Yurek Kirshenbaum born in 1929 in Częstochowa about his and his family life
Ten artykuł nie jest dostępny w wybranej wersji językowej.
An English resume of an interview that took place in Israel, as a part of the Polish Roots in Israel project.
Interviewee name: Marta Kirshenbaum
Yurek (Yermiahu) Kirshenbaum was born to his parents Lea (Lonia) and Mordechai (Max) in 1929 in the city Częstochowa in Poland.
His parents earned their living by commerce in notions, cosmetics, and stationary wares.
Yurek had a wonderful childhood. His parents were secular, and he studied in a Jewish public school. In those same days the Jewish community had good relations with the Catholic population in the city, although Anti-Semitic gestures were not absent at all.
The city Częstochowa had about 200,000 citizens, 35 thousands Jews.
In the suburbs of the city was the Jasna Góra (the hill of halo), a Catholic Monastery and a Church with the “Black Madonna” picture, one of the holiest sight for Poles and for Christianity at all.
The father Mordechai died when Yurek was 8 years old, and it was left for the widow Lea to provide for the family.
Yurek was ten years old when the Second World War broke out. The Germans invaded Poland, bombed the cities, hurt the local population and occupied big parts of the land.
German army units conquered the overwhelmed Częstochowa on the third of September 1939, and started persecuting the Jews, murdering them, and taking their property.
On the 9th of April 1941 the Germans started to build a Ghetto in the western part of the city, close to the train station. They gathered all the Jews in the city, as well as other Jews from different cities in Poland. Overall, there were 48000 Jews in the Częstochowa Ghetto. Until October 1942, 39000 people were sent to the gas-chambers in Treblinka, among them Lea and all of the big Kirshenbaum family, except for one cousin Eliezer. After the Aktiza, there were only 5000 Jews left in the “Small Ghetto”, among them Yurek and his two sisters, and along with them their aunt Golda (Godza), the mother’s little sister who took care of them. Only the five of them and the Zeifman family, the mother’s family, who lived in one city, survived. Few family members immigrated to Canada and the USA before the war, and one aunt immigrated to Palestine.
When they moved to the Ghetto, a Polish family moved into their apartment.
Golda was married during the war, but her husband was sent from the Small Ghetto to Treblinka in one of the Aktzia, when the Germans decided to murder all the Jewish intellects.
Part of the Ghetto’s habitants worked in German factories. Others, among them the Kirshenbaum family members, had to take out all of the Jews’ property from their homes and sort them, in order to pass on to the Germans.
In the Large Ghetto they held secret school studies in small groups and with the help of Jewish teachers.
In September 1942 Jews were moved from the Small Ghetto to work camps, among them a factory for ammunition and other metal parts that was founded by the Germans with private owners: Hugo Schneider Aktiengesellschaft. In the camp there were also non-Jewish Poles that were employed, that came to work in the camp from the nearby surroundings.
Aunt Golda and the elder sisters Hanka and Edga worked in the factory, and lived separately from Yurek, and in big mutual cabins, that had 3 story-high bunks. Later on, Hanka, who knew German well, moved to work in the offices.
Yurek worked as a delivery person and lived in one of the men’s cabins. He was a 13 year-old boy when he got ill from a typhus plague that spread out in the camp. His condition was very bad due to the lack of food, physical condition was very bad, and he couldn’t receive proper nutrition. Aunt Golda sold a bit of gold that she managed to hide, and from the money she bought poultry from the Poles that worked in the camp, managed to cook a soup, and fed Yurek, who recovered due to her devoted treatment. By that she actually saved his life.
One day Yurek sneaked into one of the workshops in the camp and found pieced of metal. With a bit of tools he designed, cut, and engraved miniature tools. From these little pieces of metal he designed models of four tools: hammer, chisel, ax, and a plier. His precision was perfect. The size of the models was 2 cm high, and half a cm wide each. While he was finishing his work, he suddenly felt that someone was standing behind him and watching him. It was Pasold, a German officer, one of the cruelest work managers.
Yurek was sure that his end was coming, and knew that his “crime” had one punishment- death.
Pasold asked him what was his job, and Yurek said “I am a delivery boy”
“Do you know what punishment you deserve for what you are doing?”
Yurek: “Yes, I’ll reach the place my parents have.”
Administrator dołożył wszelkich możliwych starań, aby prezentowane treści były prawdziwe i aktualne oraz nie naruszały praw osób trzecich,w tym praw autorskich, jednak nie może tego zagwarantować.Dlatego błędne informacje na stronie internetowej nie mogą być podstawą roszczeń. W przypadku jakichkolwiek wątpliwości prosimy o kontakt na adres: sztetl@jewishmuseum.org.pl
