In the United States

Sol Baum at barber shop in 1920s (second from right)

In 1922, my grandmother, Pola, and two young children reunited with Sol in Kansas City, Missouri. They settled into an apartment on Independence Avenue where other Jewish immigrants from Eastern Europe lived. It was also where my grandfather and his brother Sam opened a barber shop.

By 1924, my mother, Mary, was born and the growing family moved to a small home at 24th and College Avenue. Pola enjoyed weekly card games with a close circle of friends, including my paternal grandparents, Mary and Ben Zenitsky. Cousin Marcia often tagged along and remembered Pola as fun-loving and friendly. She spoke English with a thick accent and told jokes in Yiddish so the kids couldn't understand. 

Eventually, my grandfather moved his shop to the National Garage Building at 11th & McGee in downtown Kansas City. In spite of the Great Depression, the family lived comfortably and adapted to life in America. Sol bought his first car in 1935. They became grandparents. Pola became a naturalized U.S. citizen in 1941. Their last name was shortened from Kirszenbaum to Baum.

Pola and Sol with children and spouses in 1939

As the country headed toward war, Sol's health deteriorated. He died in April, 1943 at the age of 44. Pola saw the birth of three more grandchildren before passing away in 1950.

I wish I knew more about their lives and asked more questions about what it was like for them during the war. I hope Pola and Sol lived the lives they hoped for in the United States—owning a business and a home, having a family and making the choice to become citizens. Thankfully, their decision to leave Lublin likely saved their lives, yet, the heartache of leaving family behind and losing them all, must have taken its toll.

Giving Them a Face and a Name

Moise Krymholc

In 1937, Moise Krimholc celebrated his Bar Mitzvah and sent this photo to his aunt, my grandmother, in Kansas City. Moise was the eldest son of Chaim and Rachel, Pola's brother and sister-in-law, who immigrated to Antwerp from Lublin in the 1920s.

Then, in 1941, my grandmother received this letter from Chaim.

Dear Sister, Brother-in-Law and Children; 

It was already a year since I wrote you … For a year and a half I was in Frankfurt (hiding place) and I can’t go back home. My son does housework. I want to tell you what kind of life and what we have lost already. I put on a costume and worked as a waitress. I’m in a very bad situation and you are the only one I can write to. Acquaintances help us! They send out letters.

February 8, 1941, St. Affrique, France

… I hope you can help us in some way. I'm writing you the address. I hope it doesn’t cost much. Thank you very much. My life depends on you. I don’t hear anything from parents. How is everyone? Please send me an answer at this address: Chaim Krymholc, Av. Dr. Blancard, Restaurant St. Victor, St. Affrique Aveyron, France

Dear Pola. My wife and children are sending regards. 


Last year, researchers with the Lublin-Antwerp project at Grodzka Gate Theater found evidence of the capture and deportation of the Krymholc family soon after this letter was written. Moise, his brother, sister and parents were sent to Rivesaltes Transit Camp and to Drancy Transit Camp. In September 1942, they were transported to Auschwitz where they were murdered.




Moise's Bar Mitzvah photo was added to the Krymholz Family Archive at Grodzka Gate Theater NN. In addition, Antwerp-based researcher, Jackie Schwarz, discovered another photo of an older Moise among the immigrant information at the Kazerne Dossin archives in Brussels.

Researchers from Grodzka Gate Theater and memorial centers around the world including Kazerne Dossin, Yad Vashem, the U.S. Holocaust Memorial and Museum, Memorial de la Shoah in Paris continue to identify the names and faces of the murdered so we can remember their lives and deny the Nazis their goal to exterminate all Jews, destroy all records and be erased from memory. Although these images are frozen in time, we remember the people in them who celebrated Bar Mitzvahs and the special moments in their lives.

 “I list names of the murdered, because maybe it is the only gravestone they will get, because there is no one left of their families who would mourn their premature deaths.”

~Ida Glickstein, a Holocaust survivor, "Lublin. 43 thousand" project, Grodzka Gate Theater NN 

How They Lived

Following WWI, Polish independence came with heavy war-damage and a dysfunctional economy. Conflicts continued along the newly established eastern border. It was during this time my grandfather, Szol, left Lublin for Antwerp and soon joined his older brother, Sam, in the United States. It was said he immigrated to avoid serving in the military. Pola and her two young children followed my grandfather to Antwerp and then to the United States in 1922.

Szol Kirzenbaum, bottom left, coming to America

Pola, David and Ita's passport photo

Hairdressers shop, Kozia 4, in 1937

In Lublin, my great grandparents Sura Matele and Abram, and their nine other children, Sonya, Mania, Lola, Jacob, Motel, Srulek, Hershal, Moshe and Chaim, lived in Old Town, Rynek 14, on the edge of the Jewish District. My great grandfather was a tailor. Jacob owned a hairdressers shop at Kozia 4 in Lublin.

With their fashionable attire and my mother's recollections, I presume the Krymholc family lived as a modern Jewish family. They likely attended one of twelve synagogues in Lublin and were observant of the sabbath and religious holidays.

The Jewish cultural scene was vibrant in Poland before WWII. Fifteen Jewish schools were open in Lublin. The first Jewish newspaper in Lublin was published in 1916. The first Jewish library opened in 1918. Amateur theatre developed. Yiddish theater flourished.


Jews were active in Lublin's political scene and had their own representation in the town council. The most prominent groups were Zionists, the national movement for the re-establishment of Israel as the Jewish homeland. A Jewish trade union and socialist party, the Bund, was established in Lublin in 1916. In the late 1930s, Bund worked to improve the difficult economic situation, rising unemployment and the poorer Jewish society. Bund activists built the I.L. Peretz’s Centre of Jewish Culture in the late 1930s including a school, library, theatre and cinema. The opening ceremony was supposed to take place on the 1st of September 1939, the day Germany invaded Poland.

Although there was a thriving social and cultural Jewish community in Lublin before WWII, economic conditions continued to deteriorate. Jews were not allowed to work for the government and their shops and businesses were targets of anti-Jewish boycotts. With continued exclusion from Polish society and an increase of violent attacks, perilous conditions existed for Lublin's Jews before the Second World War.

Sonya

Lola

Monya

Moshe, Jacob, Motel, Chaim, Hershal, Srulek, with their father, Abram

Abram and Sura Matele

The Memory Trail

Zamkowy Square transformed in 1954 as 'People's Square' 

Reunion participants were invited to follow the Memory Trail, the path leading Jews to a railway platform for deportation to Belzec death camp in 1942. We met at Zamkowy Square, a large parking lot at the base of Royal Castle hill, once the heart of the Jewish district in Lublin.

For centuries, shops and houses lined Szeroka Street, the main road crossing Zamkowy Square. At 28 Szeroka Street, stood the house of Yaakov Yitzhak Ha-Levi Horowitz, the "Seer of Lublin," the famous spiritual leader and the co-founder of Chasidism in Poland. Maharshal synagogue, the largest of Lublin's eleven synagogues stood on Jateczna Street.

Mural depicting Jewish life in Lublin

On the trail, we saw a mural alongside the Czechówka River. The 100 meter mural is a collage of photographs from the 1930s showing people strolling along the street and shops with Polish and Yiddish signs on the walls.

Szeroka Street

In March 1941, Nazis created a ghetto in the Jewish district to gather Jews into one part of town. Operation Reinhard, the planned extermination of Jews, began with the liquidation of the ghetto. From March 17 to April 14, 1942, 28,000 Lublin Jews were deported to Belzec. After the liquidation of the ghetto, the buildings were demolished. Few remnants of the Jewish district exist today. A small monument with a map of the former Jewish district sits near the steps of the Royal Castle.

Wiesława Majczak with Tomasz Pietrasiewicz of GG Theatre

We stopped along the trail to hear the account of Wiesława Majczak, a Polish woman who witnessed the march from her apartment window as a child.

“I saw the route of the Jewish people, walking to the platform at the slaughterhouse. The crowd kind of streamed by. It wasn't that they just walked past – they walked, walked and walked. There was this clatter – that's how I remember the sound. The clatter of shoes on the cobblestone. And talking, and then also the shooting.

Umschlagplatz Memorial Site

“I watched it all from the second floor, so it seemed to me I could see heads and bundles only. It was as if the cobbled stones went by, the heads round and the bundles round. It was as if the street walked by, the cobblestone itself.”
Wiesława Majczak – the Account of a Historical Witness

Along the 4.5 km Memory Trail are 21 concrete slabs inscribed with a description of the death march including the quote from Wiesława Majczak's oral history. The route culminates at the railway platform and the Umschlagplatz Memorial Site.


The Memory Trail and Umschlagplatz Memorial are projects initiated by Grodzka Gate – NN Theatre Centre, with support from the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage and the Lublin City Council. 

Exploring Lublin's Jewish Past

In addition to our visit to the countryside, reunion programs organized by Grodzka Gate and Rootka Tours provided opportunities to explore Lublin's Jewish past first hand. Guided tours included Old Town, the former Jewish District and Ghetto, Grodzka Gate Theater and the Royal Castle. Workshops helped us research our Lublin families. Descendants shared stories of their parents and grandparents.We attended concerts, plays and movies directed by Lubliners of Jewish descent.

We met Andrzej Titkow, director of the documentary film, "THE FAMILY ALBUM," who tells the story of his Jewish ancestors in Lublin including his great-grandfather Marek Arnsztajn, a famous social worker, and his great-grand-mother Franciscan Arnsztajn, a poet and independence activist, during WWI. In the film, the director searches for evidence of Franciscan's conversion to Catholicism in 1939 and explores the mystery of her choice to move into the Warsaw Ghetto, where she died. The film portrays Jewish literati, affluent and progressive Jews who assimilated into Polish culture. Andrzej said he did not know about his Jewish background while growing up. His father was a Communist party dignitary and his mother hid their Jewish roots.

Lublin born filmmaker Sławomir Grünberg directed and produced the documentary film, "KARSKI AND THE LORDS OF HUMANITY."  Jan Karski was a member of the Polish Underground who was dispatched to London and Washington D.C. to tell the Allied forces of Nazi atrocities against the Jews in Poland in 1942. He crossed the wall to the Warsaw Ghetto twice and saw starvation and murder. None of the major politicians, intellectuals or judges he met with believed his reports, including the Jewish U.S. Supreme Court Justice, Felix Frankfurter, who said, "I did not say that he (Karski) is lying; I said that I don’t believe him." Since there was no political or military response to Karski's information, Karski spent the rest of his life convinced he failed the Jews in Poland. President Obama awarded Jan Karski the Presidential Medal of Freedom posthumously in 2012.

What We Now Know

We now know more about my family in Europe from the research conducted in 2016 by Lublin-Antwerp Project sponsored by Grodzka Gate.

Records show Abram, my great grandfather, moved from Lublin to Anterp, Belgium as early as 1920 and worked as a tailor. My grandmother, Pola, and her two young children joined him in 1921, before immigrating to the United States. My great grandmother came with their young son, Mordechaj, in 1926. Record also show, Chaim, my grandmother's brother, began working in Antwerp in 1927, also as a tailor. His wife Rachel immigrated to Antwerp in 1929.

My great grandparents and their son Mordechaj, returned to Lublin and their apartment at Rynek 14 sometime before 1930. Chaim, Rachel and their three young children remained in Antwerp.

Chaim, Rachel and their children were arrested in Saint-Affrique, France, sometime before September 1942. They were then taken to the Rivesaltes camp and from there to the Drancy camp. All five family members were deported from Drancy to Auschwitz-Birkenau on September 11, 1942 via transport 31. None of them survived. Jackie Schwarz, Lublin-Antwerp Project researcher, recently visited the Mémorial de la Shoah in Paris and found their names listed on the Wall of Names.

Wall of Names, Memorial de la Shoah in Paris

In March 1941, Nazi occupiers created a ghetto in the Lublin district of Podzamcze for about 34,000 Jews. From March 16, 1941 to April 14,1942, 28,000 people were deported to the Bełżec extermination camp. Survivors of the liquidation were sent to the new ghetto, Majdan Tatarski. Jews with "official" permits were allowed to live there. Some were allowed to work outside of the ghetto. Those who did not have the appropriate documentation were executed or sent to Majdanek concentration camp just outside of Lublin.

List of Jews living in the Majdan Tatarski ghetto in Lublin

A "List of Jews with J-Ausweis (documents) living in Majdan Tatarski in 1942," includes the names of my grandmother's siblings, Hersz, Jakub, Maria and Mordechaj (I believe the Chaim Krymholc listed here is not my grandmother's brother). My great grandmother's name is crossed out, with a cross symbol next to it, indicating her death in the ghetto. By November 1942, the Germans ordered the liquidation of Majdan Tatarski and those remaining were executed or sent to Majdanek concentration camp.

Belzec

The last stop on our daytrip to the countryside was Belzec, the site of the concentration camp during the Second World War. In March 1942, the Nazis instituted Operation Reinhard, the plan to exterminate Poland's Jews. Hundreds of thousands of Jews in German-occupied Poland were transported to Chelmno, Belzec, Sobibor and Treblinka camps where they were immediately murdered and buried in mass graves. 

The camp functioned until the end of 1942 and dismantled by the Nazis in 1943. A manor house was built and trees and crops were planted in the attempt to disguise the atrocity. In the summer of 1944 the Belzec region was occupied by the Red Army and shortly after the liberation the local villagers demolished the farm. The Belzec memorial site was founded in 2004 with the support of the U.S. Holocaust Museum.

A Visit to the Countryside

Village of Krepiec

During the Lubliner Reunion, organizers offered day trips to shetls (Jewish towns and villages before WWII) and historic sites near Lublin. Jon and I toured Krepiec, Zamosc and Belzec, in southeast Poland, near the border of the Ukraine.

The village of Krepiec is about 11 km from Lublin. Quaint cottages line the narrow road. We walked along the rocky path into the woods to reach the almost forgotten memorial in the Krepiec Forest. The site is the mass grave of more than 30,000 men, women and children brought from Majdanek concentration camp and the Jewish ghetto in Lublin, Majdan Tatarski.

Monument at the mass grave in Krepiec Forest

The plaque reads, "In the years 1941-1944, in the Krępiec Forest, the Nazis murdered 30,000 Polish Jews, Russians and other nationals who were brought here from the city of Lublin and the camp of Majdanek." Although the plaque states 30,000 murdered, no one really knows how many were buried or cremated in the mass grave.

Renaissance town of Zamosc

Further east is the beautiful Renaissance town of Zamosc. Built in the 16th century, Zamosc was modeled after Italian trading cities blending Italian and Central European architecture. Today, Zamosc retains its original street layout, buildings and parts of its fortress and is listed as a UNESCO World Heritage site.

Sephardic Jews from Italy, Spain, Portugal and Turkey settled in Zamosc in the late 1500s. Ashkenazi Jews (from central and eastern Europe) came in the 17th century. The town grew to become an important center for Jewish learning. The population of Zamosc was 40 percent Jewish in 1939.

The recently restored synagogue in Zamosc

During the war, Jews were moved to an open ghetto. Some were able to escape to the Ukraine. By 1941, the ghetto was liquidated with deportations to Auschwitz and Majdenek death camps in Poland and to Belzec a few miles away.

In 2011, the Zamosc synagogue was restored as part of an effort to preserve Jewish heritage in Poland. Since there are no longer Jewish residents in Zamosc, the facility is currently used as a cultural arts center and occasionally holds religious services for Jewish travelers to Belzec death camp and the Ukraine.

When Visitors Came From America in 1939

I remember my mother telling me about these photos when American relatives visited Lublin in 1939. The story goes that Fanny and Benny Sembler, my Aunt Yetta's sister-in-law and brother-in-law, were traveling to Europe and asked my grandmother to go with them. My grandmother said no because she didn't want to leave my grandfather.

Fanny, with flowers and Benny wearing the white fedora

In the photo on the right are my great grandparents, their family and guests. Sura, my great grandmother, is in the center, standing behind her grandchild. My great grandfather, Abram, is second from the right.

Krymholc family, Lublin, 1939

When planning to attend the reunion in Lublin, I hoped to visit the place where these photos were taken, if it still existed. The background is distinctive so I thought someone from Grodzka Gate could identify the location. Last April, Jackie forwarded the photos to Taduesz. He replied, "Both photos were taken in Old Town in Lublin, next to Brama Trynitarska (Trinity Gate). See you in Lublin!"

Brama Trynitarska, 2017

As I stood by the same passageway as my family 78 years earlier, I thought how this happy, beautiful family could not have known in the coming months they would lose their homes, their freedom and their lives. My heart aches for them and the 6 million. I was there to honor their memory and, in my own way, let them know, our family lives on.

Where They Lived

Rynek 14 in Old Town

My grandmother lived with her parents at Rynek 14 in the center of Lublin's Old Town, before leaving for Antwerp in 1921. Jon and I toured the area on the first day of the reunion and easily found it. The building goes back to 1471 and its history is documented on the Grodzka Gate website. 

I wondered how my Jewish family could live on the Old Town side of Grodzka (Jewish Gate) and not in the Jewish District and later learned it was common for Jews to live in Old Town until the German Occupation of Lublin in 1939.

Number 11 is on the second floor to the right

The building at Rynek 14 is made up of two parts with different facades on the outside. A gift shop is on the ground floor on the right and a cafe occupies the ground floor on the left.When we entered the arched doorway from the street, I saw a courtyard lined with apartments. I didn't know which apartment was where my family lived.

At the door of Number 11

When I returned a few days later with Monika Malec, from Polski Radio, she informed me the address on my document included "m. 11," and in Polish that means number 11. As we climbed the stairs and found number 11, I tried to imagine what the inside of the apartment looked like. No, I didn't knock on the door!

Grodzka 11

My grandfather's last known legal address in Lublin was Grodzka 11, also in Old Town. It operated as a Jewish home for orphans and the elderly from the late 1800s until 1942. My document didn't include the dates he lived there, but show his mother, Rechla, was living in Wieniawa, a village close to Lublin, around that time. His father, Dawid, was deceased. Perhaps he lived there to be close to my grandmother. The historic building is beautifully renovated and is now a youth cultural center.

Sharing Our Incredible Story

Jackie Schwarz presenting the Lublin-Antwerp Project

Antwerp, Belgium was one of the major European ports to carry immigrants to America and Canada. The team from Grodzka Gate Theater NN contacted the Red Star Line Museum in Antwerp, in 2016, after learning the city was a major European port connected to the immigration of Lublin Jews. The Red Star Line Museum recommended Jackie Schwarz, a genealogy researcher, to identify records of Jewish immigrants who came to Antwerp from Lublin in the late 1800s to 1930.

Tadeusz Przystojecki and photo of my great grandmother

Research revealed several hundred Lublin-born Jews living in Antwerp during that time. Many settled down and started working there. See Lublin-Antwerp Project.

Jackie discovered identification photos of my grandmother, great grandmother, great uncle and his wife. In addition, she found where they lived and worked in Antwerp, how long they stayed, when my great grandparents returned to Lublin and where my great uncle's family was eventually captured during the war. This information was combined with the research from the Grodzka Gate team and added to the Krymholc archives on their website.

Monika Malek from Polski Radio interviewed all of us

Additional research led Jackie to the Yad Vashem Holocaust Remembrance Center archives, where she found testimonials about my family submitted by my mother in 1990. Then, Jackie was able to connect with me and my brother.

I am grateful to Jackie, Tadeusz Przystojecki, Malgorzata Milkowska, Monika Tarajko and the Grodzka Gate research team for this extraordinary opportunity.

(The Lublin-Antwerp presentation during the reunion took place at the Royal Castle, in the Gallery of Paintings. The painting in the background is the monumental "Lublin Union" painted by Jan Matejko)

Tour Old Town in Lublin

Lublin's Old Town is a popular tourist attraction where a number of reunion activities wer held. We enjoyed meals at the cafes lining the streets. Jon found an ice cream store and I liked visiting the shops and galleries.

Most of Lublin's medieval Old Town survived the Second World War. Some apartment buildings in the center, known as Market Square (Rynek), were damaged or destroyed and rebuilt. By the time the troupe from NN Theater chose to make their home in the Grodzka Gate passageway in the 1990s, Old Town was in disrepair from years of neglect. A turning point of the reconstruction was in 1994, when the City of Lublin provided funds to help renovate and protect Grodzka Gate and the building at Grodzka 21. This led to the revitalization of the entire area. 

Grodzka Gate (Jewish Gate) used to separate the Jewish quarter from Old Town

Cobblestoned Grodzka Street in Old Town

Kraków Gate is one of the two original city entrances

Popular Irish Pub, U Szewca, on Grodzka Street

Restaurant Sielsko Anielsko in Market Square (Rynek) in Old Town

Lunch with our friend, Ernestine, from the UK

Herring and beets!

The Knonpica Family Tenement House - Rynek 12

Ceska Pivnica, Grodzka Street

Another view of Grodzka Street to the Trinity Tower

I fully expected to see a horse and cart in Old Town!

Market Square, Rynek 14

Ruins of St. Michael Archangel, the city's oldest church