Marek Kaluzynski

Marek Kaluzynski

Marek Kaluzynski was son of my great grandfather, Abram Kaluzynski, and his second wife, Chaja Dzialoszynska.
Marek Kaluzynski was born on September 6, 1898, in Czestochowa, according to the Czestochowa Book of Permanent Residents 1870-1930 and data from “Czestochowa PSA BD1885-1901 M1884-1901”.

Czestochowa Book of Residents 1870-1930 provides the following information:

Czestohowa (Military) Conscription 1920; Czestochowa Archives, syg. 8817-? provides the following data:
Czestochowa Year: 1898 Syg: 8834 Vol.1 (book made 1 April 1926)
numbering 113
Person:                                    Kaluzynski Markus
Date and Place of Birth:          8 Sep 1898 Czestochowa
Parents:                                   Abram and Chaja nee Dzialoszynski
Profession of father:                Without work
Residence of parents:  Czestochowa, ii Aleja 16
Residence of person:               the same
Religion:                                  Jewish
Profession:                              Accountant
Education:                               4 class

Marek’s mother, Chaja, died around 1912 in Czestochowa, leaving his father with five young children; the youngest, Sara, was two years old. Marek was fourteen years old.
Marek’s life experiences gave rise to many legends about his love life and his fate. Every survivor of the Kaluzynski family had his own version of Marek’s tragedy. His sister Sara Kaluzynski Lukov believed in several different tales. My father, Ariel Arieli, who visited Poland but never met him, had another version, and Rina Irmay, his cousin, who also never met him, had her own set of memories about him. They all told their stories about Marek’s life repeatedly, and of course we, the next generation, expanded the story, twisted it, and modified it into what it is now—truly a fiction.
Sara Lukov, his sister, told me:
Marek, as the family used to call him, was a handsome young man. At home the family called him Mokusz. He resisted the name, insisting it was too childish for him.
Marek’s math skills were outstanding. Even a very complex set of mathematical calculations would take him no more than a few seconds to solve.
Marek’s father, Abram Kaluzynski, was a poor merchant who was hardly able to support his many children. Marek felt obliged to support him. He started as clerk and later became a manager in a glass factory.
The exciting part of the story is about Marek’s lover, a rich Jewish woman, whose name may have been Natalia. She was in the cigarette business. She forcefully convinced Marek to leave his jobs and to invest his money in the cigarette business. In return she promised to marry him. The cigarette business did not exist, the cigarettes that did exist were stolen, and Marek subsequently lost his money. Sara Lukov, on one occasion, told me that Marek’s involvement with stolen goods brought him before the court, and he was sentenced to prison. In prison, all the wards liked him, and there, a few took him around Czestochowa in a cart.
The story goes on to say that Marek escaped prison and fled to France. It is not clear whether Marek fled to France because of his financial troubles or because of the anti-Communist Polish government. One account of Marek’s story goes so far as to claim that one of the wards helped Marek to escape prison with a recommendation to flee to France.
But the most dramatic version tells us that Marek went to see his lover at her home. His lover was sitting with her family around the kitchen table. An unknown person was also present at the table. Marek, naturally, approached his lover and tried to embrace her, but she spurned his advances:
“Who is that person? Why he is approaching me?”
Marek, infuriated by her response, attacked her with a knife, wounding his former lover. Marek was again taken to the prison.
Another variation tells us that Marek fell in love with a female artist who was a dishonest prostitute. She pressed him for money and forced him to resign from his job in the glass factory. One day Marek visited her at her home. The lady stood in front of a mirror, trying on a new hat. When she saw Marek, she told him to leave immediately and insisted that she did not want any further relations with him.
Marek could not bear this betrayal and murdered her.
In yet another variation, Marek went into a bar. At that time, he and his lover were already separated. When he entered the bar, his lover was there, making love to another man. She behaved like a prostitute and started mocking Marek in front of everyone when he came in. Marek could not control himself and confronted her forcefully. His lover did not survive the attack.
One of the addenda to all the variation is a rather far-fetched story about a painting by Marek or by his lover. The subject of the painting, the legend goes, is a woman who has been murdered by her lover. The story goes on to say that people treated the painting as if it inspired or prophesied the actual murder.
While you may have thought for a moment that all the variations had been accounted for, there remains one more story. There was a murder, a sentence, years in prison and at last a release. The most sentimental story tells of Marek leaving the prison on one dark, snowy winter day. Freedom and a new life awaited him, but he chose to plod along the road leading into the cemetery. A thick blanket of snow covered his lover’s grave… That is the last the family heard of him.
Another ending suggests that family members successfully argued that Marek’s anger had been greatly provoked by his victim and that he took on office work for the authorities at the end of his sentence.
The story was all over Czestochowa’s newspapers. It was blown out of proportion.
Carol Kaluszyn, his cousin, claimed to have a newspaper with the story about Marek Kaluzynski. I can perhaps add another entry to my long to-do list: search for that newspaper clipping.  Who knows what I might find?
Marek’s fate remains uncertain.
My imagination and my tendency to believe in his romantic, tragic ending led me to choose the story about Marek embracing his lover’s grave under the snow forever.
Do not be carried away; it is only the fictional story I love best.
Did he die in prison?
Was he killed in a military service?
One of the stories does tell of him serving as an officer in the Polish army. I have one photo from Sara Lukov, and I am inclined to believe it is of Marek. In the photo, Marek appears as a Police soldier.

Was he murdered during the Holocaust?
Sara Lukov provided a testimony page to the Yad Vashem database about him, his wife, and his daughter.  She never told me about the testimony she gave. I found it while searching the Yad Vashem database for testimonial pages by her.
Here is the page image and its content translation:

Summary of Sara’s testimony to Yad Vashem:
“Marek Kaluzynski was born in Czestochowa in 1900 to Avraham and Khava. He was a teacher and married to Ana. Prior to WWII he lived in Czestochowa, Poland. During the war, he was in Bialistok, Poland. Marek perished in the Shoah. This information is based on a Page of Testimony (displayed on left) submitted on 19-Dec-1955 by his sister.”
When I found the page, I was surprised with its content. Sara never told me about Marek’s murder in the Holocaust.  No one, including Sara, had ever spoken about Marek’s family in Bialystok. I spoke with her in 2002 and heard many of the variations about Marek’s life from her.

An additional photo was found in the Yad Vashem Archive:
Czestochowa, Poland, A Photograph of a Jewish Sports Group
In the photo: 1) Holfhasemd, 2) T. Kizing, 3) Tendler, 4) J. Webwr, 5) F. Kranskopt, 6) M. Lemel, 7) M. Praport, 8) L. Davidowiez, 9) C. Kempner, 10) M. Kaluzynski, 11) U. Brum, 12) A. Soteiner, 13) Teigl, 14) Smothgd. 
Places: CZESTOCHOWA, POLAND, Credit: Yad Vashem Archival Signature:53AO6 

The identity of the two persons sitting in the middle of the photo is not clear.

The findings triggered me to try to extend the research.
“How did he get to live in Bialystok during the war?” I thought.
Evelyne Handel, my friend from Belgium, heard the story and suggested that perhaps he did not flee France—perhaps he was deported from France back to Poland.
I looked up the list of deported Jews from France. Marek was not on the list.

I searched in Google for “Markus Kaluzynski Poland Expulsion” and an html version of the document http://arrow.arch.be/ddd/20455.pdf appeared on the screen. It was a French document dated July 31, 1928,  and titled “CONSEIL 3B CABINET DIT 31 JUILLET 1928.” The document has fourteen sections. The image of the twelfth section is below:

The translation of the document: The Council authorizes the Minister of Justice to submit to the King judgments expelling, for political reasons, the aliens mentioned below.
Markus Kaluzynski name appears in the list.
Another Document from Belgium, Antwerp Police Immigration Index, 1840-1930 for Markus Kaluzymski gives the following information: