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