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 …
Escape from Poland: 1920
Sometime in 1920, my Zaide (grandfather) made a fateful decision. Having been drafted into the Polish army, he absconded from his unit and made his way to Germany, never to return to Poland. This post attempts to reconstruct the historical circumstances of that decision, one to which I owe my very existence. He was born …
Polish citizenship?
I’m looking into applying for Polish citizenship. No, I haven’t lost my mind, though my grandparents, if they could know my mind, would think so. Not only would consider me meshuga (crazy), but they would also recoil at the notion of identifying myself as part of an anti-Semitic nation. For to them, as for many other …
Polish Mezuzahs and their traces
Nothing marks the presence of Jews as much as a mezuzah. A mezuzah is a scroll that contains verses from the Torah encased in a rectangular box and affixed to the entryway of a home. Here is what a typical one looks like: The mezuzah …
Shma Israel: Praying in Poland
I was back in Poland a few weeks ago. It’s my second there, and it looks like it won’t be the last. I seem to have “business” in Poland, finding out more of my family’s past and connecting with those on similar journeys. Three years ago I took my first trip to Poland, a roots …
Chone the Flax Oil Maker: In memory of Joe Guttman
This post is dedicated to the memory of Joseph Guttman, a dear friend and esteemed member of the Riverdale Jewish Community who recently passed away at the age of 93. It could not have been written without his kind assistance, rendered just about two months before his passing. My topic is flax. Yes, flax. It’s …
David: A family mystery
When I began my family history research, I know of six children born to my great grandparents in Zambrow: the eldest, my grandfather (Zaidy), his brother, Shmulke, and four sisters: Chanche (Chana), Paicha (Puah), Chaya Sara (Adele) and Hinde. I grew up near my grandfather and aunt Adele and knew of Shmulke, of all whom …
Searching for Chanche (Chana)
How can I memorialize the lives of my Polish ancestors who died in the Holocaust? The generation of my Zaidy (grandfather) is gone. So too are their children, my mother and her two sisters. But I am trying to recover as much of their lives as possible. In this post, I record the search for …
Introduction to Genealogy
If you want to explore your roots, there’s no escaping entering the world of genealogy. When I began this project, I knew only the names of my great grandparents, my grandfather Elchanan, who was called Choni, and after whom I am named, and my great grandmother Sheindl, who was murdered in Treblinka or Auschwitz. One …