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Finding Tante Fanni, by Jeanette R. Rosenberg

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No matter how experienced we are as genealogists, we probably all have brick walls in our personal genealogical research.  Here is a short article about one of my genealogy brick walls.  So far I have not managed to make any significant progress with this area of my personal family history research.

Tante Fanni was my paternal Grandfather’s sister, my Great Aunt.  She lived in Israel, and when I was a young girl I can remember my parents receiving blue airmail letters from her on crinkled and very fragile see-through paper.  The letters were all handwritten, on both sides of the page and in very spidery looped writing, in German.  To be honest, I never really paid too much attention to the letters which arrived seemingly fairly regularly, at least as far as I recall, because I was unable to read them, let alone to understand what they said.

Once when I asked my parents about Tante Fanni, I was told that even though I did not remember her personally, I had met her when I was almost 3 years old, when I visited Israel in 1967 with my parents and maternal KRACKO grandparents.  My Dad told me that we had been in Israel visiting his paternal cousins just at the start of the Six Day War.

At some time (before I became interested in genealogy), Tante Fanni died.  This would have been sometime after the mid-1960s since I can remember her letters arriving, but before 1994, when I first started getting interested in my family history.  My task now is to find out what I can about her accurately identify her, and then to put her story into my family tree.

family tree chart

What do I know?

Since Tante Fanni was my paternal grandfather’s sister and I know that he was born in Czernowitz, Rumania, now Chernivitsi, Ukraine, it is likely that was as well.  However I don’t know exactly when she was born.  According to Uncle Joe, my Dad’s older brother who was born in 1922, who is 10 years older than Dad, and who can usually be relied upon for all the important facts about the family, my grandfather, Opa Markus was born on 16 August 1883. He was the son of Jona Mechel MERFELD and Jette or Jutte ROSENBERG.  Unfortunately, even Uncle Joe couldn’t help me with detailed information about Tante Fanni.

The MERFELD or MEERFELD or MEHRFELD and ROSENBERG and TRESSER families lived in Czernowitz and, according to the family, there are multiple connections among the 3 families. For example, cousin Aharon TRESSER in Israel is a cousin twice over, and cousin Fifi SEGALL born in Israel as Sofia ROSENBERG, is her own cousin twice, because her parents were first cousins on both sides of their family.

Also, our family name should be MERFELD (or MEERFELD or MEHRFELD) and not ROSENBERG. Opa Markus’s parents had only a Jewish marriage which required their offspring to bear their mother’s surname rather than that of their father.  I am told that having only a religious marriage and not a civil one, is called a “Stille Chuppah”.

When Tante Fanni died, she was known to the family as Fanni LANDESMANN , who lived in Benei Brak with or near her late second husband Anschel LANDESMANN’s grown up married daughter from his first marriage.

Asking other older members of the family for more information didn’t help much.  Nobody had any information; nobody knew the name of Tante Fanni’s step-daughter; nobody remembered the address where she had lived nor exactly where she was buried.  Looking for Fanni LANDESMANN, who had lived in Bnei Brak and was buried somewhere in Israel, was becoming impossible.  However, I know she existed, I have her photo: Fanni Landesman

 

 

This version of her photo is scanned and much enlarged from a larger photo of her standing with her brothers.

 

What else could I find out?

Uncle Joe gave me some old documents, including information about Opa Markus’s family that he had written down many years ago.

The document, which is quite hard to read, but not as hard as I remember Tante Fanni’s letters to have been, contains a list of Opa Markus’s siblings, including Tante Fanni.

The key part of the document is this:

letter 1letter 2

Roughly translated it says:

My parents had 7 children, 4 are living and 3 are dead.  The 3 girls who died in Czernowitz were Gusta, Rosel and Cilli, and the living children were Markus, Maier Abram, Moses, and Fanni.

Someone, most likely Uncle Joe, told me that Tante Fanni was married and had been sent with her family during the war to Transnistria, and that her first husband and children died there. My next task was to find out if there were Pages of Testimony [PoT] for her dead family.  I searched repeatedly for PoTs submitted by Fanni LANDESMANN, but found nothing.  Then I found PoTs for members of the MERFELD, TRESSER and ROSENBERG families submitted in Hebrew by Sidonie or Sidonia LANDESMAN.  By using the advanced search facility, I discovered that the same submitter had submitted no less than 47 names on Pages of Testimony.  The last names on all the PoTs are as follows:

 

Tresser 14 Sztejnbach 2
Merfeld 7 Tutnower 2
Katz 6 Ungar 2
Pauker 3 Bader 1
Chusl 2 Cohn 1
Huczneker 2 Laufer 1
Rosenberg 2 Teper 1

Through various PoTs, I have worked out that Fanni and Sidonie or Sidonia are the same person.  When I asked others in the family about this, they have consistently denied ever knowing about it before I told them!

When I got as far as the MERFELD PoTs, I found one submitted by her for Tzvi MERFELD who was born in Cernauti, Romania in 1898 to Arie and Etel.  He was a wood merchant and married.  Prior to WWII he lived in Cernauti, Romania.  During the war he was in Cernauti, Romania.  Tzvi was murdered in 1943 in Transnistria, Ukraine (USSR).  This information is based on a Page of Testimony (displayed) submitted by his wife.  Here was proof of what previously I had been told about Tante Fanni’s family.

The wife’s name on the POT was shown as Sidonia LANDESMAN.  The same POT gives details of the couple’s 4 children, who had all died in Transnistria in 1943.  This was Tante Fanni’s family who had died in the Holocaust.  She had lost her husband and all 4 of her children:

Michael Yona, aged 16

Rivke aged 12

Lea aged 7

Etel aged 2

POT

This saddened me terribly, but I was also pleased that the entire family was recorded at Yad Vashem, so that they will always be remembered.  Finding the PoT that she submitted made me even more determined to find out about Tante Fanni.

For a long time that was all that I could find, but during mid-2012, some of the Czernowitz birth record indices went online. [see: Czernowitz BMD Index Database http://czernowitz.ehpes.com/ then choose databases.]

I found my grandfather Marcus’s birth record, and those of all his siblings, including those who had died.  Here is the reference for my Grandfather’s birth record:  Czernowitz Birth Record for 1883 Marcus MEERFELD son of Jona Mechel 1883 Page 258 Entry No 381.  For Tante Fanni, the record index read: Czernowitz Birth Record for Sidonie MEHRFELD, daughter of Ioine Mechel, Volume XIV, 1899, Page 292, Entry No 124.  As I write this, I await my copies of the 8 children’s birth records, ordered through a professional genealogist who will copy them for me from microfilms in the Family History Library in Salt Lake City.  I will then know Tante Fanni’s exact date of birth.  Perhaps after that I might locate something more about her.

Where else have I looked?

I have researched in quite a number of different places to find out more about Tante Fanni.  When the Israeli cemeteries went online, I tried to see what I could find.  I found nothing.  I even had some help from a native Israeli professional genealogist who looked on the cemeteries websites in Hebrew for me, and she found nothing either.  Since I am sure that Tante Fanni is buried somewhere in Israel, I have to assume that maybe she is buried in one of the cemeteries where the records are not yet online.  I also attended a webinar about how to use the Israel Genealogy Research Association (IGRA) online databases in Hebrew and in English [see http://genealogy.org.il/] but again, I found nothing, neither about Tante Fanni nor about her second husband, Anschel LANDESMANN.

What other information exists about Tante Fanni?

Cousin Avital SAMOCHA has put the following on her family tree at MyHeritage,  http://www.myheritage.com.

Herman Landesmann  Anshel LANDESMANN

My (very basic) Hebrew tells me this photo is of Anshel LANDESMANN, who was Tante Fanni’s second husband.  But, I don’t know if I can rely on this because she also labeled him Herman LANDESMANN in another photo.

 

Cousin Avital does, however, have a copy of the same photo of Tante Fanni as I do. I can’t help wondering if perhaps it was I who sent it to her in the first place, since I am now sole custodian for all of our family’s old photos, as far as I am aware.  I know that much of Avital’s original data and quite a few of the photos she has on the website were taken from information I sent her.

Postscript

Since I began writing about Tante Fanni, the Czernowitz Birth records I had ordered have arrived.  The records were clearly written by someone who never contemplated having anyone read them afterwards.  They are a yet another example of totally illegible handwriting.

The index had already told me that Tante Fanni was the youngest of the 8 children born to her parents.  Her birth record, above, notes the following, as far as I can tell:

Birth Record for Sidonie MEHRFELD, daughter of Ioine Mechel, Volume XIV, 1899, Page 292, Entry No 124.  LDS Film Reference: 2395738-1897-66-Mehrfeld.  Born 5 August 1899, registered 10 August 1899.  Address Kalizanka 297, Czernowitz.  Daughter of Jütte, daughter of the late Mordche ROSENBERG and Rifke.  Ioine Mechel MEHRFELD attested that he was the father of the child.

Record 292

My work in reassessing all my papers and looking again for information about Tante Fanni suggests that one of my cousins in Israel believes that she died in 1968, which is much earlier than I would have thought, and that she is, according to one of her other nieces in Israel, most likely to have been buried in Zichron Meir Cemetery at Bnei Brak.  The same cousin suggests that Tante Fanni had 5 or 6 children, rather than the 4 listed on the PoT she wrote for her family.  This may well be true, given the high mortality rates of that time in Czernowitz.  If that is the case, then at least 2 would have died as infants, since they were not named on the PoT.  The search goes on.

Next Steps

I still don’t know when Tante Fanni died nor exactly where she was buried, and I would still like to contact her step daughter’s family, if only I knew her name.  Can you help?  If you can help me to find out more about Tante Fanni, I would love to hear from you.

Jeanette Rosenberg

London UK

mailto:[email protected]

[email protected]

Phone: +44 208 958 5249

Skype: Jeanette.R.Rosenberg

 

Janette R. Rosenberg

Jeanette Rosenberg is a professional genealogist & member of AGRA,(Association of Genealogists & Researchers in Archives) and holds a Postgraduate Diploma in Genealogical Studies from Strathclyde University.  She’s a frequent researcher at archives in Germany, where
she’s participated in local history seminars.  Jeanette is also a popular Jewish genealogy speaker around the UK.  She was appointed a GerSig Director in 2009 & leads for JGS Great Britain on Education & Mentoring, managing exhibitions, & is chair of the German SIG. Jeanette is a member of the Society of Genealogists, Anglo-German Family History Society & Guild of One Name Studies.

 

 

Discovering our Past: The Good, the Bad and the Sweet by Michael Salzbank

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My genealogical journey began, I imagine, like many others begin, while sitting shiva for a parent. In my case it was my mother who had passed away in 2002.  With so many relatives paying their respects it was only natural to wonder how we all were connected. I went to the attic to retrieve some old pictures to share with our visitors and there I discovered a treasure trove of genealogical information. Boxes that belonged to my mother’s father, my grandfather, Joseph Freiman, untouched for nearly 36 years, filled with names, dates, and letters to and from my grandfather to countless relatives. There were scraps of paper where he listed the chronology of his life starting from his birth in 1886 in Gorodok to the burial locations of grandparents, uncles, aunts and cousins. He clearly wrote and saved all of this for this moment in time, when a descendant would come and want to learn about his ancestors.

As an only child whose father passed away while he was only 2 years old, my grandfather longed to keep extended family very close. In 1919 he wrote his first letter to relatives urging them to stay in touch.

His “Relatives Cult” came to fruition in the mid 1940s with family gatherings and a family newsletter. The mailing list he compiled and used from 1945 was my starting point. Some of the names had obvious connections but many were just mysteries of how and why they were included. It didn’t take  long to learn that many of the people were relatives of his wife, my grandmother, Rose (nee Jorrisch) Freiman.

This story is about the details I have pieced together about Rose’s maternal grandparents, Leib and Chuma Honig – my great- great grandparents.  Anyone who has done even a minimum of research on his family tree knows that if you shake hard enough, a few “nuts” are bound to fall out, and it is also true that some of what we discover can be unsettling. The story of Leib and Chuma Honig is in part a sad one and I struggle not to be judgmental.

We always knew of the Jorrisch name that was well documented within our family as we grew up. Rose’s mom was Jennie who was married to Max Jorrisch. Jennie and Max JorrischFrom my grandfather’s lists and subsequent discussions with newly discovered cousins, I learned that Jennie’s maiden name was Honig. In fact it became quite clear that Jennie had 9 siblings all of whom made their way to America. I further learned that the youngest sibling, Gussie Honig was born in New York around 1880. Family lore apparently had it that when Gussie married in 1899, her parents decided to make “Aliyah” to Eretz Yisrael. As an observant Jew, without many observant relatives, I found that tidbit fascinating. What would compel a couple advanced in age (later I would learn they were in their 60s) to leave their 10 adult children and grandchildren in the United States to go to Jerusalem? I must admit I fantasized over their religious Zionism.

My first order of business was to put first names to the Honig parents that now sat prominently atop my family Tree. The matriarch name was easy. I am fortunate to have a second cousin who shares my genealogical interest. During the past 10 years we have gotten to know each other fairly well. She had two incredible documents saved from our common great grandparents, Max and Jennie Jorrisch.  The first was a the Last Will and Testament of Chuma Honig, dated 1910, Jerusalem, Turkey that named Max Jorrisch as executor of her estate (attached). The second was a letter from the U.S. Consulate in Cairo, Egypt dated 1919 which informed Jennie Jorrisch that her mother, Chuma Honig, passed away some 18 months earlier, essentially from poverty and that her husband (no name) died shortly before that from choleraLetter notifying of Death of Chuma Honig  . This letter was in response to a request from Jennie to learn of her mother’s whereabouts. One can only imagine how difficult it was in the early 1900′s to be in touch with relatives an ocean apart as well as living in Jerusalem under the Ottoman Empire during the upheavals of WWI. Learning her name was Chuma, probably a derivative of the name Nechama, was small “solace” after finding out that she died from poverty.

 

What was Chuma’s husband’s name? As most of us are wont to do, we visited countless cemeteries. With 10 children (for 7 of whom I had detailed information), it should have been rather simple to determine his name from their headstones. I quickly learned that discrepancies can arise.  Some headstones had Leib and Leibish, but others had Yehuda Tzvi. From various sources I was able to quickly to dismiss the notion that there were half-siblings. It occurred to me that maybe the answer literally lies in Jerusalem. I wrote a letter to the Jerusalem Chevra Kadisha explaining that I am researching Leib (Yehuda Tzvi) & Chuma Honig who passed away around 1917 and I asked where indigent people may have been buried. I felt it was a long shot, since record keeping during the Ottoman Empire was suspect at best and  any deaths during WWI would be quite difficult to track.

A few months after sending my letter, my wife and I were in Israel for a family simcha. After 10 days of a leisurely trip, we were having seudat slishi with my sister-in-law in Efrat, a few hours prior to our return flight to New York.  Out of the blue she asked me, “Did you contact the Rabbi?” I asked, “What Rabbi?” She responded,  “The one from the Chevra Kadisha.” My wife’s expression, as she realized that between our travel plans and the simcha, she had forgotten to tell me about the call, has become a comical adjunct to our Tree. It didn’t take very long upon our return to call the Rabbi only to hear him say he couldn’t find them. As he wished me luck he asked, “By the way do you know where they came from?” I told him, Galicia. He asked for a few more days. You can imagine my delight when the phone rang two days later with his words, “I found them; they are buried on Har HaZeitim and your great, great grandfather’s yahrzeit is this coming Sunday, Asara B’Tevet”.  He then faxed me a copy of the hand written register, which listed their full names, including their respective fathers’ names. I was shocked to see that the very same confusion over Leib’s name was indeed reflected in this register. His death in 1906 lists his name as Leibish Tzvi on line 45 and under Chuma’s death in 1916 it lists his name as her husband, Yehuda Tzvi.  chevra Kadish Register - Honigs (2)

 

My next adventure was to follow the paper trail, if any existed, for the letter from the government informing Jennie that her mother Chuma passed away. I contacted the National Archives in Washington, D.C., wondering if they would like a copy of the letter from 1919. In my description I referred to a file number on the letter to which the gentlemen told me a file at one time must have existed and he would look into it.  Within two weeks I received a set of copies of the entire file. Included was the original letter sent by Jennie Jorrisch (attached) to the Secretary of State and all the correspondence between the U.S. Consulate in Cairo and the British military.

Through Ancestry.com I have been able to locate a few items on Leib, including an 1880 census, his petition for citizenship and even his passport application.  Using my grandfather’s lists and many hours chasing clues, I have pieced together 7 of the children and their descendants, with the hope that, in time, I will discover information about the remaining 3 children of Leib & Chuma Honig.

 

As an epilogue, I mentioned above that sometimes our discoveries raise more questions than they answer and that those answers can be somewhat unsettling. Yes, I may have fantasized that Leib and Chuma were driven by a Zionistic zeal, but unfortunately I came across the index cards my grandfather used in 1951 to eulogize his wife, Rose. “Poor grandparents (Leib & Chuma) who couldn’t live in peace here among their many children, so they went to the Holy Land to die there in peace.”  Rather depressing words.  Perhaps it gives some insight into why, with 10 adult children in the United States, they had to endure such financial hardship in Eretz Yisrael. I often wonder if this is something for which the descendants of Leib & Chuma need to “atone”.  One day I hope to unite their many children to form a fund to help the impoverished in Israel, which would aptly be called, “Sweet Consolations” (Nechama = consolation, Honig = honey).

 

 

Michael Salzbank

Michael Salzbank, 52, with his wife Barbara and two sons, Yosef and Zev, live in Kew Gardens Hills, New York. Through his research over the past 10 years he has discovered hundreds of new cousins living all across the United States and in Israel.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

New Strategies in German Jewish Research by Karen Franklin

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From a lecture to the Colorado Jewish Genealogy Society

January 14, 2013

I recently began working on a project to organize 50 years research files for a Jewish genealogist, Jon Stedman. The papers were fascinating. In addition to his family story, they documented how Jewish genealogy research has changed in the last half century.

When Jon first sent for vital records in the 1960s, the cost was $1.00 each. Researchers charged him $2.50 or $3.00 per hour for their services.  Jon inhabited libraries and copied microfilms of newspaper articles; some he simply transcribed (pencil and paper).  He corresponded with mayors and archivists in Germany, and labored with scholars (including Cecil Roth) to extract the fine nuances of translations. Stedman Archive Request 1963  His trees were published in Malcolm Stern’s First American Jewish Families: 600 Genealogies.

By the 1990s Jon was following JewishGen “religiously” to tutor himself about new methodologies. He had his DNA tested early on and kept up with every advance and discovery. He began to correspond with dozens of genealogists whose names would be familiar to those who have worked in the field. He cooperated with other genealogists who had already created family trees for large branches of their (mutual) families, lines that he had been unable to trace.

 

The changes in Jon Stedman’s research strategy are a reflection of the growth and opportunities in our field.Record for Sprinz GoldschmidtOppenheimer on AM (2)  There are now major genealogy sites, Geni, and MyHeritage (the former bought out by the latter) and its rival Ancestry, that include extensive family trees. Complete trees are also available on JewishGen’s Family Tree of the Jewish People, Geneanet, and a several other sites.  As a researcher, I always begin my research on these sites, to see if anyone else has already posted a tree.  And I also Google the family names (with two or three related ones in order to narrow down the options), because there could be personal family sites as well.

Nowhere do these database opportunities affect the way family historians work than for German Jewish genealogists. There have always been a plethora of existing family trees for German Jewish families, and they are prominent among those on the databases mentioned.  As digitized archives collections go online (Leo Baeck Institute www.cjh.org), these trees also become more easily accessible within archival institutions.

Thousands of researchers who have already completed trees have made them available online on their own web pages.  I recently had a breakthrough connecting an ancestor I found mention of only in a death record in NYC and was able to connect to a tree Alex had traced into the 17th Century.

Digitized collections, general and geographically specific, have made documents so much more accessible. With dozens of sites offering networking (JewishGen) and digitalized or geographically specialized records, individual sites and DNA, new and experienced genealogists are challenged to rethink their strategies.

Data from DNA testing continues to become more specific and as more people are tested, it becomes more valuable.  Not only can one find cousins, but sometimes a more detailed nuance of the relationship. DNA testing offers help for “brick wall” cases, and there are many success stories.

But the most valuable treasure for researchers, one that has transformed opportunities for German Jewish research in the last decade, is the work of hundreds of dedicated historians in German towns who document, collect and make available genealogies and histories from their local area. These records may be available only in the towns or through local historians. These individuals, and now often organizations and museums, are often in contact with former residents and their families, but may not have the resources to locate the descendants of all emigrants who left in the 19th or early 20th century.

On a recent trip to Germany, I discovered three towns that had a complete or almost complete genealogical record of all the families who had lived there. None of the documentation was to be found local archives. In the tiny village of Braunsbach, Elisabeth Quirbach and her husband Hans Schultz , founders of the Rabbinats Museum Braunsbach

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA, have spent a decade documenting the former Jewish residents and their descendants. The same work has been done by the Jewish museum in Veitshochheim for its former Jewish residents. The Dokumentszentrum in Ulm has an extensive database of Jewish citizens of Ulm; the records are constantly updated.

How can one locate these individuals and organizations? I Google the name of the town and “juedische” , which brings up the pages of Alemannia Judaica (http://www.alemannia-judaica.de/), a series of web pages developed for former Jewish communities in Germany. The bibliographies are helpful in identifying local historians.

Colleagues who are listed in the family finder on JewishGen, and those who post on the Gersig discussion groups may suggest names of local experts with whom they have worked.

Over ten years ago, Arthur Obermayer established the Obermayer German Jewish History Award. This honor is given to five individuals each year in Berlin to bring international attention to their activities that “study, interpret and reconstruct information about the Jewish life that flourished in Germany….” Recipients of the award are listed on the web site http://www.obermayer.us/award.  More about the award and the individuals who have been nominated is available online or through Arthur Obermayer’s office, a valuable resource for researchers.

In closing, here is a story by way of illustration: I helped a friend whose grandmother had committed suicide bare two months before my friend was born. The grandmother had emigrated from Germany at the end of the 19th century and died shortly after the Second World War.  My friend was always puzzled and saddened that her grandmother had timed her death so cruelly.

My friend knew little about her grandmother – not where in Germany she came from, nor anything about the family history. After identifying the grandmother’s hometown, we sought to learn what resources were available and discovered a recently-published, lovingly prepared book by Hanno Mueller, Monica Kingreen and others about Jews from that area. The two-volume set had extensive histories for each family.

It turned out that days before deportations began from the region in 1942, the grandmother’s cousins were found floating in the river and the father, whom the grandmother must have known as a child, was dead from an overdose of pills, surely a fate they found preferable to the camps.  We may never understand the complete story, but knowledge of the situation gave clarity and context to her grandmother’s life and death, and provided solace as well.  Could these stories have been found in some archive? Perhaps, but more likely, perhaps not.

 

Karen Franklin

Karen S Franklin, an exhibit researcher for the Museum of Jewish Heritage, is Co-Chair of the Board of Governors of JewishGen.  A past president of the International Association of Jewish Genealogical Societies and chair of the Council of American Jewish Museums, she is currently a vice-chair of the Memorial Museums committee of ICOM (International Council of Museums). She serves on the Advisory Board of the European Shoah Legacy Institute. Karen was awarded the 2012 ICOM-US Service Citation. The citation is the highest honor of ICOM-US.

Chutes & Ladders: Innovative Approaches to Genealogy

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Chutes & Ladders: Innovative Approaches to Genealogy

Pamela A. Weisberger © 2013

Are you eager to connect the dots, score points and populate your puzzling family tree? Navigate your genealogical game-board using imaginative strategies. Manipulate Google, Facebook, Acris, Fundrace, ProQuest, bank and criminal records to locate M.I.A. relatives. Go directly to jail to uncover a scandal! Clues abound for creative online sleuths.

This handout covers unusual, creative, innovative or simply overlooked online resources for genealogical research. Most of us already know how to use JewishGen, JRI-Poland, Routes to Roots, and the SIG (regional special interest group) databases. We also know how useful paid databases like Ancestry.com are – and that they are freely accessible at public libraries and LDS Family History Centers. But perhaps a few of these links you are not yet aware of may enable you to find out more about your family and even make some surprising discoveries:
The JewishGen Discussion Group is an internet forum, which fulfills the vision to unite Jewish genealogical researchers worldwide as they read and discuss each day’s messages. They share information, ideas, methods, tips, techniques, case studies and resources. Their dedication is to Jewish family history with particulars from their own family lore and reminiscences. Not only do they want to know more, most JewishGenners are very willing to help others along the way. This continual sharing is the very essence of JewishGen. You must register to post, but also remember to search the archives of past messages using keywords related to your search: places, people and events: http://www.jewishgen.org/jewishgen/discussiongroup.htm
CRARG: Czestochowa-Radomsko Area Research Group has a database of records well over 600,000, including Holocaust, tombstone, synagogue, birth, marriage, books of residents, death, emigration, immigration, draft, taxation, craftsman, and 1790s census records covering Poland, and those who passed through Poland: http://www.crarg.org/
The ProQuest Historical Newspapers Collection includes full text and images from runs of prestigious American newspapers including The New York Times, Chicago Tribune, The Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, Atlanta Constitution, The Boston Globe, The Hartford Courant, The New York Tribune, The San Francisco Examiner, The St. Louis Post Dispatch and more. Access to this collection is only available through subscribing libraries and institutions. Some offer access to one or two of the newspapers, while others offer access to the entire ProQuest Historical Newspapers database. Check with your local, college or state library (or a student who may have access) to see if they offer access to the ProQuest Historical Newspapers collection. Many offer free in-library and remote access to their patrons.
Old New York State Historical Newspaper Pages – search over 17,000 pages including the Poughkeepsie Gazette, Brooklyn Eagle: http://fultonhistory.com/Fulton.html
Chronicling America – Library of Congress: Search America’s historic newspapers pages from 1836-1922 or use the U.S. Newspaper Directory to find information about American newspapers published between 1690-present. Learn more
http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/
GenealogyBank is an exclusive newspaper archive for family genealogy research provides information on millions of American families from 1690–today. Over 5,700 newspapers provide first-hand accounts about your ancestors that simply can’t be found at other genealogy websites. Discover the stories, names, dates, places and events that have played a role in your family history.
http://www.genealogybank.com/gbnk/

NEW YORK VITAL, NATURALIZATION, REAL ESTATE & COURT RECORDS
New York City Vital Records & Naturalizations: http://www.Italiangen.org
New York Division of Old Records ~ 31 Chambers Street, Room 703 (7th floor), NYC 10007
Director, Old Records: Joseph Van Nostrand – 212-374-4781
Director, Archival Material: Bruce Abrams – 212-374-4376
Here you can find divorce, separation and annulment cases brought in NY County 1784 – 1940, available if more than 100 years old. Hours: 9:00AM – 5:00PM computer and alphabetical card indexes index Court Records. The records pertinent to my research were:
1. Historical Records I: includes Court of Common Please, 1786-1895; and Superior
Court cases, 1828-1895
2. Matrimonial Records: includes Matrimonials, 1784-1895 and Superior Court, 1847-1895; and Supreme Court, 1911-1940 (card index).
ACRIS = The Automated City Register Information System of New York City allows you to search property records and view document images for Manhattan, Queens, Bronx, and Brooklyn from 1966 to the present: http://a836-acris.nyc.gov/scripts/docsearch.dll/index
For other states, Google the state name, “real estate” or “property records” or “court records” and you will find similar online databases proving all kinds of information.

PUBLIC LIBRARIES & THE NYPL
Contact regional public libraries (in towns of any size) for their genealogy centers (many have them and they contain books on local history, obituaries, cemetery/headstone transcriptions or indexes and more). Ask about books detailing histories of towns, cities and states that may focus on the Jewish population. Ask for the head librarian. They can be excellent resources and often the smaller locales offer the most information! Court Records always an excellent resource for bringing black sheep stories to life. New York Public Library has yizkor books and photo archives online. On site, City Directories USA (Microforms Room 100), a genealogy room, and a fabulous map room at the 42nd St. branch. If you can’t go in person, search their catalog here: http://catalog.nypl.org/

OTHER ARCHIVES, DATABASES & REPOSITORIES
The Center for Jewish History in New York City Family History Databases – Search these archival collections for names or keywords relevant to your family history: http://www.cjh.org/p/61
• Jewish Committee, Office of War. Records, 1918-1921
• Brooklyn Hebrew Orphan Asylum. Records, 1878-1969
• Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society (Boston). Microfilm, 1870-1977
• Hebrew Orphan Asylum of the City of New York. Records, 1855-1985
• Henry Hochheimer Marriage Record Book, 1850-1900
• Jewish Immigration Information Bureau, Galveston Immigration Plan. Records, 1901-1920
• Michaelson Family Papers, 1892-2000
• Collection I-153, Insolvent Debtors Cases
• Collection I-154, Incorporation Papers, 1843-1844 lists 12 names; Marriage licenses for 1830, 1838, 1849-1850 lists 7 names.
• New York Court Records. Selected Incorporation Papers, 1848-1920
Industrial Removal Office Records, 1899-1922 – http://www.cjh.org/p/61 (A 2-step search)
The Industrial Removal Office was created as part of the Jewish Agricultural Society to assimilate immigrants into American Society, both economically and culturally. It worked to employ all Jewish immigrants. The collection contains administrative and financial records, immigrants’ removal records, and correspondence. Actual document images can be found on Ancestry.com Here: http://search.ancestry.com/search/db.aspx?dbid=1613 (You must know the box# to view.)
Ancestry.com – explore their passport record collection and military records along with census, naturalization and vital records to round out your genealogical searches.
The LDS Family Search site has many new databases (like the 1905 New York Census, the 1930 Mexican Census) and European archival records searchable and viewable. Enter a name to search or click on the country section to search by region and see what they have. Updated monthly.
http://www.familysearch.org.
FindMyPast has United Kingdom vital and census records. Many people passed through the U.K. on their way to other countries, so worth checking: http://www.findmypast.co.uk

PEOPLE FINDER SITES
PrivateEye: with their Advanced People Search, you can search through tens of billions of public records from multiple sources. Includes current and up to 25 years of past information, neighbors, relatives, old addresses, and more. Free with more info if you pay. http://www.privateeye.com/
Intellius is a similar site, but may show different results. Compare: http://www.intelius.com
Zabasearch provides addresses, phone numbers, date of birth: http://www.zabasearch.com
FundRace.org shows campaign contributions and addresses: http://www.fundrace.org
Unclaimed Property Sites exist in each state. Google the state and the words “unclaimed property” to find the website for records that often go back many years and provide addresses.

MAPS
The David Rumsey Historical Map Collection is a wonderland of old maps, including the old auto-maps that provide photos of long-ago places. Fun to explore: http://www.davidrumsey.com/
Library of Congress, Panoramic Maps Collection – You can zoom in on streets and houses.
Great resource for many American cities. http://lcweb2.loc.gov/ammem/pmhtml/panhome.html

OLD PHOTOS & POSTCARDS
YIVO’s People Of A Thousand Towns, consisting of 17,000 photographs of Jewish life in Eastern Europe, is now available at http://yivo1000towns.cjh.org. Drawn from the large photographic
collections of the YIVO Archives, the photos document Jewish life in large Jewish centers as well as many smaller towns and villages from the late nineteenth century to the early 1940s.
Ebay and Allegro (a Polish auction site) and Darabanth (Hungarian site) are great for finding old postcards and stamps from your shtetl. http://www.allegro.pl or https://darabanth.hu/

MISCELLANEOUS
High school and college transcripts are usually available going back to the 19th and early 20th centuries. Definitely worth investigating. Just call or visit the college and provide details.
Internet Archive – a digital library of Internet sites is excellent for searching text found in old books and use the Wayback machine to find archived versions of outdated web pages from years’ past: http://www.archive.org/ and also search on Google Books at: http://GoogleBooks.com for towns and names.
And don’t forget the new “All Galicia Database” – www.search.geshergalicia.org – for Galician research involving records held in Ukraine and Poland, or the JewishGen SIGS or JRI-Poland for all other regional research .
Little Rock, AK /5th & Main St. 1870s

Images of the Holocaust

By On · Add Comment · In Article

(Note: This article, having been edited by the IGRA editorial board, was published as modified simultaneously in Mishpacha Volume XXXIII, Issue 2)

by Peter Lande

Over the past twenty years I have helped to develop and make available databases identifying hundreds of thousands of Holocaust victims and survivors.  However, at least for me, the real image of the Holocaust remains elusive.  Perhaps it is the sheer immensity of the event that makes it difficult to envisage.  At the risk of offending survivors and family members of those who perished, the quotation “The death of one man is a tragedy, the death of millions is a statistic” unfortunately seems to apply.

This contrast was reinforced most recently when I attempted to identify by name and fate a collection of Auschwitz prisoner photos.  A word of explanation—in 1941 and much of 1942, prisoners were both assigned a number and were photographed. Unfortunately, most of these photos have been destroyed or lost, but of a small sample of the 30,000 that remained, about 2,500 men and women, was sent by the Auschwitz Museum to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum (USHMM), where I work as a volunteer. In addition, several thousand additional photos were sent to the International Tracing Service (ITS) in Bad Arolsen, Germany.

The photos are full face, right and left profiles, prisoner number, and, through the insignia on the uniform, type of prisoner, e.g. Jew, Jehovah’s Witness or Political Prisoner.  What was lacking was the name and ultimate fate, without which information the prisoners could forever remain anonymous.

Although prisoner numbers were often used more than once, it was usually possible to narrow the search by consulting the picture for gender and type of prisoner. It was also possible to eliminate from consideration prisoners who arrived  after photographing had largely ceased due to a shortage of photographic paper.  Once I had a name, it was usually possible to develop further information, including the individual’s fate, by utilizing International Tracing Service and USHMM files.  I cannot guarantee 100 percent  accuracy,  but I am convinced that almost all are correct.  The resulting database for USHMM photos is available on the Steve Morse website (http://stevemorse.org) and will also appear on JewishGen. Family members may request copies of individual photos by contacting the Photo Archives at the USHMM.  I am also gradually, but separately, adding identification of the photos from the ITS, and at some future time, this list will become available on the web.

 

Most of these prisoners perished in Auschwitz, often within a few months of the time that they were photographed.  In such cases, these are their last signs of life and death.  A small minority of the prisoners survived, in almost all cases, as a result of transfers from Auschwitz to other camps, and sometimes I was able to follow what subsequently happened.  Whether they perished or survived, these photographs are living images for me, far more than lists or even group pictures.

In a different sense, the photographs illustrate the random nature of fate – why did prisoner XX survive while prisoner X perished, even though they both arrived on the same day and were the same category of prisoner?  What follows are a few examples taken at random that illustrate what occurred.  The first five were Jews, the next two Polish political prisoners and the final two Jehovah’s Witnesses.  There follows an unusual story of a different kind of prisoner.

Bergsohn, Chaim #63038 born Feb 1 1919 in Makow, arrived September 1942

Transferred Gross Rosen/Dachau. Survived.  Emigrated Israel.

Lyser, Wolf  #63041  born August 10,1910 in Hochenbourg,  arrived September 1942,

Died December 24, 1942

Goldenberg, Wolf #67224 born June 22, 1911  in Galatz, arrived October 1942,

Died January 31, 1943

Hakman, Alter Chaim  #37493 born August 22, 1901 in Wierzbica, arrived June 1942,

Died June 27, 1942

Hakman, Rachmil #37495 born March 18, 1925 in Radom arrived June 1942,

Transferred Greiffenberg.  Survived

Porczek, Johann #21783 born October 7, 1900 in Birkental, arrived October 1941

Died March 15, 1942

Grosicki, Leonard #62441  born 1925 or 1926 in Ostrowiec, arrived September 1942,

Transferred Buchenwald.   Survived. Returned Poland.

Conclowski, Klara #45295  born 9 August 1899 in Tannhausen, arrived May 1943

Transferred Ravensbrück/Sachsenhausen.  Survived. Returned Germany.

Solik, Heinrich #20049  born February 2, 1900 in Rybnik.  Arrived August 1941,

Died November 22, 1941

The first thirty arrivals who received numbers in Auschwitz were Germans, and many appeared to have been “Berufsverbrecher” i.e. habitual criminals.  The prisoner who received the number 2 was Otto Küsel, born May 16, 1909 in Berlin and transferred from Sachsenhausen in May 1940.  He and others were assigned the role of “Kapos”, privileged prisoners and de facto overseers of other prisoners.  In December 1942, Küsel walked out of Auschwitz with three Polish prisoners. They went to Warsaw where he reportedly helped the Resistance.  In September 1943, he was captured and sent back to Auschwitz.  While escapees who were captured were usually publicly hanged, he was merely put into solitary confinement for some time and then transferred to Flossenbürg.  He survived there as well, and after the war testified at a war crimes trial.  He was offered honorary Polish citizenship, but declined.

Knowing how unsatisfactory this might be for a family member, there can be no closure for most who seek information on family who were sent to Auschwitz since there is neither a date of transfer nor a date of death.  Only for a minuscule few do we have prisoner pictures.  For a tiny percentage of these, we might even have more.  In the case of Rachmil Hakman mentioned above, for instance, we know that he survived three years in Auschwitz, that he was transferred and that he survived.  Actually, we know a great deal about him, e.g. he was born 23/6/1926 or 1928 in Radom.  His parents were Ajzyk and Rojza Hakman.  He lists his professions as tailor, butcher and student. After the war, up until 1948, he lived in various displaced persons camps in Germany and sought to emigrate either to Israel or Canada.  Alas, we do not know where he finally ended up but perhaps a reader does and could let us know?

 

Peter Landé was born in Germany of German parents but came to theUnited Statesas a young child.  He received a BA from Haverford College in 1952 and a MA from the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy.  He also studied at Hamburg University on a Fulbright grant. He joined the Foreign Service of the Department of State in 1956, serving in New  Zealand,Germany,Japan,India,Canada and Egypt, as well as in senior positions in the Department.  He retired in 1988 as Economic Minister in the US Embassy in Cairo.

Since retirement, he has been active in genealogy research, writing and lecturing, with special emphasis on Holocaust records.  He works as a volunteer at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington,D.C.In July 2001 he received a Lifetime Achievement Award from the International Association of Jewish Genealogical Societies for work in identifying sources of information on Holocaust victims and survivors.