Mania and Yidl Zaks Family
WhatsNew:
Release October 16, 2022
Yigal used to write short chapters and read them at various events in the nursing home where he lived in the last years of his life.
The large and interesting part of the chapters are part of his life history.
Few are translations or abridgments of facts related to general education.
Release Feb 23, 2020
Berek Szczekacz and Chana Szmidt
Berek Szczekacz and Chana Szmidt had 12 children. Searching for Birth, Marriage, Death records (BMD) brings us occasionally to meet living family members. I admit, getting to know new blood related family members is the most exciting part of doing genealogy. Lately I met Yoram Shachar, one of Berek and Chana’s great, greatgrandchild about whom I haven’t heard until Dec 15, 2019. The meeting has prompted me to create pages for the descendants of Berek Szczekacz, our mutual great, great grandfather. The released page will introduce you to the 12 children and to their children. Currently there are only two documented stories, about Layzer Ludwig Szczekacz and about Frajdla Szczekacz. The stories about Yoram Shachar, Samuel Szczekacz (The artist, Shmuel Tzur), the many Shakter’s descendants and others will follow soon.
Release Nov 9, 2019
Yosef Kaluzynski and Chana nee Sznajderman
Release Jan 6, 2018
Fajgla Kaluzynski and Wolf Szperling
The Holocaust Had no Mercy for the Szperling Family
Stories and Photos
Release June 26, 20
A Telephone call from Australia to Californiaswept Jane and me into a research in the Czech Republic. Several families appeared for a moment and then disappeared during the Holocaust. Very few suvivors, many Yad Vashem testimony pages and research in the Czech Republic declared Jane, Dov Kuflik, his sister, Idit, and the five grandchildren of Josef Arieli, my self included, are 3rd cousins. Jane, Dov and his sister, Idit, are 2nd cousins.
Dawid Borejdo Sznajderman
The following story is about Dawid Sznajderman, the son of Abram Moshe Sznajderman and Ajdla Koenigsberg, who survived the tumultuous time of WWII.
Marek Kaluzynski was son of my great grandfather, Abram Kaluzynski, and his second wife, Chaja Dzialoszynska.
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.
Release History
Important Links
Read the Beautiful translation by Jerrold Landau
Connect with Czestochowers all over the wold.
The World Society of
Czestochowa Jews
And Their Descendants
Family History
Memories, like sand stones
Slowly, a grain follows a grain,
Erode, crumble, and vanish.
Sea waves and wind
Sweep them away
Hurry
Listen to the voices
Collect the words,
The names, the episodes, the moments…
Carve and seal them
In a meticulously crafted pendant
Close to your heart
Allow them to live forever.
Let Us Start With Basic Steps:
Write down everything you know about yourself and about your family:
- Full names
- Date of Birth, Marriage and Death
- Where these events occured
- Talk to your grandparents, parents, uncles and aunts
- Write down family anecdotes
- Scan family photos
- Scan Family documents
Mania Szperling and Yidl Zaks Family
Standing right to left: Rina Irmay nee Zaks - (15 Aug, 1921, Piotrkow) Romek Zaks - (24 May, 1919,Piotrkow-2 Sep, 1939, Piotrkow) Sitting right to left: Yidl Zaks -(May 1, 1888 - 21 Oct, 1942) Aharon Nolek Zaks - (1914, Piotrkow - 1989, Israel) Mania Zaks nee Szperling - (8 Nov, 1887, Klobuck- Oct, 1942, Treblinka Camp)
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Lunia Finkel nee Zaks - the eldest daughter of Yidl and Mania Zaks |
Lunia (1913 - ?) and Aharon Nolek Zaks (1914 - 1989) |
Aharon Nolek Zaks (1914 Piotrkow - 1989, Israel) |
Lunia Zaks (1913 - ?) |
Rina (15 Aug, 1921, Piotrokow- ) and Romek (15 Aug 1919, piotrkow - 1942, Treblinks) Zaks |
The children of Yidl Zaks and Mania nee Szperling: Left to right in a circle: Lunia, Rina, Romek and Nolek |
Gdud Hashomer Hatzair, 1926, Front, Right: Nolek Zaks with a knitted shal around his neck. The man sitting in the middle, among the children, is Hertzel Feinkind. |
Lunia Zaks and her husband Fredrik Finkel During the 1930s Chelyabinsk experienced rapid industrial growth. Several establishments, including the Chelyabinsk Tractor Plant and the Chelyabinsk Metallurgical Plant, were built at this time. During World War II, Joseph Stalin decided to move a large part of Soviet factory production to places out of the way of the advancing German armies in late 1941. This brought new industries and thousands of workers to Chelyabinsk. Lunia wrote letters to her parents. Her letters were sad and tragic. Her last letter arrived late in 1937. We suspect that Lunia , Fredrik and Luva disappeared in Russia before WWII.
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The Destruction of the Family During the Holocaust
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Yidl Zaks, and his family lived on 8 Narutowicz street, Piotrkow Tryb. During the war the family was moved to 10 Siedradzka 10, Piotrkow Tryb. Later the family was moved to the Ghetto and they lived on Staro Warszawska street. Yidl Zaks and Mania nee Szperling, Rina's parents were sent to their death, to Treblinka, on the 21th of October, 1942. Rina in her testimony in Yad Vashem recalls these horrific day, the saddest in her life. During her time in the Ghetto, like many of the Jews, she was employed at the Hortensja Glassworks, which mainly produced jars and bottles, at the Kara factory. The following paragraph, not easy to read, tells about the destruction of the Piotrkow Ghetto:
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- 1 - Avraham Romek Zaks - the First Victim
It began on the day the mobilization of the reserves was announced, one week before the outbreak of World War Two. We suddenly realized we were in grave danger. Avraham Zaks (Romek), the son of Yehudah and Manya Zaks, was about twenty at the time, and his girlfriend, Luisa, a Jewish refugee from Germany, had told him exactly what awaited us Jews. He did not hesitate for a moment and decided to enlist in the army and fight the enemy of Poles and Jews. His parents did not object. He rushed over to the draft office, where a long line of men of all ages was waiting, but was sent home and told to wait until he was called. There were many Jews with a secondary education who had the right to serve as junior officers, but they were all sent home. Romek was disappointed and disheartened; he found no peace in his nerve-wracking inaction. We were glued to the radio day and night, awaiting a miracle. But a miracle did not occur, and the inevitable happened: war was declared. That night; Friday, September 1st, no one slept. The house was full of guests, relatives, and refugees from Czestochowa who hoped to find refuge from the Nazi occupier. Romek, pale and nervous, entered his parents' bedroom, and kissed his mother goodbye as if he knew he would not see her again. Which is exactly what happened.. . The next day, on the Sabbath, everyone in town was scurrying about, peering at the bright blue sky where silvery airplanes were buzzing. Everyone was wondering what those maneuvers meant when a deafening thunder shook the house. As the people huddled around the radio we realized that a bomb had hit our house. A terrible wail was heard in the next room. |
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We ran into the room and saw a blood-chilling sight. Romek was lying on the floor in a pool of blood. His body was still warm, but he was lifeless. Someone brought him water and tried to revive him, but the hand holding the glass stopped in mid-air as the person's eyes met the eyes of a doctor who happened by. Romek's soul had departed from his body through the hole in the chest where, a few seconds earlier, his warm heart had been beating. This is how the terrible war began in Piotrkow. For Yudl Zaks and his wife, Romek's death was also the end. The burial took place beneath a shower of explosions, during the occupation of the town by the Germans. The expulsion from the house, the methodical robbery of the business, the transfer to the small ghetto and to Treblinka …. those were the next stages of death, a prolonged process of dying. Romek's mother, known for her strong character and intelligence, did not recover from her son's death and could not forgive herself for not sending him to the land of Israel after the departure of her first-born son. The father, a good-hearted and happy man, was destroyed by a heart ailment. I alone have survived to tell the story of the destruction of this family. After I escaped from the murderers at the end of the war, I immigrated to Israel to join my older brother Aharon.
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- 3 -Testimonies and storisby and aboutRina Irmay nee Zaks
Rina Zaks and her mother Mania Zaks nee Szperling
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