From Lublin to Antwerp

Thousands of Jews from Eastern Europe fled to Antwerp, Belgium in the late 1800s and early 1900s to escape harsh economic conditions and rampant anti-semitism. While the majority sailed from the Port of Antwerp to the North and South America, many stayed.  

My grandfather, Sol, was the first of my family to arrive in Antwerp from Lublin in 1920 and soon sailed to the United States. A year later, my grandmother, Pola arrived with her two young children and my great grandparents, Abram and Sura Matele. Pola and the children left to join my grandfather, sailing on the SS Minnedosa, arriving in Quebec, Canada in July 1922. Abram and Sura remained in Antwerp and were joined by Pola's brother, my great uncle Chaim, in 1927. My great grandparents returned to Lublin in 1930. 

On, Sunday, May 14, 1939, just months before the declaration of war in Europe, our relatives, Fanny and Benny Sembler from America, visited Chaim, his family and friends in Antwerp.  

From my grandmother's photo collection: 
In Antwerp's Stadspark (photo on left, l to r):  Benny Sembler, Rachel Blat Krymholc, Fanny Sembler, Chaim Krymholc
Photo on right: (front l to r)  Mrs. Mendell , Mrs. Stuger, Fanny, Chaim, Mr. Mendell (back l to r), Mr. Rubenstein, Rachel, Benny, Mrs. Rubenstein  

The Red Star Line office in Lublin

I knew little about my relatives in Antwerp until Jackie Schwarz, a researcher there, contacted me in 2016. At the time, Grodzka Gate Theater researchers, Gosia Milkowska and Tadeusz Przystojecki were looking for descendants of Lublin's Jewish residents who would have taken the long journey to Antwerp to immigrate to North America. Their work led them to the Red Star Line Museum in Antwerp, named for the shipping line, where more than two million passengers made the crossing from 1873 to 1934. Museum staff connected Gosia and Tadeusz with Jackie, a researcher with background in Jewish immigration history.  

The team worked together to identify dozens of Lubliners who immigrated to Antwerp including my grandparents and their family.  Jackie sent images of registration photos of my grandmother, great grandmother, Chaim and his wife Rachel  found in city's Felix Archives. 

Family records were also found in the archives of Memorial de la Shoah in Paris and Kazerne Dossin, the former transit Camp in Mechelen, Belgium, now a memorial and documentation center. They revealed the fate of Chaim Krymholc's family who fled to Frankfurt, Germany, then to St. Affrique, France after the fall of Belgium in 1940. The family was captured and sent to Rivesaltes and Drancy transit camps in France, then deported to Auschwitz in 1942.  

As a result of the Lublin-Antwerp research, the Grodzka Gate Theater team developed an interactive map of street addresses for both cities, cross referenced with the names of those who lived there. Lublin street addresses are shown on a current city map with a 1928 map overlay so viewers can see the same location in both time periods.  

My great grandparents lived at Rynek 14 in Old Town Lublin, apartment no. 11. The pinpoint near the top of the map identifies the street address and the pinpoint at the bottom of the map shows apartment no. 11, in the back portion of the building. The current map identifies the Trinitarian Tower and Diocesan Museum closeby.

In Antwerp, one of the addresses where the Krymholc family lived was at Plantin en Moretuslei 32, in the Jewish Quarter area. Most of the immigrants lived in the same area, near the Central Station and close to the main synagogues. They changed addresses often, so this mapping feature may list multiple addresses for one person. 

The list below shows names of residents at Rynek 14 during the pre-war years – my family and their neighbors. Each listing may also include visa, birth and death records. Many have photographs. 

Researchers continue to identify former Jewish residents of Lublin and Antwerp to remember who lived there and deny the Nazis their goal to exterminate all Jews, destroy all records and erase them from memory. They have given them a face and a name, and now their home.