Tuesday, March 18, 2008

Elektoralna number 30 - part our parents Conspiracy of silence

Helena Rozental, nee Polirsztok, was my grandmother and one of the 11 children who lived at 30 Elektoralna Street.

This is a color view of Elektoralna Street pointing East. The first house is number 24, with Russian and Polish signs reading “American Warehouse.” The next white house has number 22. House nr. 20 vast yellow house is known as Slowackis house, as Polish poet and dramatic author, one of the most important poets of the Romantic period lived there since 1829-31. Also at the same street, at Elektoralna 16 (white house), the most famous factory of silver plates, owned by Józef Fraget, was located for one hundred years, from 1844 to 1944.

Bird view of the area between Elektoralna Street (bottom) and Leszno Street (top). Nr. 1 is placed over the house where my grand grandmother Sara, her husband Eliasz Polirsztok, and their 11 children lived. Among them, my grandmother Helena.

Ghetto time. It is likely that during Ghetto's time, the factory at Elektoralna 16 was artificially excluded from the ghetto. To enter the factory a special little bridge and stairs were constructed that made it possible to approach the house through the former balcony on the first floor. Although it was within the ghetto walls the business was run as normal until Warszawa upraise 1944. Elektoralna Street 30 (my grand grandparents house)is one of the houses in the background. The picture was taken pointing West.


Family on my mother’s side

Sara, my cousin’s daughter in USA (so-called 3rd generation) started to dig in our and our parent's past. Here is some information about our grand grandmothers Sara children.

Grandgrandmother (the mother of my grandmother Helena who was murdered in Treblinka 1942 top picture): Sara Apenszlak b.18??, died 1920 (when my grandmother Helena was approx. 15 years old).

Sara Apenszlak married Eliasz Polirsztok in 18?? and had 13 children with him. (Aperszlak?)

They all lived in Warsaw on Elektoralna 30 Street, see picture (between Biala and Solna Street).

Children:
Jakub – the oldest
Dorota – left for the USA
Fela
Natan
Eleonora married X and had three children and lived in Paris. She and her husband and the youngest child were transported to Auschwitz and murdered there.
Szlamek – the father of Stefa, Lola, and Ed (Ed came to the USA illegally in 1945; his name is/was Ed Poler, and probably lives/lived in NYC).
Roza (Rose) lived in the Polish city of Lódz, married Moniek Sztajnzberg, and had 2 children. Daughter Hanna had a degree in Polish Literature and son Ziutek finished med school in Bratislava (Slovakia). When WWII broke out they came to Warsaw and then escaped the Germans to Russia. Nobody knows what happened to them.
Szymon (Simon), a “gorgeous” man, according to family photos
Justyna, died of typhus, leaving 4 children.
Jozef (Joseph) died young, leaving wife and a small son
Helena (My grand mother) and Gabriel Rozental had
  3 daughters: Sabina, Lucyna (Lunia) and Krystyna.
Lodzia, who married Maks Feldberg and had 2 sons: Nikodem and Zdzislaw.
Leon – died accidentally when he was just one year old (his brother Szymon dropped him when he carried him).

All these people and their families have been murdered in the Holocaust – with very few exceptions.