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)