Half of my grandfather’s family made it out of Poland before World War II. The other half didn’t and were killed. My grandfather’s brother was one who did leave Poland. He was known as Shmulke (Shmuel or Sam) Wierzbowicz, and in this post I explore his journey from Poland to America. As with most Eastern …
Author: Chanan Kessler
Poland-Palestine-America: A journey to U.S. citizenship
My relatives didn’t arrive in the U.S. during the period of mass immigration from Eastern and Southern Europe from 1880-1920, when over 20 million people, including two and a half million Eastern European Jews, arrived on these shores. As the doors of immigration to the U.S. began closing after 1920, my grandfather’s entire family–his parents, …
From Germany to Palestine: 1920-1922
I begin with a photograph. It’s the first photo I have of my grandfather, Yosef Weirzbowicz (Waxman). It was taken in 1922, in Berlin. Next to him sits his mother, Sheindl. Standing alone, a photograph is lifeless, unreal, imprisoned, as Susan Sontag wrote in On Photography. To bring it to life, a story needs to be told, …
From Poland to Germany
Sometime in 1920, about a year after being drafted into the Polish army during the Polish-Soviet war, my Zaide (grandfather) absconded and made his way to Germany. In this post I explore why and how he made this fateful decision to leave his family and native land and to enter, illegally, into Germany. When he …