JEWISHGEN Digest - 20 Mar 1998 (#1998-179)

 

Date: Fri, 20 Mar 1998 16:06:39 PST

From: Ada Holtzman <ada01@netvision.net.il>

Subject: Shalom "Saba-Raba" from WYSZOGROD...

 

Shalom,

 

It has been an incredible morning, and I wish to share that with you. What an amazing revelation... To think that it is still difficult for me, even now, to spell the word "WYSZOGROD"... being completely ignorant to where this town from Poland is, just a few months ago...

 

Both my parents came from a small shtetl: Gombin, (Gabin) near Plock. My grandmother Rasza Holcman nee Zlotnik, belonged to a dynasty of Rabbis who practised all over Poland in the first decades of this century.

Among them were Rabbi Yona Mordechai of Plock, Rabbi Meir Zlotnik of Glowaczow, rabbi Szaja Zlotnik of Radom. The most famous of them all was the great rabbi, Yiddish researcher, writer and a folklorist, rabbi Yehuda Laib Zlotnik, changed to "AVIDA". He was among the founders of the Mizrahi Zionist movement in Poland. The name of the street in Jerusalem, where his apartment was , changed to "AVIDA" after his name.

 

I knew that it was Plock from where they originated, and I volunteered recently to be Plock coordinator in the JRI shtetl co-op project of the JewishGen.

 

But I volunteered to help Wiszogrod co-op team as well, before that. My connection to WYSZOGROD was rather distant. One of my maternal great aunt, Perla Gostinska, married Zawel Zawirucha from WYSZOGROD and they moved to Paris in the late 20's. All the family later was transported from Drancy to Auschwitz and perished except Mordka (Max) who survived Auschwitz.

 

Besides, my father had a sister in law: MIRIL from WYSZOGROD, wife of Moshe Aharon Holcman, both were the parents of beautiful Channale and Perla. They were liquidated at the gas vans of Chelmno, in April 1942. My father does not remeber Miril's surname, only that she came from WYSZOGROD...

This was all my connection to this shtetl, and also the fact that it is near Gombin, was enough for me to join the co-op team of WYSZOGROD.

 

Recently, I happened to find in the Yizkor book of Plock an article about my great uncle Yona Mordechai Zlotnik who founded the Hebrew gymnasium in Plock and served as a rabbi there until 1922 when he died. It mentioned there that he was born at 1858 in ...WYSZOGROD!

 

My great grandfather, Abram Jciek had 13 children born, from two wives.

My grandmother Rasza was from the second wife, Channa Nekha nee Lisser from Plock. Who was the first wife? My father didn't know.

 

This morning I transliterate page 19 LDS 730209, Marriages, year 1855, sent to me by Stuart Richler, Wyszogrod coordinator.

 

The handwriting is so hard to decipher. I try hard but sometimes it is just impossible. What is this curly H? what is this sign and that scribble? Is this a "P" "K" or an "E"? Here is a stain, there the xerox didn't come with the full name, quite painstaking and hard sometimes I admit...

 

Than, all of a sudden, at the bottom of the page: a HIT!!!

AKT 5 ZLOTNIK Abram Iciek and Wolfisz Nacha...

Now I can get the certificate itself where I can see the parents of my great grandparents and expand my tree with one more generation, in the small town of WYSZOGROD in Poland. Such a surprise, not expected at all.

 

Doing this transliteration I did see the Jews of the shtetl, 100-150 years ago, strolling on the screen, coming from the keyboard, popping up from the motherboard --- our "avoteinu" names, lives of human beings, ancestors of clans, all are there, in those indexes... But I didn't think it will be my own "saba raba" whom I'll encounter...

 

I'll never be tired of thanking the JewishGen and all those responsible for this incredible venture.

 

One lesson can be drawn from this - whenever you volunteer to something - you get your reward eventually, this way or another.

And if you wish to join those who are doing the "mitzva" why don't you take a minute and land at:

http://www.jewishgen.org/JRI-PL/reippco.htm

...

 

 

Lehitraot...

 

 

Ada Holtzman

 

 

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E-mail: ada01@netvision.net.il

Date: 03/20/98

Time: 08:24:33

Web site: http://weber.ucsd.edu/~lzamosc/gada.html

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