said they weren’t sure which sister this was, but it definitely sounds like something Babcia might have done. She was the one who took pride in her gentility. Nunia, as far as I recall, was far less concerned with formality, and Sarah has been described to me as very sweet. Neither sounds like they would have taken offense over a point of etiquette.

But who knows? I can only assemble these fragments, and occasionally draw tentative lines between them. If Rachel was anything like my grandmother (and her descendants have indicated to me she was), she was a formidable individual with definite ideas about the world. It’s not hard to imagine that she and her sister, my grandmother, would have locked horns sometimes.

Island of remembrance: the Jewish cemetery in Piła

21 Tuesday Jul 2015

Posted by Marysia Galbraith in Cemeteries, Heritage work, Memory, Piła

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A fragment of the lecture I gave at the unveiling of the monument at the 17th century Jewish cemetery in Piła on June 2, 2015, translated into English:

Monument commemorating the Jewish cemetery in Piła

What can be communicated through objects, and often just fragments of objects? What value do the broken mementos of the past have? Material remains of history can seem more and more distant from us. Preoccupied with our daily concerns, we rarely think them. The fragment of the Jewish cemetery in Piła, destroyed during the war, reminds us of earlier times of prosperity and peaceful coexistence among the city’s residents; it simultaneously reminds us of events that even today inspire anguish and opposition. It is understandable why people might try to forget painful memories. It might seem easier to look toward the future instead of back at the past. But reality is not so simple. Something connects us to the past, especially to tragic memories. They function below the level of consciousness and influence us in spite of our desire to forget.

A monument like this one on the remaining fragment of the Jewish cemetery in Piła is an expression not only of respect for the people buried in this place, but also a tool for focusing attention on what used to be. That life will never return, but recognizing its passage can serve as a reminder and a warning. A monument can help us establish a connection with the past and also with the future. It is impossible to think of the future without also thinking about the past. A monument invites us to learn about the history of this city and its residents. It encourages us to reflect on what remains—a fragment of the cemetery wall and several preserved tombstones. We can also have a dialog with nature as we stand under the oldest trees that were witnesses of the history of this place. This island of remembrance helps us connect with our humanity; it makes Piła a more beautiful city and its contemporary citizens better people. Standing in the preserved fragment of the cemetery, we remember all of the former residents of Piła who, like us, had their worries and dreams. From these memories, hope for a better future can emerge.

It is worth getting to know and understand what came before us so that we can understand ourselves better. The way we treat the tangible and intangible fragments of the city’s past communicates to those we associate with everyday, and to those who watch us from afar, including those who seek their own identity and roots.

When we listen to what fragments of the past have to tell us, the past comes alive. Fragments speak to us regardless of whether we try to remember or forget them. Although memories can cause us pain, the absence of memory can also wound us. This can happen when we close ourselves from the past and we don’t want to understand it. That is why it is better to remember and to try to understand the past as well as its influence on us. That is the only way we can heal the trauma of the horrors that transformed this place and so many other places like it.

Marked by a monument, this space functions differently than it did without the monument. The monument fills, however incompletely, the void left behind by loss. Left empty, the void could be interpreted as indifference, disrespect, and even a sign of hatred. A monument inspires memory work and contemplation. The cemetery has been returned to the map of the city and to the consciousness of its residents. It is once again a place for focusing on the experience of loss, and simultaneously on respect for the phenomenon of life. We are not alone. We share common feelings. Memory brings us closer to each other, making us a community despite our differences.

This translation is a little different from the Polish text. Even translating my own writing, some things are easier to express in one language than the other.

The photo: some reassembled stories

10 Friday Jul 2015

Posted by Marysia Galbraith in Family, Names, Piwko, Polish-Jewish Heritage, Włocławek

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Abram Janas Piwko, Efraim/Philip Piwko, Halina Bereda/Haja Piwko, Hanna Cytryn, Hil Majer Piwko, Hinda Walfisz Piwko, Jakub Piwko, Liba Piwko Winawer, Natan Kolski, Rachel Piwko Kolski, Sarah Piwko Winawer

When I first saw this photo in the summer of 2011, I knew almost nothing— I didn’t know who was in it, nor even my grandmother’s maiden name. I figured the older couple was my grandmother’s parents. Were the others their children? Could one of them be my grandmother? And who was the boy in the front row?

My brother Chris and cousin Krysia almost immediately recognized the woman on the bottom left, as our grandmother. With her coquettishly tilted head, her stylish clothes, and her hand resting on her mother’s wrist, it seemed likely to me, too. But I wanted to be sure.

This photo has proven to be an essential clue in my search for family history. Many of the cousins I have met are familiar with the photo and helped me identify everyone in it. In fact, it has helped me establish connections with cousins, and served as proof that we are actually related. When I contacted Pini in Israel, he was skeptical at first that we were cousins. But when I sent him this photo, he responded, “Welcome back to the family.” And he meant it. I feel embraced by the large clan of descendants of my great grandparents, the elderly couple in the photo whom I now know are Hinda (nee Walfisz) and Hil Majer Piwko.

Hil Majer Piwko

Hinda Piwko

And it is indeed my grandmother Halina in the bottom left corner.

Halka Piwko, my grandmother

This photo has led me to living relatives, and back to the time depicted in the image. It helps me see and feel what family life was like back then, and adds depth to my understanding of the dry genealogical facts I have gathered.

Even my uncle Stanley Winawar has spoken to me from the grave in the form of a letter he wrote to Pini in 2002 (just two years before his death) in which he identifies everyone in this photo, and lists many of their descendants as well. One of my regrets is not having started this search sooner so I could have talked with Stanley and others before they died. At least through the letters, I’ve had a taste of the conversations we might have had.

So let me introduce my family:

Sarah Winawer

Starting at the top left, most people identify the elegantly dressed woman as Sara (Piwko) Winawer, Uncle Stanley’s mother. Born in 1880, she was the second daughter of my great grandparents. On a list compiled by my Aunt Pat (probably based on a conversation with my grandmother’s sister Hanna/Nunia), she is described as having “beautiful hair.” She married Saul Winawer in 1899, and they had four children (Nathan, Milton, Stanley, and Paulina). My mom stayed in touch with her aunt Sara in the United States, though she was known in my family as Lusia (apparently no one besides our branch of the family called her that). She died in 1964 when I was 6 months old. She was too sick to visit me, but told my Mom on the phone that she would watch over me from heaven. I only heard this story once or twice when I was a child, but it left an impression on me. I liked the idea of having a guardian angel of sorts. Who knows? Maybe it foreshadowed this search for deeper connections with my mother’s extended family.

Jakub Piwko

Next in the top row is Jakub, the oldest son born around 1874. Aunt Pat says he had four wives, including Helen Esther Kirsten, Genia Ellinberg, and Rozalia Kirsten. She (Nunia?) describes him as blond, delicate, of medium height, resembling his maternal grandfather Natan Walfisz. He was a Zionist and member of the governing board of the Jewish Community of Włocławek from December 1917 until resigning on March 3, 1922. He was also a representative on the City Council from 1917-19 (see virtual sztetl). Jakub died in 1942; by one cousin’s account he owned a small hotel in Otwock and was shot by Nazis for being out on the street after curfew. He had a son Natan who emigrated to Israel and a daughter, Pola.

In a letter to Pini, Stanley (Sara’s son) wrote, “The space missing between Jacob and Liba was obviously reserved for Yona…” Abraham/Abram, the second-born son, was called by his middle name John/Yona/Janas. Born around 1876, Pat (Nunia?) describes him “devil eyes, tall, brunette, liked girls and girls liked him, 6’ 2”-6’ 4”.” He was the first in the family to come to the United States, arriving in New York in January 1906. His wife Bertha/Blima (they married in 1901) followed in May 1907 with their children Nathan, Paula/Pauline, and Ewa. A fourth child, Sarah, was born in New York. Abraham owned a bakery in Brooklyn until his death in 1925.

Liba Winawer

In the middle of the top row is the oldest child Liba, born around 1872. Aunt Pat’s list (Nunia’s description?) says she was tall, blond, and beautiful. At the age of 17 or 18 she married Jakob/Jankiel Winawer. I don’t know how he was related to Saul Winawer (Sarah’s husband), but some say they were cousins. Liba and Jakob had four sons—Nusen, Sol/Saloman, Max, and Morris. In 1928, Liba and Jakob came to the US, where their three younger sons were living. Jakob died there in 1932, but I haven’t found a record of Liba’s death. Did she die in the US? If so, why isn’t it documented? Could she have returned to Poland, where her oldest son still lived? Could she have died in the death camp at Treblinka in 1942, as some say Natan did?

Hanna Cytryn

Next to Liba is Hanna (born around 1886), though everyone in the family called her Nunia. I’ve already written about her, but briefly, she married Stanisław/Samson Cytryn and had one daughter, Teresa. She and Samson lived in Warsaw where they ran a shop that has variously been described as a pharmacy or a supplier of lotions and toiletries. Maybe she was an herbalist and so offered products that crossed the boundary between health and beauty? She took over the shop after her husband’s death in 1927. Nunia spent World War II in Warsaw under the false identity of Maria Weglinska (the name she kept until her death in 1984) After the war, she lived in Paris, and then in 1951 she moved to the US.

Philip Piwko

Next is Philip/Efraim, described by Pat (Nunia?) as “six foot, blond, pock marked, shy, sweet.” Born around 1882, he came to the US a couple of years after his brother, at the end of 1907. He, too, owned a bakery though I don’t know if it was the same one as his brother or a different one. Philip married Goldie. They never had any children of their own, but they took care of siblings, nieces, and nephews as they immigrated to the US. Many of the cousins remember him as the glue that held the family together in the US. Philip died tragically in an auto accident in 1947 on his way home from Boston.

Rachel Kolska

At the far right of the top row is Rachel, who was born around 1890 between Hanna and Halina (my grandmother). Pat (Nunia?) describes her as shorter than her sisters, with thick thick hair. She married Pinkus/Pinchas Kolski, the widow of her older sister Regina who died giving birth to a son, Natan. Rachel raised Natan, and had four more children with Pinkus—Samek, Abram, Naftali/Maniek, and Mirka. They settled in Włocławek, where they had a store right in the center of town. After the war broke out, Rachel, Pinkus, and Mirka (who was just a teenager—she was ten years younger than her youngest brother) were moved to the ghetto in Warsaw. Pinkus, who was in ill health, died there in 1940, and Rachel and Mirka escaped and lived on the Aryan side under false papers. After the war ended, they joined Natan, Abram, and Maniek who were living in Israel. Rachel died in 1969.

Natan Kolski

On the bottom left, as I have already said, is my grandmother Haja/Halina, born in 1894. Seated beside her is her mother, Hinda (Walfisz) Piwko, while her father Hil Majer Piwko is on the far right. The young boy is Natan, the son of Regina and Pinkus Kolski. Perhaps he was there in his mother’s place, just like a gap was left for Abraham/John? Natan is said to have spent a lot of time with his grandparents. His position between them suggests they were very fond of each other. And I almost forgot one more member of the family—the dog under the couch behind Natan’s feet. Could this have been Natan’s dog? Another sign of the favor of his grandparents? I don’t know but I like to think of it that way.

So that’s my grandmother’s family, excluding only Małka who died as a teenager and two other siblings who died as infants.

Considering Natan was born in October 1905, I would guess this photo was taken near the end of the 1910s, maybe in 1919. Natan looks like he’s about 12, like my son is now, or maybe a little older. It seems unlikely the photo would have been taken during World War I, especially because of Philip’s presence. Philip was living in the US already (he is listed in both the 1910 and 1920 US census) and I don’t think he would have made the journey during the war. I don’t know enough about the history of fashion to be sure, but Halina’s dress seems scandalously short for the period, and even Rachel’s hemline is a few inches above her ankles. Still, I read that hemlines started to rise in Europe in 1915. I wonder, as well, whether Hanna’s comparatively simple dress was because she was less well off than her sisters, or perhaps was rather due to a more practical nature (which fits with how I remember her).

The photo is a window into the past. In it, I see a large, affluent, close family, but one in which social and cultural divisions were growing through the generations. While father Hil’s thick beard, black cap and long coat were characteristic of a conservative, religious Jew, his older son (the Zionist) had a shorter, more trimmed beard, and his younger son, by now an American citizen, sported only a moustache. The twenty-two-year gap between Liba, the oldest sibling, and Halina, the youngest, also seems apparent in the way they carried themselves and dressed.

I’ve learned a lot since I pulled this photo out of the envelope my grandmother had marked “Do Not Open.” And yet it all remains fragmentary. Most of the richer details are tentative, based on stories I try to piece together into something more substantial. But the fragments stand stubbornly apart from each other, and sometimes even in opposition to each other. Did Rachel accept her sister’s son Natan as one of her own, or did he spend much of his time with his grandparents? Perhaps it was both, since Hinda and Hil also lived in Włocławek later in life. Why does Liba seem to be retreating into the background? Is it just an accident of the lighting or a reflection of her character? Why was my grandmother holding her mother’s hand like that? Was it a sign of affection or perhaps an assertion of autonomy? The more I sit with this photo, the stronger I feel a connection with these people. And still, how distant they remain from me.

Americans in Lesko: Project Preservation

04 Saturday Jul 2015

Posted by Marysia Galbraith in Cemeteries, Heritage work, Lesko

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Dartmouth College, Project Preservation, Rabbi Edward Boraz

Sometimes things just fall into place better than could been planned. I got in touch with Arkadiusz Komski to discuss Jewish heritage work in Sanok. We met at the Słotki Domek Café in Lesko. In addition to being a wealth of knowledge about the history of Jews in the Sanok region, Arek told me that Rabbi Edward Boraz was scheduled to come with a group of Dartmouth students to clean up and inventory the Jewish cemetery in Lesko. I knew I needed to stay an extra day to meet them, and I’m glad I did.

Boraz has been at Dartmouth since 1998. As town rabbi, head of the campus Hillel, and professor in the medical school, he wears many hats. Also, for the past fifteen years, he has led a summer trip to a different town in Eastern Europe to clean up a Jewish cemetery (called Project Preservation). Students receive no academic credit for participating. Before the trip, they attend ten weekly seminars, and read and discuss a range of relevant literature. This year, they focused on the intellectual foundations for the Holocaust, and how science and medicine were used as tools to develop the techniques for mass murder.

The group spent about a week in Poland. They flew into Krakow, visited Auschwitz, the synagogue in Łańcut, and the death camp at Bełżec (where many Jews from the Lesko region were taken). Then they came to Lesko. They were scheduled to work about four days at the cemetery, with a day off for Shabbat. They also held a short Shabbat ceremony in the Lesko synagogue building.

When I met Boraz the night he arrived, I spoke more than I should have. He asks good questions, and is a good listener. He explained that he likes to hear peoples’ stories. Still, as an ethnographer, usually I’m the one who asks the questions and listens to peoples’ stories.

Ewa Bryła speaks with Marek Duszyński of MojeLesko.pl

Ewa Bryła, of the Carpathian Minority Heritage Association, speaks with Marek Duszyński of MojeLesko.pl

Rabbi Boraz says thanks to the help of Arek Komski, Ewa Bryła, and her brother Piotr, this is the fifth time he has returned to southeast Poland. They help coordinate all the logistics, bring equipment and people to help cut the grass, act as translators, and provide information about the region.

Meeting with Rabbi Boraz and his students seems like a fitting bookend to my year in Poland. When I arrived in Poland last August, I just missed them. In Lutowiska, I walked up the new steps they had built and through the gate they had mounted at the cemetery entrance. I followed in their footsteps along the paths through the cemetery and looked at the tombstones they had cleaned.

This year in Lesko, I chatted with the students before they began work and asked them what motivated them to sign up for the trip. About half were raised in Jewish households, some more reformed and some more conservative, while the rest were from a variety of backgrounds. Some grew up in neighborhoods with a lot of Jews, others with almost none. They had various levels of familiarity with the history of European Jews and the Holocaust. Some were interested in the project because they knew Holocaust survivors or because their own distant ancestors came from this part of the world. Others focused on the service component of the trip; they wanted to contribute to the preservation of Jewish culture. Still others expressed an interest in history.

The students were impressed by the age and charm of Krakow, although they weren’t so sure about some Polish food practices. It struck some as odd that normal life goes on in the Polish city of Oświęcim right next to the death camp of Auschwitz. They found the tour of the death camp was unsettling, though one student said reading about Holocaust history had a greater personal impact.

Start

The students got started in the area of the cemetery with the densest concentration of tombstones. One began numbering the stones with chalk,

Deciphering inscriptions

some set about photographing, transcribing, and translating inscriptions, others used soft brushes and water to gently clean the stones’ surfaces. They had to be especially careful because most are of a soft sandstone which is prone to fracturing and wearing away. Many are covered with moss that provides a degree of protection but can also obscure the inscriptions. An additional complication is that some varieties of moss are endangered and protected, and thus not to be disturbed.

The Americans were joined by Poles—a woman who moved to the area from Warsaw with her two teenage daughters and another teenage girl. Some more local residents joined the group in the Lesko synagogue for the Shabbat service Friday afternoon (see mojelesko).

Local residents help clean the tombstones in Lesko

The Jewish cemetery in Lesko is the oldest and largest in the region. The earliest tombstone dates from 1548, and over 2000 stones remain on the site. It was one of the first places I was taken by a couple of local teens who showed me around town when I moved there in 1992. Nevertheless, the cemetery was talked about as a place to hang out with friends away from the scrutiny of adults. Little was known about the former Jewish population, and even less was discussed in public. I hope this is changing, even though (or perhaps because?) few witnesses remain of the prewar community and the removal and murder of Jews.

Grassroots heritage work in Bieszczady

21 Sunday Jun 2015

Posted by Marysia Galbraith in Cemeteries, Dukla, Heritage work, Lesko, Nazi Camps, Polish-Jewish relations, Pre-World War II, Sanok, Synagogues, World War II, Zasław

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Bieszczady, Jewish culture and history

There is a pattern in the frequency (or rareness) of my posts. When I’m focused on other writing projects, I also write more for the blog. When I’m traveling, interviewing, and attending events, I write less. This month I’ve been traveling.

It seemed important to bring my new research focus to my old fieldsite, and see what is happening in relation to Jewish culture and history in the Bieszczady Mountain region.

The Lesko synagogue. Destroyed in World War II, it was rebuilt in the 1960s.

I’ve written elsewhere about how striking it is that, despite the fact that before World War II more Jews lived in Lesko than Poles, only very rarely have contemporary residents volunteered any information about the former Jewish residents. Even though I walked by the former synagogue (bigger than the Catholic Church) and the massive Jewish cemetery countless times, it really only sunk in to me last November that Lesko was a sztetl. One of my friends in Lesko described it really clearly. She said that somehow she always knew that the Jewish history of the town was something that you don’t talk about. It was a taboo topic. This has only recently started to change. Only in the past few years has she noticed that people talk about Jewish culture and history openly. She thinks this is a good thing. Realizing how little she knows about the subject, she has started to educate herself about prewar Jewish life and the Holocaust in Bieszczady.

Interior of the Lesko Synagogue. Now owned by the town, it functions as a gallery of regional art.

Generally, I have found that when I ask, most people have a story or two to tell about Jews in Bieszczady, either something they have read or a some fragmentary memory their grandmother told them. Though also when I told one friend about my interest in Jewish culture and history, she responded, “There were Jews in Bieszczady?” Even though she went to high school in Lesko, she only vaguely remembered the Jewish cemetery and had no recollection of the synagogue. Whether she really didn’t know or just continues to think this is a topic that polite people don’t talk about, I’m not sure.

Nevertheless, some important grass roots work is being done: by Arkadiusz (Arek) Komski in Sanok, Ewa Bryła and her brother Piotr in Zagórz, and Jacek Koszczan in Dukla. Arek is working on a dissertation about the Jews of Sanok. We met at the Słotki Domek Cafe in Lesko after he finished work, and then the next day he showed me the places associated with Jewish life in Sanok.

One of the former synagogues in Sanok

Commemorative marker, Sanok

His interest in the topic originated with a curiosity about history, and particularly the history of his hometown. He has published articles about the Nazi work camp in neighboring Zasław and about the locks that were found at the Jewish cemetery. Last year, he realized a project to place a commemorative marker across the street from the former site of the great synagogue.

Arek also let me know that he was awaiting the arrival of a group of students from Dartmouth College, led by Rabbi Edward Boraz, who were going to clean up and inventory the tombstones in the Jewish cemetery in Lesko (see Project Preservation). He has helped them already, first when they came to the cemetery in Sanok, then to Ustrzyki Dolne, Korczyna, and last year to Lutowiska.

Through Arek, I met Ewa, who helped found the Stowarzyszenie Dziedzictwo Mniejszości Karpackich (Association for the Heritage of Carpathian Minorities). Arek joked that for Ewa, working on heritage preservation is a full time hobby. Her interest emerged out of her own Bojko/Ukrainian roots; her parents and grandparents spoke Ukrainian among themselves, though they only spoke Polish with her and her brother. To date, the association has helped clean up as many as thirty Uniate (Ukrainian) and Jewish cemeteries in the region.

Information about the prison camp and murder of Bieszczady Jews in Zasław, near Zagórz

Another of the association’s projects is a heritage trail and information sign at the site of the Nazi work camp in Zasław. This is where most Jews from Lesko and neighboring communities were taken and forced to work at a neighboring factory. Approximately 10,000 prisoners were shot on the site, while perhaps 5,000 were sent to extermination camps at Belżec and Sobibor.

Monument at the site of mass murders in Zasław, near Zagórz

I stopped by Dukla on my way back to Krakow, and despite the rain Jacek and Ania, who works at the local tourist office, showed me around. Jacek had already started collecting Judaica around the time of his retirement from the border patrol. An infectiously upbeat and energetic man, he needed something to occupy himself and so decided to get to work protecting and publicizing the sites associated with Dukla’s prewar Jewish population. He told me that the town was as much as 80% Jewish. We walked by the former Jewish school, where boys learned various trades. It is across the street from the old government building; Jacek says that the associate mayor used to be selected from among the Jewish population. Similarly, most of the stone buildings around the market square (rynek) were owned by Jews. Jacek told me the fate of the last rabbi who hid under his rynek home, but then was caught and killed by the Nazis when he tried to escape to Krosno.

Writing still visible on the wall of the ruined synagogue in Dukla

Ruin of the 18th century synagogue in Dukla

Former synagogue, now a grocery store in Dukla

Two synagogues stood side by side. The one dating from the 18^th century was burned by the Nazis with Jewish residents inside. The neighboring mykwa was also destroyed. Jacek would like to see the remains of this synagogue conserved. All it would take is reinforcing the window arches and putting in a platform on the inside for viewers to walk on; right now a chain link fence surrounds the site. The other synagogue, dating from the late 19^th century, is now a grocery store. Dukla also has two Jewish cemeteries, the older one with burials up to World War I, and the newer one beside it used during the interwar period. Jacek mows them himself.

Jacek also coordinated the construction of a monument near the entrance of the old cemetery recognizing the 70^th anniversary of the murder of Dukla’s Jewish population. Funders include the Foundation for the Preservation of Jewish Heritage (FODŻ) and descendants of former Jewish residents. While there have been many contributors to these various projects, Jacek is clearly the energy behind them, insuring that they are realized, and doing much of the physical labor himself.

Jacek reading a tombstone in the new Jewish cemetery, Dukla

Remembering the murder of Dukla’s Jews

In each of these cases, someone (or several people) from the local community has taken the initiative to insure that Jewish culture and history is brought back into the public landscape. They are not Jewish themselves, but something compels them to remember, and to teach others about the former residents of their towns.

Commemorative monument in Piła

01 Monday Jun 2015

Posted by Marysia Galbraith in Cemeteries, Heritage work, Piła

≈ 2 Comments

The unveiling of the monument at the 17th century Jewish cemetery in Piła will be tomorrow (June 2) at 10 AM. The monument is on the grounds of the Police Academy, who funded the project together with the Piła City Council.

Cemetery monument in Piła, designed by Janusz Marciniak

Poznan artist Janusz Marciniak designed the monument. He explains (and this comes from Samuel Gruber’s blog which includes a good description of the project):

“I tried to make the monument simple and minimalist in form, and at the same time full of content. The granite’s color is reminiscent of human ashes. The disc was mounted on a steel frame to create the impression that the star floats above the ground. The monument is an open book, which invites you to read. The top of the star was slightly raised – according to tradition – facing east (towards Jerusalem). On its smooth surface, like a mirror, is reflected the sky and trees. Under the star is a concrete replica of its shadow. This is the basis of the monument and at the same time symbolic seal the memory of the people buried in this place and to emphasize the permanence of this memory.”

The inscription reads in Polish, Hebrew, and English:

You are standing in a 17th century Jewish cemetery destroyed by the German Nazis during World War II

The dust returns to the earth from which it came and the spirit returns to God who gave it, Eccl. 12:7

As we remember, thus we shall be remembered

The monument was funded by the Piła commune and the Police School in Piła.

More in Polish about the monument is posted on the Police Academy website.

Wyspa pamięci

28 Thursday May 2015

Posted by Marysia Galbraith in Cemeteries, Heritage work, Memory, Piła

≈ 1 Comment

Here is an essay I prepared for the unveiling of a monument commemorating the 17th century jewish cemetery in Piła. It is part of a lecture I will give at the ceremony. Special thanks to Janusz Marciniak for his expert editing.

Monument to Piła Jews who died in World War I. Archival photo. http://www.kirkuty.xip.pl/pila.htm

Co mówią przedmioty, a częściej już tylko fragmenty przedmiotów – okaleczone pamiątki z przeszłości? Jaką wartość mają resztki dawnego świata, materialne okruchy historii, która wydaje się nam coraz bardziej odległa i o której nie myślimy zbyt często z powodu naszych współczesnych trosk? Fragment zniszczonego w czasie wojny cmentarza żydowskiego przypomina nam o czasach pomyślności i harmonijnej koegzystencji mieszkańców Piły i jednocześnie o wydarzeniach, które jeszcze dziś budzą w nas trwogę i sprzeciw. Niepamięć można zrozumieć, bo pamięć bywa bolesna. Łatwiej patrzeć w przyszłość niż w przeszłość. Jednak rzeczywistość nie jest taka prosta. Coś nas łączy z przeszłością, szczególnie z tą tragiczną. Pamięć o niej działa w naszej podświadomości i ma na nas wpływ niezależnie od naszej woli.

One of the few traces remaining today–a fragment of the wall surrounding the Jewish Cemetery wall, Piła

Pomnik, taki jak ten na ocalonym fragmencie cmentarza żydowskiego w Pile, jest nie tylko wyrazem szacunku dla ludzi pochowanych w tym miejscu, lecz także narzędziem skupiania uwagi na tym, co było kiedyś i co już nie wróci, ale co teraz może służyć jako memento, ostrzeżenie, upomnienie i przestroga. Pomnik może nam pomagać w zachowaniu więzi z przeszłością i także z przyszłością. Nie można myśleć o przyszłości bez myślenia o przeszłości. Pomnik zachęca do poznania historii miasta i jego mieszkańców. Skłania do reflekcji nad fragmentem cmentarnego muru i kilkoma ocalonymi macewami. Prowadzi dialog z tym wszystkim, co pozostało z cmentarza. Także dialog z naturą, a zwłaszcza z najstarszymi drzewami, które są świadkami historii tego miejsca. Pomnik łączy ocalone fragmenty w większą całość i tworzy z nimi wyspę pamięci w centrum miasta. Ta wyspa pamięci uzmysławia nam stan naszej ludzkiej wrażliwości i czyni Piłę piękniejszym miastem, a jej dzisiejszych mieszkańców lepszymi ludźmi. Stojąc na zachowanym fragmencie cmentarza, wspominamy wszystkich mieszkańców dawnej Piły, którzy – tak jak my – mieli swoje troski i marzenia. Pamięć o nich może być źródłem dobra i nadziei.

Foundation of the monument, December 2014

Warto poznać i zrozumieć to, co było przed nami, żeby lepiej zrozumieć siebie. Sposób traktowania materialnych i niematerialnych fragmentów przeszłości miasta ma znaczenie dla tych, którzy obcują z nimi na co dzień, i dla tych, którzy patrzą na nie z daleka. Ważną grupą zainteresowanych przeszłością są ci, którzy szukają swojej tożsamości i korzeni.

Postcard with the synagogue on the left. Piła was in the Prussian partition of Poland, and was also known as Schneidemühl.

Book with photo of the synagogue on the cover held to show the approximate location of the synagogue until it was destroyed in the Kristallnacht in 1938.

Book (History of the Jewish Community of Schneidemuhl– 1641 to the Holocaust by Peter Simonstein Cullman) with photo of the synagogue on the cover held to show the approximate location of the synagogue until it was destroyed in the Kristallnacht in 1938.

Kiedy słuchamy tego, co mówią do nas fragmenty przeszłości, to przeszłość ożywa. Fragmenty mówią do nas niezależnie od tego czy staramy się zapomnieć, czy pamiętać o niej. Czasami cudza niepamięć nas rani i zdarza się, że własna pamięć sprawia nam ból. Jest tak, kiedy zamykamy się przed przeszłością i nie chcemy jej zrozumieć. Dlatego lepiej pamiętać i starać się zrozumieć przeszłość oraz jej wpływ na nas. Tylko tak można leczyć traumę.

Inaczej wygląda i działa miejsce z pomnikiem niż bez pomnika. Pomnik wypełnia pustkę po stracie. Pustka może być interpretowana jako obojętność, brak szacunku, a nawet znak nienawiści. Pomnik zaś inspiruje do pracy pamięci i kontemplacji. Cmentarz wrócił na mapę miasta i do świadomości jego mieszkańców. Jest znowu miejscem skupienia i przeżywania straty, a równocześnie szacunku dla fenomenu życia. Nie jesteśmy sami. Odczuwamy znaczenie pamięci podobnie. Pamięć nas zbliża. Dzięki niej stanowimy wspólnotę, chociaż jesteśmy różni. Pamięć sprawia, że różnice nas nie dzielą, lecz łączą. Pamięć staje się podstawą nowych więzi społecznych.

I will post a photo of the completed monument after the unveiling on Tuesday, June 2.

Difficult memories

10 Sunday May 2015

Posted by Marysia Galbraith in Archives, Memory, Poland, World War II

≈ 4 Comments

I spent two days at the archive of the Institute of National Memory, reading reports about crimes committed during World War II. Witnesses filled out these forms in the late 1960s and early 1970s, so they were recalling events that occurred thirty years earlier. Different forms were used to document different offenses: repression of the Jewish population before the creation of the ghettos, persecution and extermination of intelligentsia, repression of the Gypsy people, roundups, arrests, prison and arrest, executions, resettlement, ghettos, camps, looting and destroying cultural goods, and help given by Poles to exterminated and persecuted Polish citizens of Jewish descent and other nationalities as well as citizens of other countries. These categories overlap, so sometimes forced labor is reported on the “resettlement” form, while in other cases the “camp” form is used. There are thousands of pages of these testimonies in the archive. I have only requested the ones from towns I have visited: places like Ustrzyki Dolne and Lesko, Żychlin and Kutno.

This is hard material to take in more than small doses. Page after page outlines the dehumanizing conditions Polish citizens were subjected to. The forms illustrate a certain asymmetry of experience. The ultimate fate of most Jews was death, as described on the forms for repression, execution, and ghettos. Most Jews were murdered because they were Jews. There is also an asymmetry of memory: those murders tend to be documented in large, even numbers—4,000, 6,000, 20,000 Jews passed through the Kutno ghetto on their way to the death camps.

Some records are more specific, including the names of 181 Jews who were taken to the Jewish cemetery in Żychlin on March 2, 1942, the day before the liquidation of the ghetto. Then they were shot and buried in shallow mass graves. The names of the five officers who shot them are also listed. Among the victims, #22 is Lajb Białak, age 38, trader; #59 is Hersz Klinger, age 39, shoemaker; #88-92 are Abram (48), Iojne (44), Rywen (16), Sura (14), and Bajla (12) Borensztajn. They may well have been a family. #159, Estera Rajch (62), trader, has the same last name as my great great grandmother, Liba Rajch who was born in 1829 in nearby Kutno.

In Ustrzyki Dolne, several witnesses report the shooting of 100 Jews rounded up from nearby villages and shot by a single SS officer. Only two Jews survived. Szternbach was a dentist who changed his name to Edward Stańkowski and moved to Szczecin, a city at the other corner of Poland. The other, named Szrecher (did they mean Szprecher?), moved to the United States.

More Poles survived and are named in these records, but the accounts also attest to the inhuman treatment to which they were subjected. Reading page after page of testimony gives me a visceral understanding why it would have been so hard for most to offer help to Jews. It doesn’t justify deliberate acts of prejudice and hatred, but it does help to explain what likely prevented more direct assistance. Poles were ordered to leave their homes with hardly any notice, then moved to poorer quarters on other streets or in different towns. Most of their property was taken from them. All they were allowed to bring with them was a pair of underwear, or a spoon and bowl. The luckier ones were told to pack a few days food or a change of clothes and some bedding. Thousands were transported to forced labor throughout the Third Reich. So many were put to work digging ditches. The pages of testimony don’t specify why but I can only imagine that these were in many cases death pits for murdered Jews. Others worked in gardens, factories, or on railroad tracks.

Poles were usually arrested for specific activities: illegal sale of food, making vodka, killing a pig, taking two ration cards, crossing borders, or avoiding work. Most often these offenses resulted in imprisonment or forced labor but sentences were unpredictable. Jan Tobolczyk, “a teacher and a good Pole,” was beaten for not admitting to being a witness of a Pole beating a German. He was sent to Dachau where he was killed. Poles were imprisoned, hanged, or shot for offenses like conspiracy, hiding arms, hiding people, or sabotage. Those caught hiding Jews were killed. Many of those documented on the “persecution and extermination of intelligentsia” form were arrested simply because they were priests; many were sent to Dachau where they were gassed, though some survived imprisonment.

Three railroad workers, Piotr Sand, Kolikst Perkowski, and Wilhelm Czarnewski, were hung in the Old Market Square in Kutno for transporting food to Warsaw. One witness said they were engaged in “illegal trade,” another said they were “transporting food for soldiers.” This happened on July 12, 1940, or perhaps at the end of May 1941. Many witnesses reported this incident. One explained that residents were forced to come at a designated time to watch the execution. The bodies hung all day, guarded by Germans. They were taken down at night and moved to an unknown location.

The accumulation of cases brings home how little Poles’ lives mattered to the occupier, and how easily and unpredictably they were imprisoned, relocated, or killed. These accounts document the inaccuracy, or at least the incompleteness of the claim that most Poles just stood by while the Holocaust happened. Many were preoccupied with the struggle for their own survival. And years later, many felt compelled to leave a public record of what they witnessed.

What happened to Tumska Street?

18 Saturday Apr 2015

Posted by Marysia Galbraith in Polish-Jewish Heritage, Post-World War II, Włocławek

≈ 1 Comment

My great grandparents lived the last years of their lives in Włocławek, a city on the Vistula downriver from Warsaw. I don’t know exactly when or why they moved there, but it was a city that experienced rapid industrialization and growth in the early 20^th century. During this time the Jewish population grew to about 20% of the city’s residents. Tomasz Kawski, a professor in the nearby city of Bydgoszcz, has posted an extensive history of Włocławek’s Jews on virtual sztetl. He also showed me around the city in February.

Historically, Jews concentrated around ten streets in the center of town, including Tumska Street which runs from the Old Rynek to the cathedral.[1] This is where Pinkus Kolski and his wife Rachel (my grandfather’s sister) lived and had their store. It was one of the central shopping streets in the city.

When I visited Pini in Israel (he, too is Pinchas like his grandfather, though he has changed his last name to Doron) he and his wife Pnina told me about visiting Włocławek in the 1990s. Here is a photo of Pnina, her mother, and daughter in front of 15 Tumska Street where Pini’s grandparents lived.

My cousins in front of Pinkus and Rachel Kolski’s house on Tumska Street, Włocławek

And this is what Tumska Street looked like the week after I returned from Israel.

Tumska Street is in total decay. Some of the abandoned storefronts have prewar wood paneling that hints at the street’s former glory.

Other houses have collapsed into a pile of rubble. Number 15 is gone completely.

A wall stands where 15 Tumska Street used to be. The cathedral is in the background.

I asked a few people why this neighborhood is in such disrepair. I was told the whole city is struggling economically due to the closing of many industries since the fall of communism. About 20% of residents are unemployed. Even before then, residents were moving out of the center and into newer homes and apartments in the outskirts of the city. Also, most of the former Jewish properties were nationalized under communism. In recent years, laws have changed to allow former owners to reclaim their properties, so buildings whose ownership is uncertain or under dispute have been left alone. No one wants to invest in them and risk that someone with a valid claim over them might appear and take possession of them. In fact, communal, city-owned properties nearby are better cared for than those on Tumska Street.

[1] On Virtual Sztetl, Kawski writes, “Ten streets were inhabited by over 88% of the Włocławek Jews (Żabia Street – 6.5%, Kaliska St. – 7.5%, Piekarska St. – 10.1%, Tumska St. – 5.3%, Kościuszki St. – 4.3%, Plac Dąbrowskiego – 6.1%, 3 Maja St. – 26.3%, Łęgska St. – 6.4%, Cygancka St. – 8.4%, Królewiecka St. – 7.5%).”

Uncovering Jewish Heritage

Category Archives: Poland

Bogdan was Daniel

Babcia and her sister Rachel

Island of remembrance: the Jewish cemetery in Piła

The photo: some reassembled stories

Americans in Lesko: Project Preservation

Grassroots heritage work in Bieszczady

Commemorative monument in Piła

Wyspa pamięci

Difficult memories

What happened to Tumska Street?