Category Archives: Survival

Krośniewice Brings Back Jewish Memory

20 Thursday Oct 2022

Posted by in Association of Descendants of Jewish Central Poland, Cemeteries, Commemoration, Heritage work, Krośniewice, Polish-Jewish Heritage, Polish-Jewish relations, Survival, Synagogues

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Report #4 about Roberta Books and Marysia Galbraith’s trip to meet Polish partners in preparation for the ADJCP‘s memorial visit to central Poland. Reports include contributions by Roberta.

Krośniewice Mayor Katarzyna Erdman, Sławomir Mikołajczyk, and his son Adam Mikołajczyk stood on the side of the main road from Kutno, sheltered from the rain under two umbrellas. Sławomir, a member of the Krośniewice branch of the Friends of Kutno (TPŻK), works at the city museum, while Adam a City Hall employee, shares his father’s passion for local history. They waited for Roberta, Yosef, and me in the rain so they could start our tour of Jewish sites at a memorial stone engraved with the statement:

People today should bring back the memory of those who are no more

At the 70th Anniversary of the liquidation of the ghetto III X 1942

The Krośniewice Community

2012 (my translation from Polish)

Monument commemorating the Krośniewice Jewish community. Behind the chain-link fence is the synagogue, transformed into a funeral home

They pointed out that the building next to us was the synagogue. For years it served as a movie theatre, but when it was sold in 2004, the new owner converted it into a funeral home. The walls of the synagogue are hidden behind the utilitarian exterior of the current plaster façade.

We walked a couple of blocks to a solid historic building that houses the town museum (Muzeum im. J Dunin-Borkowskiego w Krośniewicach). The museum has co-sponsored activities related to the city’s Jewish history, including the program, “Bringing Back the Memory of the Krośniewice Jewish Community” (with the Friends of Kutno Association).

Adam Mikołajczyk and Mayor Katarzyna Erdman in the Dunin-Burkowski Museum, Krośniewice

During our meeting all participants affirmed their willingness to help organize a half-day event for descendants in May. Our hosts told us about Sol Rosenkranz, a Holocaust survivor who returned to his hometown and built a fence and monument at the Jewish cemetery. They told us that Sol’s son still returns regularly to maintain the cemetery. The mayor had the impression that the town does not have permission to cut the grass themselves. She also said they know about tombstones under roads, including 20 or more in a nearby town. The Jewish cemetery has a few tombstones incorporated into a makeshift monument, and she hopes more can be recovered. 

Roberta asked Mayor Erdman what she considers Krośniewice’s biggest challenges. Erdman replied employment and investment. As with so many small towns in Poland (and throughout the world, really) young people are leaving in search of work and a better life. Her greatest task as mayor is finding investors who will build businesses and create jobs. Later, I asked Adam what motivated him to return to Krośniewice. He responded, “Someone needs to stay.” Also, he feels such a strong attachment to the place and its history he decided to try and make a life for himself there.

Sławomir and Adam told us about other Holocaust survivors. 92-year-old Róża Aleksander (now Krysia Nowak) still lives in town. As a young child, she and her mother Saba were hidden by Józefa Dziewierska, a righteous gentile acknowledged for her actions in 1997. Saba’s maiden name was Flaster; her husband’s name was Gabriel Alexander. Their daughter Róża was born in 1931 to Gabriel Aleksander and Saba Flaster Aleksander. During the war, mother and daughter adopted false identities Zofia and Krysia Marczak. Róża, now Krysia Nowak (her married name), used to meet with descendants but is no longer well enough to do so. Her testimony was recorded by the Shoah Foundation.

Another child survivor, (Hanna Kałużna?) lives in Wrocław. She and Krysia remain friends. Hanna used to visit Krysia in Krośniewice, but now that she is in her late 80s she hasn’t been able to.

We concluded our visit at the cemetery, which is 900 meters from the center of town. Cars whizzed by on the city bypass running up the slope from the cemetery. A paved drive leads to a metal gate, and a plaque on the right contains a brief history of the city’s Jews in Polish, English, and Hebrew. The Foundation for the Preservation of Jewish Heritage (FODŻ) installed it in 2014.

Jewish Cemetery, Bypass road on the horizon
Yosef reads the plaque on the cemetery gate
Memorial plaque
Paved path to the Krośniewice Jewish Cemetery

Only Adam and Yosef ventured through the long grass inside, to the pile of debris that someone topped with matzevah fragments and cynically labelled a monument.

In the 1980’s, an unscrupulous businessman decided the abandoned cemetery would be an ideal place to dump construction debris. His illegal use was reported to the authorities, and he was told to remove the debris. Instead, to avoid the expense of clean-up and a fine, he mounted tombstone fragments atop the rubble and claimed that since it is now a monument none of it can be disturbed. 

Adam made photos with my phone, so I can share them here.

Tombstone fragments in the make-shift memorial, Krośniewice Jewish Cemetery

An important update to this report

ADJCP president Leon Zamosc shared what he knows about Sol Rosenkranz and Sol’s efforts to restore the cemetery.

“The initiative to restore the cemetery came from Sol Rosenkranz, a survivor from Krosniewice. He had been born in Grabow, but the family moved to Krosniewice when he was a child.
“During the war, Sol Rosenkranz was in six labor camps until his liberation in Theresienstadt. He and one of his brothers were the only survivors of his family. He came to the US in 1946, lived in New York and Los Angeles (where he worked as a volunteer speaker in the Simon Wiesenthal Center), and spent his final years back in New York (where he was an active gallery educator at the Museum of Jewish Heritage in Battery Park). He passed away in 2019 at the age of 101.
“After his liberation in 1945, Sol returned to Krosniewice and saw that the Germans had paved the town square with gravestones removed from the Jewish cemetery (all deliberately placed with the inscriptions up). That memory stayed with him for decades. In 2002, Sol visited Krosniewice and found that the communist administration had re-surfaced the town square in the early 1950s. The matzevot had been removed but there was no record of their whereabouts.
“In 2013, Sol went to Krosniewice again. At the dilapidated cemetery site, there were only half a dozen fragments of matzevot that someone had cemented together. Sol was not a wealthy man, but during that visit he decided that he would fund the restoration of the cemetery (placement of a fence around the perimeter of the cemetery and installation of an iron-wrought gate with a memorial plaque). The works were carried out by FODZ (the Foundation for the Preservation of Jewish Heritage in Poland) and the dedication took place in 2014.”


More details: 
  https://www.jta.org/2014/11/19/ny/a-cemeterys-renovation-and-a-responsibility-fulfilled
Links to pages in Polish (can be translated right-clicking “Translate to English):
  https://tpzk.eu/z-historii-cmentarza-zydowskiego-w-krosniewicach/
  https://tpzk.eu/sol-rosenkranz-nowy-jork-wspomnienia-z-lat-1939%E2%88%921946/
  http://cmentarze-zydowskie.pl/krosniewice.htm

Leon also reached out to Sol’s son Joel who tells a slightly different story about the ongoing maintenance of the cemetery.

“When we dedicated the cemetery in 2014 we were hopeful that city officials including the then mayor Juliana Herman, the clergy and teachers would advocate support and maintenance – however that did not materialize.”

Joel also reached out to me with more details:

At the Wiesenthal Center, Sol worked in the library translating Yiddish and Hebrew letters and other documents for families, asking only that they make a donation to the Center in return. He started talking about the Shoah after Joel’s mother Sally died in 1996. He returned to New York and began to volunteer for the Museum of Jewish Heritage even before it had a physical space. He “embraced his role as a witness, speaking to students at schools of all denominations. After the MJH was established, he was a member of the Speakers Bureau for more than 20 years and by their estimate had told his story to more than 10,000 people, one class or group at a time.”

He further explains “Regarding Krosniewice cemetery maintenance, because Nature remained unchecked in that spot for decades, trees and shrubs developed deep roots. According to Rabbinic law as Rabbi Schudrich stated, in clearing the cemetery grounds, it was not permitted to use any heavy equipment that would disturb bodies below the surface. As a result, the tools we used were chainsaws to cut trunks as close to the ground as possible, clippers  and weed whackers. Within a year, certainly two, nature asserted herself again and so a program of perpetual care is what is required. Local authorities don’t have any ownership authority, but they could certainly play a helpful, respectful role in maintenance if they wanted.”

Sol Rosenkranz (right) with Rabbi Michael Schudrich at the rededication of the Krosniewice Jewish cemetery

This just goes to show how hard it can be to maintain cemeteries and other memorial sites. Even when all sides approach a project with good will, plenty of room remains for misunderstanding. It is also a real challenge for information to be passed down from one government administration to the next, and from one activist to another.

Cousins Reunited by a Photo and a Family Tree

23 Thursday Apr 2020

Posted by in Bereda, Family, Genealogy, Israel, Kolski, Photographs, Polish-Jewish relations, Post-World War II, Pre-World War II, Survival, Trauma, Warsaw, World War II, Włocławek

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I met my cousin Pini Doron in 2013 when I found his family tree online and wrote to ask if we might be related. He asked for proof, so I sent him the photo in the header of this blog, which he recognized from his own copy. He wrote back “welcome to the family” and ever since I have felt embraced by my extended family in Israel, with Pini at the heart of it. The photo, which includes both of our grandmothers, confirmed that we are cousins.

Last week, we were contacted by Nitay Elboym, who writes for the MyHeritage Hebrew-language blog. He decided to write about our family in commemoration of Holocaust Remembrance Day. It’s a story of connections and separations that span a century.

You can find it in Hebrew at the Internet news service YNet:

אחרי 70 שנות נתק: גילה בארה”ב בני משפחה שנעלמו לאחר השואה

I’ve attached the text in English. I used Google Translate and then edited it. This is the article that appeared in the MyHeritage blog. The YNet version only has minor differences.

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Colorized photo of the family from about 1916. Marysia’s grandmother is sitting on the left and Pini’s grandmother is standing on the right

Thanks to a photo and a family tree: a Holocaust survivor son has found family members who disappeared

 By Nitay Elboym

April 21, 2020

74-year-old Pini Doron of Hod Hasharon is a longtime MyHeritage user who built a family tree for many years dating back to 1800. Pini thought he had already finished his search, when he received a message with an old family picture. This time, he realized immediately, it was an extraordinary discovery.

“I get a lot of inquiries from people who think they’re related to me,” Pini says. “I am usually skeptical of my relation to them, so I politely ask everyone to explain how we are connected. In this case too, when I received the message, I responded that I would love to know what our family relationship is,” he recalls.

“Actually, at that time, I was pretty much at the beginning of my family history research,” recalls Marysia Galbraith, a professor of anthropology at the University of Alabama, USA. “I was looking for bits of information wherever possible. But when I saw Pini’s family tree on MyHeritage, I knew it was about me, I just didn’t know how. In short, I had no idea how to prove to him how I was related to his family tree, so I just sent the only picture I had. Besides my grandmother, I didn’t know who the people were. Then he answered me ‘Welcome to family.’ His reply almost made me cry. ”

Operation Rescue

The Piwko family lived in the town of Wloclawek, Poland. At the outbreak of World War II, Pini’s grandparents – Pinchas Kolski and his wife Rachel (nee Piwko) – and their two children, Mirka and Samek, were left there while Pini’s father was saved because he and his two brothers were sent to Israel before the war to work the family lands in Kfar Ata. “Because their city of residence was close to Warsaw, they were transferred to the Warsaw ghetto right at the beginning of the war, around 1940,” Pini says. “In the ghetto, Samek was murdered, and my grandfather died of illness. So my grandmother and her daughter Mirka were left alone, looking for a way to survive.”

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Mirka and Rachel Kolski at Pinchas Kolski’s grave in the Warsaw Ghetto

Meanwhile, Rachel’s sister, Halina, lived in relative safety outside the Warsaw ghetto, because after divorcing her first Jewish husband, she remarried a Christian man named Zygmunt Bereda. “Rachel and Halina’s father were not ready to hear about this relationship. So, when she married a Christian, he sat shiva on her,” said Pini. “Her sisters tried from time to time to keep in touch, but because of their father, the connection got weaker.” Halina and Rachel’s father, who passed away around 1930, could not have imagined that it was precisely the person who, because of his religious identity, he rejected, would save not only his daughters, but also his other descendants.

When Halina told Zygmunt that her sister was in the ghetto alone with her daughter, he decided to come to their aid despite the risk involved. “Zygmunt was a very successful businessman with a lot of property. In addition, he probably had many connections, which opened doors to him that were closed to others,” explains Marysia. “He used these connections to forge documents for Rachel and her sister, which allowed them to escape the ghetto.”

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Halina Bereda, Marysia’s grandmother. She and her Christian husband saved the family

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Zygmunt Bereda. A Polish Christian who saved the family of his Jewish wife

But the matter did not end here. Zygmunt and Halina protected the two after they left the ghetto and hid them in buildings they owned throughout the war. At the same time, they were able to forge additional documents that allowed them to leave Poland to Switzerland, and from there, in 1949, the two immigrated to Israel.

“Years of disconnection ended thanks to a surviving photo and family tree on the MyHeritage website. Ever since we started chatting, I have found that Marysia isn’t only a wonderful person, she is also a thoughtful researcher,” says Pini. “She has set up a blog where she writes personally and collects her interesting findings. Everything she does is well organized, backed up by documents, and she knows how to find almost everything. She even studied Polish, which probably helps her a lot in genealogical research.”

The wheel turns over

At the end of the war, Warsaw was devastated by the bombings. The many businesses and houses that Zygmunt owned were also destroyed. He and Halina lost their property and had no place to live. The rescuers now needed help, and the one who came to their aid was the former wife of Samek, Rachel’s son who died in the Holocaust. After the war Halina and her daughter Maria, Marysia’s mother, immigrated to the United States and settled there.

“The truth was kept from us,” says Marysia, who has grown up as a Christian all her life. “For years, family members have been whispering about being Jewish, but never really getting into it. I have spent a long time trying to figure out why my mother and grandmother hid their Jewish heritage and why they were not in contact with Rachel. I think the trauma of the Holocaust left a deep scar on my grandmother. She thought, “If they don’t know, then it won’t hurt them.” That’s probably why they didn’t keep in touch with Rachel and her descendants in Israel.”

Since the family tree has linked Pini to Marysia the two speak regularly, and they have also met in Israel and in Poland with other family members. “When we went to the graves of our families, the sight was unusual. On one side of the cemetery wall are Jews with a rabbi, and on the other side are Christians with a priest,” Pini recalls. “But what is important? In the end, we are human beings and destiny connected us together.”

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During the roots journey to Poland. Pini stands to the left and beside him Marysia

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Pini’s Tree showing the family connection between Pini and Marysia

The image that led to the discovery – now in color

To revive the old image that made the exciting discovery, the company’s investigators used the MyHeritage In Color ™ auto-coloring tool and sent the result to Pini and Marysia. “It’s wonderful,” says Marysia. “I’m going to share the colorized picture with my family, including my 90-year-old aunt who will be especially happy.”

1916BabiasFamily_color

Colorized photo of the family from about 1916

The Odyssey of a Polish Jew

28 Tuesday Jan 2020

Posted by in antisemitism, Jewish Culture, Memory, Names, Polish-Jewish relations, Pre-World War II, Survival, Tarnów, Warsaw, World War II

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Roman Szydłowski grew up in an affluent assimilated Jewish family in prewar Tarnów, a medium-sized city southeast of Krakow. His “Recollections,” published under the name The War Began in Tarnów, breezily describe the many relatives and acquaintances who populated his youth, though it is jarring how many of their lives were cut short by wartime assaults against Jews.

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The War Began in Tarnów, by Roman Szydłowski

Szydłowski’s book reminds me that Poland is a small country, in the sense that citizens who travel in elite circles know each other, or know of each other. A person raised in a family like Szydłowski’s rubbed shoulders with famous actors, writers, and politicians. Simultaneously, World War II lurks on the edges, and at times overtakes Szydłowski’s narrative, as for example when he describes the explosions at the Tarnów train station, an act of German sabotage that happened on August 23, 1939, a week before the official invasion of Poland began.

The book is interesting for its intimate portrait of everyday life before, during, and immediately after World War II, but it does so from the particular lens of the moment in which it was written: 1982, when Poland was under martial law following the suppression of the Solidarity Movement that had sought to reform the state socialist system. Szydłowski was 63 years old and looking back on his life as he approached retirement. That time and place might explain the glaring absences in his otherwise vivid, detailed, and immediate recollections.

Born Roman Szancer in 1918, the author grew up in comfort in a large apartment at the center of Tarnów. His family owned an enormous mill which his great grandfather established in the early 1800s. It is notable how little Judaism figured in his early life story—it was a factor but hardly a defining one. His first recollection of anti-Jewish sentiment involved one of his classmates who called him “you Jew” in a way that sounded like a slur. Roman couldn’t understanding why being Jewish would be an insult, but he replied in kind, “you Catholic.” When their teacher found out, he made them stop, threatening them with corporal punishment. Later, Roman and the other boy became good friends.

The Szancer family took pride in their unaccented Polish and their assimilation, not only into Polish culture, but also into elite European culture more broadly. As a child, Roman visited relatives in Germany and Austria. His grandmother, a cousin of Austrian philosopher Martin Buber, was the only one in the family who spoke Polish with a strong accent; they had to talk to her in German.

Roman portrays himself as a proud defender of Poland. About the rise of Hitler in Germany, he writes “We feared for the future of Poland, though none of us anticipated that our country, which we considered stable, would soon be pillaged by the Third Reich” (p. 60-1). Szydłowski mentions just a few instances when his early life was touched by prejudice. The first girl he fell in love with was Catholic, and “there were those who couldn’t reconcile with the fact that ‘that Jew goes out with such a pretty Polish girl’,” so they spread rumors that broke them up (p. 74). A few years later at the Jagiellonian University, Jews were separated from the Catholic students and confined to the so-called “ghetto benches.” This didn’t affect Roman directly because he had what people called “a good look.” In other words, he didn’t have the stereotypical features or mannerisms associated with Jews and so could sit wherever he wanted. He makes a point of saying that only the leftist students objected to the “Aryan paragraph” restricting Jews from student organizations; the majority of the student body voted in favor of the restrictions.

Another incident illustrates how distant Roman felt from traditional Jewish life. He describes a Hassidic wedding he attended in the summer of 1939 in a mostly Jewish town. The residents dressed differently than he was used to seeing in the towns around Tarnów, in round hats with small rims, shorter jackets and their pants tucked into manure-covered shoes. About the wedding he writes, “I’m left with an impression of something very colorful, but so far away and foreign as if I found myself suddenly on a distant continent” (p. 125).

Szydłowski’s wartime experiences read like an adventure story, making startling shifts from descriptions of carefree youthful high jinx to hair-raising brushes with death. Because he had connections, he was able to drive east ahead of the invading German army and find refuge with relatives near Lviv (part of Poland before the war, the Soviet Union after 1939, and Ukraine today). He describes his apprehension by Soviet authorities, deportation to the Far East, and eventful return to Lviv, one chance encounter leading to another that eventually got him back to relative safety.

After Hitler broke the German-Soviet nonaggression pact, he witnessed the most horrific events of his own wartime experiences. Thousands of Jews were slaughtered in Lviv, their blood running through the streets. He returned to Tarnów, where he moved freely, neither wearing the Star of David nor staying in the ghetto as dictated by the Nazi occupiers. By December 1941, he settled in Warsaw, where he changed his last name to Szydłowski, thus gaining the protection of a Polish surname. He writes breathlessly about the richness of the culture in the city, where he attended classical concerts, theatre productions, and university classes. All of these activities occurred “underground,” without the knowledge or sanction of the occupying forces.

He explains, “Warsaw during those years was a city impossible to describe. Terrifying contrasts collided at every corner. Luxury alongside poverty, tragedy next to debauchery, death and delight, everything compounded to the maximum. People lived as if in a trance, unsure of tomorrow. Everyone knew they could die soon, so they wanted to get the most out of life” (p. 155). After being arrested under suspicion of conspiracy, and imprisoned in Pawlak Prison, Szydłowski was mysteriously released. He made a quick retreat to the countryside near Krakow, where his “most carefree period of occupied life began” (p. 162). He spent the summer at the ancestral palace of a gentry family who treated him like an esteemed guest. The refuge was an illusion, he admits. A year later, months after he had moved on, German police came and shot the whole family.

What might explain the absences in Szyłowski’s narrative? Why doesn’t he mention the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising in 1943, even though he was living in Warsaw at the time? He lived in the “Aryan” part of the city under his assumed name, but he must have witnessed the armed revolt mounted by the last remaining Jews in the ghetto. The fighting continued for 28 days until most of the partisans were either killed or took their own lives. Why doesn’t he discuss the massive scale of the Holocaust? He makes no mention of the millions who died, nor any details about the death camps. He does not address the nearly complete absence of a Jewish population in Poland after the war. The annihilation of Poland’s Jews only peaks out in the many biographies of family and acquaintances that ended with them murdered by military police or Germans.

Szydłowski’s recollections also elide any direct criticism of communism. He simply gives a matter-of-fact description of the arrival of Soviet troops after the Germans retreated , without addressing the heavy hand the Soviet Union played in shaping the postwar state-socialist republic. He writes directly about joining the Communist Party in 1946, but only indirectly about his disillusionment and retreat from the party just a few years later. Throughout his narrative, he acknowledges his socialist leanings, as well as the socialist and communist affiliations of his friends, but he also makes a point of emphasizing his disinterest in politics.

Szydłowski ran out of time to finish writing about his 35-year career as a theatre critic and journalist. He died in 1983.

What a difficult way to walk through life, carrying so many ghosts in your memories. And yet, Szydłowski speaks with the voice of an optimist.

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Remains of the Szancer mill, June 2019

Livestream of the ‘Unforgotten’ Event About Renia Spiegel’s Diary

08 Thursday Nov 2018

Posted by in Memory, Przemyśl, Survival, Uncategorized, World War II

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I’m counting down the minutes before I tune into this event at the Smithsonian Institute today:

80 Years after Kristallnacht: Diarists of the Holocaust

This is Renia, who was murdered on the streets of occupied Przemyśl at the age of 18 in 1942. She left behind a diary that through some miracle found its way to her family in New York.

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Renia in Skole in the 1930s (Courtesy of the Bellak family)

I grew up calling Renia’s sister “Aunt Elizabeth,” but she never mentioned her sister until a few years ago. Encouraged by her daughter Alexandra, they started looking for someone to translate the diary from Polish to English, and Elizabeth started talking about her hidden past. It’s an extraordinary story about two extraordinary sisters. Both Elizabeth and Alexandra will share their stories at 1 PM eastern time today, November 8, 2018.

 

The Encore

05 Thursday Oct 2017

Posted by in Family, Survival

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Charity Tillemann-Dick is a cousin by marriage, married to my second cousin Yonathan, and she has just published her memoir, The Encore, about her incredible journey as an opera singer who underwent lung replacement surgery—twice. I can’t wait to read this book.

This is a story about survival–a different kind of survival than I usually focus on in this blog but important nevertheless.

Cover of Tillemann-Dick's book The Encore

This is from The Encore‘s website:

“The remarkable true story of acclaimed opera singer Charity Tillemann-Dick, who received not one but two double lung transplants and went from struggling to draw a single breath to singing at the most prestigious venues in the world.

“Charity Tillemann-Dick was a vivacious young American soprano studying at the celebrated Franz Liszt Academy of Music in Budapest when she received devastating news: her lungs were failing, her heart was three and a half sizes too big, and she would die within five years. Inexplicably, despite her fatal pulmonary condition, she could still sing. Medical experts advised Charity to abandon her musical dreams, but if her time was running out, she wanted to spend it doing what she loved.

“In just three years, she endured two double lung transplants. Teetering between life and death, she slowly learned to breathe, walk, talk, eat, and sing again. With new lungs and fierce determination, she eventually fell in love, rebuilt her career, and reclaimed her life. Over a decade after her diagnosis, she has a chart-topping album, performs around the globe, and is a leading voice for organ donation.

“Weaving Charity’s extraordinary tale of triumph with those of opera’s greatest heroines, The Encore illuminates the indomitable human spirit. It’s the story of confronting devastating challenges with love: the intimate love of a mother for her daughter, a man for a woman, a doctor for her craft, and a singer for her music. Ultimately, grace from God and strangers enabled the work of love to save one young woman’s breath and allowed her to reclaim her life.”

Piwko-Winawer Reunion

22 Sunday Jan 2017

Posted by in Family, Jewish immigrants, Memory, Names, Pifko-Winawer Circle, Piwko, Survival, Winawer

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In the mid-20th century, my grandmother’s relatives in New York established the Pifko-Winawer family circle. At the time, family circles were common among Jewish immigrants from Eastern Europe. They met on a regular basis (usually monthly) and provided emotional and financial support to members.

My grandmother’s maiden name was Piwko. The US relatives spelled their last name with an “f” instead of a “w,” perhaps to retain the proper pronunciation (in Polish, the “w” was pronounced “f”). Some relatives who settled in Switzerland spell the name “Piwko” while others use “Pifko.” One in Israel spells it “Pivko.” The name Winawer came from the husbands of two Piwko sisters—Liba married Jacob Winawar and Sarah married Saul Winawer. Aunt Pat says Jacob and Saul were cousins. I’m still looking for historical records that show exactly how they were related.

At the heart of this family circle was Philip Pifko, the youngest of my grandmother’s brothers. He had a bakery in Brooklyn where all the relatives (that is, the male ones) worked when they first came over from Poland. Philip started the bakery with another brother, Abram whom everyone called Jan in Poland and John in the US. They both came over between 1905 and 1907, but they kept in touch with the family in the home country, and Philip returned periodically for a visit. This is what I’ve been told by family members. I have also found ship manifests showing he arrived to the US in 1907 and he was a passenger to Europe in 1931. Philip stands on the right in the photo on the banner of this blog. Almost certainly, the photo was taken shortly after World War I, and it was definitely taken in Poland–evidence of another trip to Poland.

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Pifko-Winawer Dinner-on left: Murray and Hannah Winawer, ? and Sadie Shapiro, ?, ? , Pauline and Fred Rosen. On right: Nathan and Sally Winawer, Sol and Numture Winawer, ? Jacobs, Philip and Goldie Pifko, ?, Max Winawer. Cousin Joan showed me this photo and identified everyone.

My cousin Joan (granddaughter of Liba and Saul) was a child at the time, but she recalls two topics of conversation at family circle gatherings: First, issues related to the family burial plot in New Montefiore Cemetery; and second, conversations about how to get the family out of Poland (this would have been in the 1940s). She also remembers my grandmother, uncle George, and mother when they first arrived in the US. They went to the family circle meetings for a while, but then they stopped.

Philip died tragically in a car accident in 1947. He was returning with his wife and some other relatives from a wedding in Massachusetts. The roads were icy and the car slid off the road, killing Philip. The other passengers survived. Without Philip to hold everyone together, the family circle weakened. Meetings became less frequent. Disputes arose over the division of Philip’s inheritance. He had done well during his lifetime but never had any children of his own.

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Article about Philip Pifko’s death.

The split in the family was already clear here. Only Philip’s sister Sarah is mentioned in the obituary, not my grandmother Halina or the other living sisters Rachel (who lived in Israel) and Hanna (whom we called Nunia, and who went by the name Maria).

On Sunday, January 8, of this year the Pifko-Winawer circle reconvened at Melodie’s house in Brooklyn. Melodie is the great granddaughter of Liba and Jacob Winawer. Here we are, descendants of five of the Piwko siblings:

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Pifko-Winawer Reunion 2017

Descendants of Liba: Melodie (daughter of Herbert and granddaughter of Max), her wife Susanna, and children Chiara and Leo

Descendants of Abram/John: Bob (son of Abby, grandson of Ewa)

Descendants of Sarah: Hinda (daughter of Nathan) and her son Erik

Descendants of Rachel: Eldad (son of Abrash), his wife Marsha, their children Daniella, Yoni, and Shelly, and Yoni’s wife Charity

Descendants of Halina: Krysia (daughter of George) and her husband Steve; Chris (son of Maria), his husband Shih Han and children Bessie and Charlie; and me (Marysia)

Also: Miriam and her husband Shiah. Miriam’s great grandparents were the brother and sister of my great grandparents.

Because I wasn’t host, I had more time to talk with my cousins than I did at the last reunion. But so many came, I still couldn’t talk with everyone.

Hinda is named after our great grandmother. She remembers my mother and grandmother. She called Babcia a beautiful woman, and described Mama as elegant. She also remembered Mama’s scars. Hinda visited Babcia on a trip to Puerto Rico in the late 1960s. Babcia was in the hospital with a broken hip. Hinda expected her to be feeble, but found her as vibrant as ever.

Bob gave me tablecloths and napkins hand embroidered by his great grandmother Bertha (Abram/John’s wife). She made them for all her female descendants in the early 1960s. Bob found them when he cleaned out his mother’s apartment and wanted them to stay in the family. So he gave them to me.

Eldad and Marsha just moved from a house on Long Island to an apartment in Brooklyn, and they love it. They have an incredible view from their 8th floor picture window, and they’re just a short walk from the Brooklyn Bridge and the Botanical Garden.

Daniella lives in Australia, but spends her summers (our winters) in New York. She and her husband are both professors. They have been living in a friend’s apartment in Manhattan. We barely got a chance to chat at the reunion, but fortunately Daniella and I had a great time together in San Diego last month. We were both there for the Jewish Studies Association Meeting.

Yoni told me about his education start-up that developed a computer program that helps to personalize instruction to students’ learning styles and challenges. The program has been introduced in a number of public school systems around the country. His wife Charity shared her incredible story. She is an opera singer, but pulmonary hypertension led to such a deterioration of her lungs she had to have replacement surgery—twice. She is doing well now, and even singing again. She has written about it in a memoir, The Encore, due to be published in October.

Melodie, who is a medical doctor and a professor, is also about to publish a book. Hers is a historical novel, The Scribe of Siena, due out in May.

Shiah and Miriam are artists. He used to do woodwork but now does fused glass. She has done pottery.

It’s reassuring to know that we are doing okay. Despite the trauma and disruption of the past that brought us from Poland to the US, we’ve found our way. We’re doctors and teachers, ministers and counselors, entrepreneurs and artists. Counting spouses, at least two of us are MDs and four of us have PhDs. At least four of us have written books. And this is just counting the relatives that were at the reunion.

Two Bottles of Vodka

19 Monday Sep 2016

Posted by in Heritage work, Jewish Culture, Memory, Polish-Jewish relations, Post-World War II, Survival, Włocławek, Żychlin

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Two times over the course of my visit to Żychlin, my host Henryk told me a story about a young Jewish boy who survived the war and returned to the town to collect his family’s jewels. A bad Pole threatened the boy’s life unless he showed him where the valuables were hidden. The frightened boy showed him. They sat down at a table and for each one item the bad Pole gave the boy, he took several for himself. The boy took out a roll of money and offered to buy the jewelry. Then, the brother of the bad Pole came in and saw what was going on. He told his brother, “Here, I have two bottles of vodka. We’ll drink together.” Then he gave the boy all his money and jewels back.

The story made an impression on Henryk. He said a woman from Włocławek had told it to him. Because they were talking on the phone, he didn’t want her to tell him the real names of the men. He wants to save it for when they meet in person. That kind of information is better shared face-to-face. The second time he told me this story, it occurred to me I might know the woman he had spoken with. Indeed, it turned out that it was Mirosława Stojak, who has made it her personal quest to learn all she can about Włocławek Jews. Henryk promptly called Mira so we could talk. I met Mira during my first visit to Włocławek in 2014, and then again when I was there in June.

Mira uses her talents as a poet, writer, and actress to share the stories of Włocławek Jews. In her book Utkane Sercem Włocławskim Żydom, she includes the story that so captivated Henryk, called “Two Bottles of Vodka.” Here is the translation of the story:

Two Bottles of Vodka

Utkane Sercem Włocławskim Żydom by Mirosława StojakWinter 1946 was cold. All around, snow covered homes, roads, and trees. Long icicles hung from the roofs. On a January afternoon, Ariel came on the snowy road to the home of his relatives. Before the war, together with his sisters, he was there a few times. During his last visit in 1939 Ariel’s father, a merchant from Żychlin, knew that soon Germans would attack Poland militarily. Sixteen-year-old Ariel, a short boy, emaciated after the experience of the camp, walked pensively listening to the scrape of his creaking shoes. In his ears rang what his father once told him:

“You have to save yourself, and whoever survives should return here…”

He knew perfectly well that his visit would not be viewed happily by the new owners of the house. He was even afraid that he would be treated poorly. He wasn’t sure, either, if the home still stood, or if it was bombed during the war. He hoped not. He walked slowly, every once in a while touching an icy rock. He passed ruins of houses and ashes, people shoveled snow. He heard dogs barking. Before the war he loved dogs, and they even had two beautiful German shepherds at home. Now, they reminded him of scenes from the camp and he was horribly afraid of them. In Auschwitz they were trained to murder. Ariel picked up his pace. Soon the sun would set and it would be dark. After a while, he saw the home of his uncles and aunts, who didn’t much care for visitors during the war. Fearfully, he knocked on the door. A young man stood before him, tall and well built. He had an unfriendly expression on his face, as if he had been expecting him. With his strong hand, he pulled Ariel inside, shutting the door, and yelled,

“Where is it?”

The frightened Jew led him down the stairs to the basement, and then the “brute” pushed him against a wall and demanded he say where the treasure is. A few strikes of a hammer against a wall and in the hands of his “captor” appeared a casket. Now, the boy was led upstairs and into the kitchen. The man grabbed his shirt and sat him on a chair at the table, then sat down across from him and opened the box. Inside was the ancestral jewelry of Ariel’s family. There were brilliantly shiny rings, broaches, and necklaces. Taking the valuables out of the casket, the man put them on the table, between himself and Ariel, loudly counting:

“Mine, mine, yours, mine, mine, mine, yours, mine, mine…”

When he finished, there were just three family heirlooms in front of Ariel. Tears appeared in his eyes. They reminded him of his mother, who always wore a string of white pearls around her neck when she went to synagogue. Now they lay in front of him on the table awaiting their verdict. The boy slowly reached into his pocket and pulled out a role of banknotes, explaining that for him the jewelry has sentimental value for his family and he would gladly buy them back. The “brute,” without thinking, took all the valuables lying on the table for himself, and in a deep resonant voice called out,

“Józek!”

In the kitchen doorway appeared a “man like an oak,” big and broad-shouldered, who asked contemptuously,

“What?” and looked at the table.

The brute moved aside, his eyes not leaving the valuables. Józek who was much older was supposed to settle the matter. Ariel began quickly explaining, persuading him to agree to his proposition to buy the jewelry. He asked Józek to take the money and give back the valuables and then everyone would be satisfied. Józek thought; he silently looked at the young Jew and the table with an appraising eye. Frightened, Ariel imagined them closing him in the basement and starving him, or God forbid, murdering him. Wouldn’t it be ironic to die here and now, after he had the good fortune to miss death at the hands of the Nazis? After a while, Józek broke the silence, yelling:

“Karol!”

A boy who was perhaps eight years old came into the kitchen. Freckled, with wavy hair and an intelligent look. From the pile of money lying on the table, Józek took one bill, gave it to the boy and told him:

“Go and buy two bottles of vodka.”

The boy, like a shot, ran from the cottage. Józek pushed the jewelry and money in the direction of Arial and said:

“Take it and go!”

Ariel ran as fast as his legs would take him. It was a marathon. He didn’t even touch the rock; he didn’t hear the barking dogs. He sped ahead with all the strength in his legs, not looking back. When he got to the station, the train stood ready for departure.

Mirosława Stojak recounting stories about Włocławek Jews, October 1, 2015

Mirosława Stojak recounting stories about Włocławek Jews, October 1, 2015

Mirka told me she met the boy from the story when he visited Włocławek (now of course, he’s an elderly man). His wife wore some beautiful jewelry; she doesn’t know if these were pieces he recovered, but it is nice to think that they were. At his request, she changed all the names when she wrote down the story. Nor did she write about the further misfortunes the boy experienced before he found his way to safety in Israel. I won’t either—the most important thing is that he survived.

Survival through luck and pluck

12 Thursday Feb 2015

Posted by in Polish-Jewish Heritage, Survival, World War II

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Survivial Artist by Eugene Bergman

Survivial Artist by Eugene Bergman

Today, I played mental hooky and finished Survival Artist: A Memoir of the Holocaust, written by Eugene Bergman (2009, McFarland). A Jew born in Poznan, he was nine years old when the war started in 1939. About surviving three ghettos—Łódź, Warsaw, and Częstochowa—and two years on the “Aryan side” he says, “I am not such a hotshot survival artist. If I have survived those sinister wartime years it was owing more to luck than to pluck” (p. 183). Still, to have survived at all, even after a German officer beat him with the butt of his rifle causing him to go deaf, required pluck as well as luck.

Every memoir helps reveal more facets of Jewish life (and death) in Poland. What stands out to me about this one is the way it shows the diversity of prewar Jewish culture, and the continued effects of those differences during the war. Poznan Jews generally had resources that helped them survive, particularly the fact that they were more integrated into Polish society; they were more secular, wore contemporary clothes and hairstyles, and spoke good Polish (or German). Bergman emphasizes his father’s business acumen, as well—a prewar fabric store owner, he supported the family by buying and selling whatever he could throughout the war. Further, he describes the family’s ability to “pass” through less tangible attitudes and behaviors. Instead of displaying fear in front of Germans (or Poles) they were bold, looking them in the eyes or ignoring them as the situation demanded.

This is interesting to me as a cultural anthropologist because they were able to embody the unmarked characteristics that tended to set non-Jews apart from Jews, and to shed the characteristics that made Jews targets. In many cases, these subtle cues were the only things that distinguished Jews and Catholic Poles. Bergman’s ability to embody that other identity is where I see his pluck. It reminds me of another fascinating memoir, Robert Melson’s False Papers: Deception and Survival in the Holocaust (2005, University of Illinois Press), also written by a child survivor on the Aryan side. Melson’s parents demonstrated “chutzpah and bravado” not only by taking on Catholic Polish identities, but also by claiming to belong to the noble Zamoyski family.

I was fortunate enough to meet Bob Melson when I was first embarking on this journey to uncover my own Jewish heritage. As a person, he stuck me as instantly familiar, as if he could have been my uncle. I think I was reading in him some of those same embodied ways of being I associate with my mom’s family–intellectual, refined, and Polish. But a particular kind of Polish. My family masked their Jewishness in a way that Melson hasn’t since the war ended, but I think what I recognized was a shared heritage, a particular version comprising both Jewish and Polish accents.

Only a few survived in Lesko

17 Monday Nov 2014

Posted by in Lesko, Polish-Jewish relations, Survival, World War II

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I have often remarked how the synagogue in Lesko is larger than the Catholic Church. It stands as a silent reminder of the prewar Jewish majority. Lesko is a small town of about 6000 residents on the edge of the Bieszczady Mountains in the southeast corner of Poland, and the site of my ethnographic fieldwork since 1992. The Bieszczady region was home to a multicultural population until the devastation of the mid-20th century turned it into Poland’s underpopulated, ethnically homogenous “wild east.” The Jews became victims of the Holocaust, while many Ukrainians and Poles escaped the German-Soviet front during the war. After the war most of the remaining Ukrainians were removed to the Soviet Union or the land acquired from Germany by the postwar Polish state, and Poles were resettled from across the Soviet border or emigrated voluntarily from overpopulated communities in western Poland.

Lesko Synagogue, 1992

Lesko Synagogue, 1992

While in Lesko last week, I asked some of my friends what they know about the town’s Jews—is there anyone who can tell me what happened before and during the war? Did any Jews survive? Are there any Jewish descendants left in the area? Ever since embarking on this investigation of Jews in Poland, I have wanted to find out why the topic of Jews has come up so rarely during my frequent visits to Lesko over the past twenty years. Sure, I was shown the synagogue and the Jewish Cemetery on my first tour of the town, and rarely, someone mentioned that certain buildings used to belong to Jews, but that’s where it ended. Unlike in Krakow, where having a Jewish ancestor became for some a badge of distinction, in Bieszczady no one ever mentioned their own or anyone else’s Jewish heritage. It simply was not talked about. Or maybe I never asked?

Based on my initial conversations last week, there is still a lot of reluctance to think about, let alone talk about Lesko’s Jews. But a few people gladly engaged with the topic.

First the reluctance. Often there is a pause, and then the response, “No, there is nobody left. Or at least they don’t admit it (nie przyznają się).” I got the same response in places like Lutowiska, which was over 60% Jewish before World War II. In Lutowiska, nearly all the contemporary residents have roots in other parts of Poland or in the former Soviet Union (borders were not fixed there until the 1950s), which might explain the general ignorance about the village’s history. Many of Lesko’s residents arrived after the war, but there is also a good number of autochthonous families who remain in the town.

The one person several people suggested might be willing to talk to me was Romuald Zwonarz, whose father Józef saved the lives of several Jews by helping them hide from the Nazis for nearly two years. Fortunately, pan Romuald agreed to meet me. Over a long conversation, he told me his father’s story, mostly by sharing published accounts with me, annotated with marginal comments and sticky notes that correct errors and point out inconsistencies. He did not want to be recorded because he aspires toward a perfect historical record and is too painfully aware of the false starts and misremembered details that taint spoken language. Still, he is proud of what his father did.

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Rena, Jafa, and Natan Wallach 1947

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Józef Zwonarz and his wife Franciszka

The story is told in rich detail in Bitter Freedom, written by one of the survivors, Jafa Wallach shortly after she settled in the United States. Jafa wrote it to her daughter Rena to explain their wartime experiences and why they left Rena with strangers from the age of four to six. It’s an amazing account of an awful story. Basically, Jafa along with her husband Natan, who was a doctor, her two brothers, and toward the very end her sister, all hid under Józef’s mechanic workshop in a crawl space they dug themselves. It had earthen walls and was barely tall enough to kneel in with your head against the ceiling. Even more extraordinarily, the workshop was situated between Gestapo headquarters and the Ukrainian police offices in the center of town. Józef worked long hours repairing the occupiers’ vehicles, and then would sneak water and food to the hidden Jews at night. He also helped to find a safe place for Rena with a forest guard in a remote hut several kilometers from Lesko. Józef was recognized in 1967 as one of the Righteous among Nations, though he could not receive his medal until 1980.

From Romuald and his family’s story, I learned there was a work camp for Jews across the river from Zagórz. Lesko’s Jews were taken there before being killed on the spot or at the concentration camp at Belzec. Jafa only knew of a few who survived in hiding or with false (Aryan) papers. Romuald mentioned a few more he is aware of. Out of 30,000 Jews in the region before the war, only eighty survivors gathered in nearby Sanok after it ended. Those who came out of hiding were not made to feel welcome. As Jafa explains, some asked them “What are you doing among the living?” while others just looked with expressions of indifference.

I count on it that on future visits, I will learn of other people who remember Lesko’s Jews and are willing to talk about them.