Monday, May 22, 2023
Thinking of My One and Only Bubbie This Morning and Cousin Donnie
Nadene Goldfoot
My brother David, our Mom and cousin DonThis morning, I'm thinking about my family; 1st cousin, Don and how part of his youthful life was spent with our Bubbie, our grandmother Zlata Goldfoot nee Jermulowske/i. Bubbie, or Hattie, a name on the census for her that I never heard in connection with her, was born in Lasdijai, Suwalki, Lithuania which was on the border with Poland.
What am I remembering? Measuring my height against hers. She was so short. Bubbie eating her favorite; boiled potatoes with pickled herring.
Orson Welles (arms raised) rehearses his radio depiction of H.G. Wells' classic, The War of the Worlds. The broadcast, which aired on October 30, 1938, and claimed that aliens from Mars had invaded New Jersey, terrified thousands of Americans. © Bettmann/CORBIS Also, my memory goes back to being at the house when all of us were there and being told that the Martians had landed and that my father was going to drive us to the mountains to escape them. That was radio news of the moment. All of the family were in shock and awe. It could be we were together for Yom Kippur .
Aunt Hammie (Ann), our Bubbie and Cousin Harriett in about 1943-1944. Harriett was born on June 25, 1941.She immigrated to the USA as a teen-ager, around age 17 and arrived in the USA in 1903-I believe. Zlata was born on January 11, 1886 and died December 9, 1950 in Portland, Oregon. She was the daughter of Joshua Charles "Hatzkel" Isaiahel Jermulowskie and his first wife, if my genealogy searches are correct, Esther "Essie" Decatsky Decad Frank. Being I have found a DNA match to a very nice man with the surname of Decad makes me think that this is correct. Joshua's Essie died and he married again and gave Zlata more siblings. Now, of course, Decatsky is not coming up on FTDNA for my checking but I did find this: the 1940 U.S. Census.
Morris Decatsky was born about 1881 in Russia. In 1940, he was 59 years old and lived in Kings, New York, with his wife, Tillie, son, 2 daughters, and grandson. As it turned out, Zlata never went to school as she was illiterate. She couldn't read or write in any language, and only spoke Yiddish. Evidence is that she was home as the baby sitter taking care of her siblings. All of them did become literate. There was from Esther (Essie) ; Bessie, Jennie and Louis of the 1st marriage, and then there was from Deborah (Dora); Lilly, Charles and Alice of the 2nd marriage. I've also found an unknown; Abram Owsej Ajzykowicz Jermulowski who I wonder since born in 1898, if he's a sibling, too. He was born in Bialystock, Poland. Maybe he's a cousin. Also, the tradition in Judaism is that when a wife dies, she is replaced with her sister. Were Esther and Deborah sisters? I need DNA tests to tell. Most likely not.
Zlata's children include two PhDs with Don and his MS in the grandchildren with most all being college graduates. Don had gone on to be head of all the hospitals in Oregon except those in Multnomah County in their economic issues. That was quite a responsibility. He had to travel all over Oregon and check on their situations to keep them out of the red.
Don was the one who learned to really speak Yiddish with Bubbie. He recalls favorite sayings with her to this day, part of the far distant memory that we all have. We tend to remember the past but forget to take our pills in the morning. If anyone heard Bubbie's favorite stories, it would have been Don, and he has told me a few. He adores repeating the Yiddish he did learn from Bubbie. It gives him his place in line with the Jewish people, if you can understand that. Though his life didn't follow the Jewish culture as much, he did have that part of his childhood to remember.
Bubbie, as it was, lived with her last child, Ann. Ann was born several months after her father, Nathan Goldfoot, had died in a horse and wagon accident in SE Portland. He had the horse and wagon, given to him by a Jewish group who helped the immigrants provide a living for their family. As it happened, he was not used to handling horses. His peddler experience was by foot. So one time the horse was frightened by a noise, came to a halt and this threw Nathan Abraham Goldfoot out of his seat and he hit his head, was knocked out and never did wake up again. All this occurred on a Friday. Bubbie did not find out till a friend came the following Monday and told her he was dead and at St. Vincent's Hospital. She went through trauma herself, Shabbat and pregnant with 3 babies and a missing husband.
Ann was born November 11, 1912 and her father had died July 19, 1912, 4 months before. Can you imagine the state of mind that Bubbie was in? She already had Charlie, Moshe (my father) and Essie-Elsie and had suffered earlier the death of her 3rd child, a boy-Abraham, who died in infancy at 5 months and 10 days in 1909, the year after my father's birth. He evidently died of crib death though he slept with his parents in a feather-bed.
Ann married possibly the last Jew to leave Germany, Werner Oster, who got out in May 1939. Germany entered Poland in June 1939. It was not an easy thing for his family to get him out, either. He had already been picked up and kept in Aushwitz just before it became the Holocaust center of death. He was picked up for hitting a cow with a stick on the path to the slaughter house of his father's. It was a stick used to keep them on the path, a leading stick-not a stick used to hurt the animal. The Germans used any reason to pick up Jews. After a horrendous experience of torture, he was able to return home then. But his family had to figure that he would be the only one to survive.
Ann had my 5 female cousins for Bubbie to care for as they appeared; Harriett, Darlene, Francis, Rose and Sandra. They got to live with her and Don who was also there as a brother figure during several of the years. His mother, Elsie, worked, and during those times, he was with Ann when not in school.
Werner on the right holding Darlene (2nd child) and my father on the left holding my brother, David. Behind David's head is my mother's brother-Uncle Kenny holding Charlotte. Cousins Diane, Harriett (1st child) and Donny and myself. Don and I are 3 years apart. I look so big and he so little, but as adults, he shot up and was a also a great basketball player, playing into his 80's in contests, even. His grandson is even taller, I hear. I love it that our family intermingled with each other, getting to know the other, as we children were born. Children bind more than we realize. Werner was under great stress all the time as a butcher with my father in that he kept tabs on his family through a radio receiver that was against the law to use as I understand it. Imagine trying to lead a normal life when your parents and then 16 year old sister's lives were threatened and eventually taken, of course. Though Werner had been a great athlete in his teen years, it was so hard on him. That would have also been transferred onto my aunt Hammie (Ann) as well.
Life. Even though we physically escaped the Holocaust, it left its mark on all of us Jews. One wonders, wonders about what brought our Bubbie to America in the first place in 1903 and thankful, so thankful that it did. I didn't even mention that she wound up in Council, Idaho, a little mountain town with some of her sibling members and new husband, Nathan.
She was even working washing dishes and such in a restaurant in Cuprum, Idaho. Cuprum is an unincorporated community in Adams County in the U.S. state of Idaho. The community is located 27 mi (43 km) northwest of Council. Council is a beautiful spot. Cuprum is Latin for “Copper,” an apt description as this remote part of Idaho likely still has huge untapped copper deposits. Several mines were in the area, leading to the need for a town. A hospital was built here in 1897, and a Post Office was established the same year on December 1st. Cuprum is now a ghost town and hard to get to. *Note* Two wheel drive accessible only in summer months. Kleinscmidt Grade is an historic road known for it’s steep grade. From Ontario, Oregon head north on US-95 North for 44 miles. At the town of Cambridge Idaho, take a left on to ID-71.....How did she get there? Probably by horse and buggy.
She was married in November 20, 1905 in Boise, Idaho to Nathan Goldfoot of Council, Idaho, where her sisters Bessie was married to Sam Criss and Jennie was married to Harry Criss and Louis Jermulowske was single and living in Council in 1901 or 1902. He didn't marry until 1908 and that was in Portland, OR. She probably lived in Cuprum, Idaho with her sisters, a small mining town close to Council before she married Nathan. You should see the certificate! The spelling was so bad that unless you knew the facts, you couldn't translate it. Sheltered Zlata, suddenly being thrust into cowboy-land or gold-mining land; cleaning up from them.
As a teacher, I laugh at the thought of my father and his brother Charlie diving under a bed to escape the broom attack of their mother in Portland.
Before Elsie was born, Charlie 4 and Moshe (Dad) 2, perhaps
Dad and Charlie were out selling newspapers when dad was 4 and Charlie 6 to earn money for them all. She was a teen-aged mom who was at the mercy of a 6, 4 and 1 year old and the broom was her only aid. The boys were even dismissed from Hebrew School for their antics. Gosh, how did my father ever produce me,, the perfect school-child? I don't know. Must have been my mom's genes.
Labels: Bubbie, Cuprum, Germany, Goldfoot Family, Idaho, Jermulowske Family, Martians, Oster Family, Robinson family
Wednesday, April 20, 2022
Rabbi Meir Wunder's Documentation About Jehiel Heilperin, (Halpern) for Geneologists of Their Jewish Families
Nadene Goldfoot
Andi Ziegelman nee Alpert, co founder of Halpern & Branches on Family Tree DNA, had written," My particular interest comes from having an ancestor, Nachum Eliyahu Halpern, who claimed descent from Jehiel Heilperin, a great talmudist from Minsk, Belarus. There are other HALPERN who descend from rabbinic families of the Russian Empire, as well as others who simply adopted the surname in the 19th century when it became necessary to chose a name.
So I am looking to dissect the different HALPERN groups to see which, if any, share a common ancestry.
As of now (August of 2009), it looks as if my HALPERN family does NOT descend from the large HEILPERIN descended from Zebulun HEILPERIN, at least not via a direct male line. If I do descend from Rabbi Jehiel mentioned above, its likely also through a female line that later adopted the surname (or, alternatively, I either do not relate to Jehiel at all, OR Jehiel does not descend from this greater Heilperin family, as documented by Rabbi Meir Wunder.)"
https://www.jewishgen.org/rabbinic/journal/wunder.htm
The Reliability of Genealogical Research
in Modern Rabbinic Literature
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| Rabbinic literature deals very sparsely with genealogical research, a fact that is quite surprising, considering the importance that is ascribed to family yuchsin (lineage). | |
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Rabbinic literature deals very sparsely with genealogical research, a fact that is quite surprising, considering the importance that is ascribed to family yuchsin (lineage). In the Tanach (Bible) almost all of Chronicles I deals with yuchsin, and the seeming contradictions to the genealogical facts recorded in the Torah and the Prophets are explained away by the classic commentaries.
Toward the end of the Babylonian Exile, we find Ezra the Scribe clarifying the yuchsin of the returnees to Eretz Yisrael, so that the fourth chapter in Tractate Kiddushin of the Babylonian Talmud begins, “The people who came up from Babylon were of ten types of familial background.” It also states in the same chapter (70:2), “The Almighty's Presence dwells only among families of pure lineage in the Nation Israel.” True that in Ezra's time there were still prophets able to make the clarification through prophesy, but even lacking this, there were live eyewitnesses among the older people who remembered and could identify individuals in the relatively short historical span of 70 years. (beginning of long essay).
Dan Rottenberg in his book, Finding Our Fathers, tells us that Heilperin has many derivatives: Halpern, Heilbronn, Heilbroner, Heilperin, Heilpern, Heilborn, Hallperin, Helpern, Alpron,Alpern, Galpern, Heilprin, Galperin, Halper, Helpern:
He explains that it is a German name derived from the town of Heilbronn in Wurttemberg. All Jews with variations of this name are not necessarily related. Many Jews of Austria, Germany and Russia indiscriminately assumed these names when ordered to take family names in about 1800. However, there are 4 distinct branches of the Heilprin name. JE )Jewish Encyclopedia) has charts for 3 branches: many Heilprins in Russia claimed in 1900, descent from the 4th branch.
The oldest branch dates back to Zebulon Heilprin: 16th century, whose son, Moses of Brest-Litovek, was the father-in-law of Samuel Edels.
Another branch descends from Lithuanian rabbi, Jehiel Heilprin (1660-1746), a descendant of Solomon Luria, who traced his genealogy back through RASHI (1040-1105) which is a very important fact.
A Heilprin branch is also related to the BAAL SHEM TOV, founder of Hasidism. There evidently are many biographies in JE, most from Poland, Russia and Germany.
Also, see EJ article on Abraham ben Hayyim of Lublin, Poland who died in 1762, grandson of Isser, whose son married Fortis.
CAJ has a Heilprin family tree. LBl has a Heilbrunn family tree beginning 1683. LBIS has notes of a Heilbron family from Posen. CAJ has Halpern family records. Relationships to other prominent rabbinical families can be traced in Anaf Ex Aboth, by Samiuel Kahan, and Da'at Kodoshim, by Israel Eisenstadt.
Relatives include: Katzenellenbogen, Hurwitz, Horovitz, Jaffe, Wahl, Hen-Nigson, Ornstein, Kaminski, Epstein and Raphael.
Also see JE article on Pinsk, Russia, where Samuel Halpern was rabbi."
"This project has as its goal the expanding the Autosomal DNA (atDNA) Family Segments, for each branch – and some sub-branches – of the greater Halpern family. These segments have been made through the use of the triangulation software utility on the web site, GedMatch.com.
If you have an unsubstantiated oral tradition of Halpern descent, or if you see a large number of Halperns on your FamilyFinder match list, and you thus suspect that you may be a Halpern, this project is for you. All you need to do is join our project and then upload the RAW DATA and X FILES from your FamilyFinder Autosomal DNA test to the web site, GedMatch.com, and inform the project’s administrators that you have done so. If you have difficulty carrying out the task, just ask the project’s administrators for help. Once on GedMatch, this project’s administrators will try to triangulate “suspected Halperns” on Halpern atDNA Family Segments. If successful, such triangulations will be a very good indication to this project’s members, of belonging to the Halpern family.
The main branches of the Halpern family are Halpern, Alperovich, Wertheim/er Rubenstein and Guggenheim. The Halpern branch breaks down into the Heilbronner, Heilbron, Heilborn, Heilprin, Halperin, Hellman/Hillman, etc. sub-branches.
The Alperovich branch apparently is a sub-branch of the Zevulun Eliezer Heilprin branch. The Wertheim/er branch is one of two sub-branches of the family tree of R. Isaac of Worms; the second sub-branch of R. Isaac’s family tree is the Rubenstein/Rubinstein branch. And some descendants of R. Isaac bore the Heilprin/Halpern surname. The Guggenheim branch is connected by Y DNA to the R. Zevulun Eliezer Heilprin sub-branch; the Guggenheims never went by the Heilprin/Halpern surname." To know more, see the rest of the page of Halpern & Branches.
I want to know more about Rabbi Meir Wunder ! I found http://www.jgaliciabukovina.net/134921/worker/rabbi-meir-wunder. He is a historian, Author of "Meori Galicia: The Encyclopedia of Galician Rabbies and Scholars".
Meorei Galicia: Encyclopedia of Galician Sages by rabbi Meir Wunder is one of the most extensive and reliable sources of rabbinical genealogy written in the twentieth century. Its six volumes, published from 1987 contain extensively detailed genealogies of Galician rabbinical families, arranged alphabetically by surname according to the Hebrew alphabet. For prominent rabbis of each family biographical material is included, in particular, rabbinical compositions, responsa correspondence, and photographs.
Now you can enjoy a free access to a limited edition of this collection with a minimal charge for access to the full edition. We invite you to a unique insight into the Jewish world of Galicia. To register click the big red button on top.
He's listed on a Chabad page. https://www.chabad.org/search/keyword_cdo/kid/23121/jewish/Meir-Wunder.htm. Rabbi Meir Wunder is the founder and director of the Center for Torah Libraries. He was interviewed in his home in Jerusalem in February of 2011.
Posted on May 5, 2007 by tribetracing
The May 14 meeting of the Israel Genealogical Society’s Tel Aviv branch features Rabbi Meir Wunder on new possibilities in contemporary genealogical research of rabbinical families. His talk will be in Hebrew.
Born in Haifa, Wunder studied at the Paniewicz Yeshiva (Bnei Brak) and at Hebrew University’s School for Librarians (Jerusalem). For 30 years he headed the National Library’s Legal Deposit. Wunder has authored many books and articles, including the seven-volume Meorei Galicia: Encyclopedia Lekhakhmei Galicia (Encyclopedia of Galician Sages).
The program will begin at 7 p.m., at Beit Hatanach, 16 Rothschild Blvd., TelAviv. The library will be open from 6-7 p.m. Non-members, NIS 20.
Meorei Galicia: Encyclopedia of Galician Sages by rabbi Meir Wunder is one of the most extensive and reliable sources of rabbinical genealogy written in the twentieth century. Its six volumes, published from 1987 contain extensively detailed genealogies of Galician rabbinical families, arranged alphabetically by surname according to the Hebrew alphabet. For prominent rabbis of each family biographical material is included, in particular, rabbinical compositions, responsa correspondence, and photographs.
Resource:
https://www.jewishgen.org/rabbinic/journal/wunder.htm
Labels: Baal Shem Tov, dna, family trees, Germany, Halpern & Braanches, Poland, Rabbi Meir Wunder, Russia
Saturday, May 01, 2021
Oppenheim or Oppenheimer Connection from Lithuania to South African and American Jews Including Us
Here is Oppenheim, Germany, where the surname must have originated from.
Oppenheim is a town in the Mainz-Bingen district of Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany. The town is a well-known wine center, being the home of the German Winegrowing Museum, and is particularly known for the wines from the Oppenheimer Krötenbrunnen vineyards. Nadene Goldfoot
I've been reading the book, Heshel's Kingdom by Dan Jacobson about his Lithuanian family and grandfather, Rabbi Heshel Melamed of Lithuania who's father-in-law and the author's great-grandfather, Zvi Yakov Opppenheim. The book tells of intimate details about Lithuania, even mentions Telz, which is also spelled as Telsiai, where our Goldfus/foots were from.
On our family tree, we have many Oppenheims and Oppenheimers on our Telsiai branch of the tree. The Oster line that has married into our line also has many Oppenheimers on it. We are related by DNA to the Oster line even though we have no connection from eastern Europe. It must have happened while both were Jews in Germany at the beginning of our German experience of becoming Ashkenazim and must have been quite close at one time being our closeness now.
On Family Tree DNA, I myself have 8 matches with Oppenheim. One is a 3rd cousin; 2 are 4th cousins and 5 are 5th cousins. The 3rd cousin is female, S. Oppenheim which could be a married name, so a man would be Dr. R. Oppenheimer on my father's side with the icon, 4th cousin. I match Dr R.O. on chromosome #7 with my brother, and Ian; on #10 with myself, David, Ian and Sandra, and #14 with myself, David. With another set of people, I see that chromosome #18 had a female 5th cousin A Oppenheimer match David, Myself and 3rd cousin Mrs. Andi Z with a small segment. I'm going by the color coding chart with is easy to use 7 people at one time to check on matching.
OPPENHEIM, town in Germany. Jews are first mentioned there in the tax register of 1241, according to which they were obliged to pay the emperor an annual tax of 15 marks. The Jews of the town, legally the property of the emperor, were placed under the protection of the officers in charge of the local fortress, to whom they paid their taxes. They also paid a house tax to the archbishop of Mainz. *Rudolf of Hapsburg and other kings gave letters of credit to various noblemen which were to be defrayed from the taxes paid by the Jews of Oppenheim; at times, they also leased these taxes. The burden of their taxes appears to have caused several Jews of Oppenheim to join the group that fled from the Rhineland and, under the leadership of *Meir b. Baruch of Rothenburg, attempted to emigrate to Ereẓ Israel (1285). At the end of July 1349, during the persecutions that followed the *Black Death, most of the Jews of Oppenheim were murdered, while others chose martyrdom (*kiddush ha-Shem) and burned themselves to death in order to escape forced conversion at the hands of the mob. Among the martyrs was the rabbi Joel ha-Kohen. (more info in resource), below.)
People in my "The New Standard Jewish Encyclopedia" are listed:
Samuel Oppenheim/Oppenheimer b: 1630 philanthropist, court Jew, Germany to Vienna, Leopold's I's agent and financier.
David Oppenheim b: 1664, rabbi born in Worms, Germany nephew of Samuel Oppenheimer
Joseph ben Issachar Susskind Oppenheimer 1698, financier in Germany
Hermann Oppenheim b: 1858 Germany, neurologist
Moritz Daniel Oppenheim b: 1800 Germany, painter
Oppenheimer, David b: 1832 Canada, founder of city of Vancouver, Ontario, mayor
Oppenheimer, Sir Ernest b: 1880 South Africa, mining-Kimberley, probably Lithuanian, baptised
Franz Oppenheimer, b: 1864 Germany
Robert J. Oppenheimer b: 1904, US physicist, U of C, atomic energy research
Through genealogy, I see this connection:
Descendants of Sender Opengeim Oppenheim
1 Sender Opengeim Oppenheim b: Abt. 1814 in Telsiai, Telsiai, Kaunas, Lithuania
. 2 Iontaf Jontaf Opengeim b: 1839 in Telsiai, Kaunas, Lithuania
..... +GUTTA GOLDA bat Nochem GOLDFUS b: 1839 in Telsiai, Kaunas, Lithuania m: September 04, 1859 in Telsiai, Lithuania m: September 04, 1859 in Telsiai, Lithuania
. 2 Iosif OPPENHEIM b: Abt. 1841
..... +Guta (Golda)
. 2 [1] Shaia Opengeim OPPENHEIM b: Bet. 1842 - 1843 in Telsiai, Telsiai, Kaunas, Lithuania
..... +Zlate Pere
. *2nd Wife of [1] Shaia Opengeim OPPENHEIM:
..... +Tsipe Guta b: 1843 in Telsiai, Telsiai, Kaunas, Lithuania m: Bef. 1865 in Telsiai, Lithuania m: Bef. 1865 in Telsiai, Lithuania
. 2 [2] Leib Opengeim OPPENHEIM b: Abt. 1845 in Telsiai, Telsiai, Kaunas, Lithuania
..... +Rokhel b: Abt. 1845
. *2nd Wife of [2] Leib Opengeim OPPENHEIM:
..... +Grunia
. 2 Iomta Opengeim b: Abt. 1849 in Telsiai, Telsiai, Kaunas, Lithuania
..... +Gute b: Abt. 1849 in Telsiai, Telsiai, Kaunas, Lithuania m: Abt. 1869 m: Abt. 1869
Resource:
https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/oppenheim
Labels: dna, encyclopedia Oppenheim, genealogy, Germany, Heshel's Kingdom, Lithuania, Oppenheimer, South Africa, USA
Monday, June 01, 2020
How Oster Is An Important Line On Our Goldfoot Tree
Nadene Goldfoot
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Left) my father, Maurice Goldfoot, in 1943 on right, Werner Oster
in middle is Uncle Kenny Robinson
my cousins from maternal and paternal side
Werner's 1st daughter, Harriet is standing in front,
and he's holding his 2nd. |
A recent familyfinder on an Oster cousin showed that her parents had been distantly related. This happens a lot in Ashkenazi Jewish families. Science has discovered this has boosted IQ. We're an endogamous people.
My paternal aunt, Anne Goldfoot, had married Werner Oster on September 1, 1939 at Neveh Zedek Synagogue in Portland, Oregon where we all lived. Werner was a German Jewish refugee sponsored by my great uncle Max "Himmel" I Turshinsky Turn of LaGrande, Oregon. He was given Werner to sponsor whose background was that he came from a family of sausage-makers in Germany, so Max thought of my father who was just starting up his own butcher shop which later turned into a wholesale meat packing business. My dad, Maurice Goldfoot, hired him, a young and extremely strong(Arnold Schwarzenegger type) 23 year old fellow, and as good looking as can be! This worked out so well, as Dad had a single sister, Anne, who was 26 going on 27. They hit it off and the marriage produced 5 daughters.
Back then, immigrants coming in to the USA had to have sponsors; at least the Jewish one did. At a time when WWII was about to be declared, a war which had already started in Europe, this was hindering Jewish immigration that had continued in the early 20s. Besides that, Jews as you see, had the problem of even getting out of the country they were escaping due to anti-Semitism.
Werner was lucky. The ship, the St Louis which left in June 1939, was turned back by the USA as they didn't have permission to land in Florida. 1/3 of 937 Jews died.
Werner's family might have entered the Rhineland of Germany in the 300s CE. Cologne was a major Jewish center then. Emperor Constantine introduced laws pertaining to Jews then in 321 CE. They came in from Jerusalem when the City and Temple were burned down by the Romans in 70CE. Jewish soldiers may have been in Roman garrisons, from evidence found. The German Carolingian royal house in the 8th-9th centuries had a pro-Jewish policy and encouraged the settlement of Jews with the purpose of devoloping trade. By the 9th century, Jews settled in Metz, and in the 10th century in Worms, a very important center as well as in Mainz, and in Magdeburk Ratisbon, etc.
In 1096 the Crusaders massacred the Jews throughout the Rhineland and the adjacent areas. Jews were attacked in Germany from then on. "Some of the larger cities in the Rhineland are Aachen, Bonn, Cologne, Duisburg, Düsseldorf, Essen, Koblenz, Krefeld, Leverkusen, Mainz, Mönchengladbach, Mülheim an der Ruhr, Oberhausen, Remscheid, Solingen, Trier and Wuppertal.
By the 20th century we find Werner came from Westerburg, Hildesheim, Niedersachsen, Germany. (brown area north). He had already had a taste of Auschwitz prison in late 1938 or early 1939 as he was picked up by the Gestapo for walking a cow along the cow path and tapping it with a stick to guide it. They called it "hitting the cow." He was hit a lot in Auschwitz, and forced to do things he wouldn't talk about, but I had a feeling it was something like eating raw pork. His parents sold things and then had enough to give to one person to get out of Germany as the fare was extremely expensive, and there may have been taxes involved as well. They chose Werner because they all thought he could get out and work and get enough money to bring them all out. Little did they know he might become the last Jews to get out of all of Germany as the door was already closing. Werner had a terrible time dealing with all this as he got older.
Hitler marched into Prague, Czechoslovakia on March 15, 1939 and Werner may have been the last Jew to get out of Germany as he took the ship,George Washington from Boppard to Hamburg on May 4, heading for New York. They landed May 12, 1939. Werner wound up going from New York to Texas.
His Passport was issued from Stuttgart. (Gold in south - Wurttemberg)
Werner's father was Ferdinand Oster b: 1881 in Oberfell, Offenbback an Glan, Hesse, Germany. His mother was Rosa Ullmann b: 1891 in Westerburg, Germany. They died in the Holocaust, at Krasniczyn Concentration Poland Camp Holocaust KZ, not being able to leave sooner.
Werner's grandparents and great grandparents were:
. 1 Arnold Oster b: June 08, 1851 in Oberfell, Offenbback an Glan, Hesse, Germany d: February 06, 1941 in Koblenz, Germany
..... +Sibilla Roos b: 1851 in Oberfell, Offenbback an Glan, Hesse, Germany d: March 25, 1930 in Koblenz, Germany m: 1878
2 Salomon OSTER b: Abt. 1830 in Germany d: in Germany
.. +Sibylla Wolff b: Abt. 1830 in Germany d: in Germany m: Abt. 1850
I notice that right hand bottom corner(yellow) is OSTERREICH is Austria on map above it. Could they have come from there originally?
The German name of Austria, Österreich, derives from the Old High German word Ostarrîchi "eastern realm", recorded in the so-called Ostarrîchi Document of 996, applied to the Margraviate of Austria, a march, or borderland, of the Duchy of Bavaria created in 976.
Another remoter possibility is that the name comes from the Ostrogoths, who had a kingdom in what is now Austria and northern Italy.
Resource: The New Standard Jewish Encyclopedia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rhineland
https://www.history.com/news/wwii-jewish-refugee-ship-st-louis-1939
Labels: Ashkenazi, endogamy, genealogy, Germany, holocaust survivor, Koblenz, Oster, Rhineland, USA
Thursday, March 05, 2020
Leader of Anti-Semites: Kazys Skirpa of Lithuania
Nadene Goldfoot
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Kazys Skirpa February 18, 1895-August 18, 1979
He died at age 84 in Washington, DC. USA.
Kazys Škirpa was a Lithuanian military officer and diplomat. He is best known as the founder of the Lithuanian Activist Front (LAF) and his involvement in the attempt to establish Lithuanian independence in June 1941. His fault was to be an anti-Semite.
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Here's an anti-Semite Lithuanian national that my grandfather,
Nathan Abraham Goldfus, born 1871 in Telsiai, Lithuania
may have encountered which led him to get out of Lithuania and immigrate to the USA. Kazys's parents were living in an anti-Semite era as well. Nathan was in Boise, Idaho in 1905 marrying my grandmother, Zlata Jermulowske of Lazdijai, Suwalki, Lithuania /Poland. Nathan had left Lithuania and had gone to Dublin, Ireland, then Canada and finally the USA.
1794 Lithuania was part of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth
1795 -After this year Lithuania became part of the Russian Empire
1914-1918 WWI: During World War I he was mobilized into the Russian army and tried to form Lithuanian detachments in Petrograd.
1917: Germany conceived the geopolitical strategy of Mitteleuropa, a regional network of puppet states that would serve as a buffer zone. The Germans allowed the organisation of the Vilnius Conference, hoping that it would proclaim that the Lithuanian nation wanted to detach itself from Russia and establish a "closer relationship" with Germany. In September 1917, the Conference elected a twenty-member Council of Lithuania and empowered it to negotiate Lithuanian independence with the Germans.
1918: Lithuania declared her independence: He returned and volunteered during the Lithuanian Wars of Independence. The Council was unable to form a government, police, or other state institutions due to the continued presence of German troops.
1920: A member of the Lithuanian Peasant Popular Union, he was elected to the Constituent Assembly of Lithuania. After that he decided to pursue a military education in Institute of Technology in Zurich, Higher Military School in Kaunas, and Royal Military Academy (Belgium).
1925: He graduated and worked as chief of the General Staff, but was forced to resign after the 1926 Lithuanian coup d'état,
1926: Lithuanian coup d'etat: (it is an illegal, unconstitutional seizure of power by a dictator, the military, or a political faction.) He refused and tried to gather a military force to protect the government.
1926-1927: When it was occupied by the Soviet Union under the terms of the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact. Following a brief occupation by Nazi Germany after the Nazis waged war on the Soviet Union, Lithuania was again absorbed into the Soviet Union for nearly 50 years.
1927-1930: Skirpa was later serving as a Lithuanian representative to Germany
1937: League of Nations representative from Lithuania
1938: representative to Poland,
1938-1941: representative to Germany; organizer of Lithuania’s anti-Soviet rebellion and Prime Minister of Lithuania’s Provisional Government in 1941
1940: He established the Lithuanian Activist Front in Berlin, an umbrella organization representing Lithuanian political parties, which expressed support for the Third Reich and incited violence against Lithuanian Jewry. He argued for ethnic cleansing-to get rid of the Jews.
1949: In 1949, he emigrated to the United States. He worked at the Library of Congress.
1975: In 1975 his memoir book about the 1941 independence movement was published.
1979: He died in Washington DC. Originally interred in Washington, D.C.,
1995: In June his remains were returned to Kaunas , where he was reburied in Petrašiūnai Cemetery. His re-burial was attended by then Lithuanian Defense Minister Linas Linkevičius.
1990–1991, Lithuania restored its sovereignty with the Act of the Re-Establishment of the State of Lithuania. Lithuania joined the NATO alliance in 2004 and the European Union as part of its enlargement in 2004.
2019: Vilnius City Council decided to rename Skirpa Street:
Jerusalem –
The Simon Wiesenthal Center today welcomed yesterday's decision by the
Vilnius (Vilna) city council to rename a small street in the center of the city
which had been named for controversial Lithuanian diplomat Kazys Škirpa, due
to his anti-Semitic opinions and actions. The motion passed by a vote of 21-16
and was harshly criticized by right-wing nationalists.
In a statement issued here today by its director of Eastern European affairs, Holocaust historian Dr. Efraim Zuroff, the Center praised the vote and expressed the hope that honors bestowed on other Lithuanians who played a role in the Holocaust would also be removed.
According to Zuroff:
"The decision is a very important first step in a process which we hope will
facilitate true reconciliation. Vilnius Mayor Remigijus Šumašius deserves credit for
his role and his explanation of the decision which emphasized Škirpa's call to
his countrymen to "get rid of the Jews and create an oppressive
atmosphere so that they wouldn't even think that they could have rights
in Lithuania."
One Lithuanian defended his ethnic cleansing idea: Škirpa and the
organization which he led can be criticized in that the organizational
activity of LAF-in-Berlin elevated antisemitism to a political level and that
could have encouraged a portion of Lithuania’s residents to get involved in the
Holocaust. On the other hand it must be noted that LAF-in-Berlin proposed to
solve “the Jewish problem” not by genocide but by the method of expulsion from Lithuania.
Truly, let's face it. That in itself is a death sentence. In the 30s and 40s, Jews were not accepted in any country because they were not Christians. They could hardly get into the USA and needed a sponsor to do so. Nazis were everywhere.
Labels: anti-Semitism, death, ehtnic cleansing, Germany, Kazys Skirpa, Lithuania, WWII
