Story of the Horowitz family

Several Horowitz families lived in and around Czarny Dunajec before the war; it was, by the way, a popular surname in Krakow and Malopolska region. The story of one of the families is described here. Jozef Szymon Horowitz (son of Moses and Anna) was a shoemaker from Mietustwo, was born there and lived there with his wife Kreisel (Karolina) - née Kraus, who came from Kobierzyn (her parents were Moses and Hendla Kraus). They married at the end of the 19th century, and moved with their family to Czarny Dunajec around 1910. Their first children were born in Miętustwo, but subsequent children were born in Czarny Dunajec. In total, Jozef and Kreisel had ten children, five of whom survived the Holocaust, and one of their sons emigrated to Argentina even before the war.

Kreisel (Karolina) and Josef Horowitz. Photo from the Horowitz family archives

Some of the information about the family comes from descendants' accounts, and some from a lengthy interview with Leon Horowitz, son of Jozef and Kreisel, for the Shoa Foundation Institute conducted in 1996 in the US, in which he describes, among other things, his childhood in Czarny Dunajec, his work in Bochnia, his wartime wandering in the USSR and his work in a mine in the Donbass.

Leon was born as Bernard Leib on April 1, 1912 in Czarny Dunajec. As he describes, his parents came from poor families and met at a friend's wedding. His father was religious, and he remembers his mother as a beautiful woman, a good wife and mother. The most difficult period from his childhood was during World War I, when his father served in the Austrian army. His parents only had a religious wedding, so they were not entitled to benefits, his mother also had to earn a living during this time, the family received food aid from the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee. Leon recalls how they received, among other things, cans of condensed milk as aid. The parents didn't get married civilly until 1916 (February 27) and were able to count on the allowance from then on. Leon also recalls that Jewish children in Czarny Dunajec went to public school and in the afternoons to cheder. It was a tradition to bake cakes and challah for Shabbat, and before Shabbat some Jewish families would prepare chulent, which they would take to the bakery overnight, the young boys would then bring these pots home.

Leon's oldest sister and brother, or Mania and Jacob (born around 1898/99 and 1902), left home early to find work. At the age of 16, Jakub began apprenticing in a fabric store in another town (probably Bochnia), while Mania went to Hungary and worked there as a maid in the home of a wealthy Jewish family. 

After the end of World War I, Jozef Horowitz returned from the army to Czarny Dunajec and continued to work there for several more years as a shoemaker (although on the birth certificate of one of his sons, a butcher was listed as his occupation). It is more or less from this period (the early 1920s) that the photo of his children, who pose in highlander costumes, comes from. Standing from the left are Chaim (born 1.01.1914), Adela (born 24.07.1905), Reśka (Irena Rachela, born 11.10.1911), the aforementioned Mania, the youngest of the siblings Szlomuś (born around 1916) and Leon. Four more siblings are missing from the photograph: Eliasz (b. 1905), Jakub, Moniek (b. ca. 1909) and Fela/Feigli (b. 5.01.1907).

Horowitz family in highlander dresses. Photo from Horowitz family archives

Around 1924/25, the Horowitz family moved to Bochnia. Leon began to apprentice as a carpenter, but according to his boss he was too weak and changed his apprenticeship to shoemaking, like his father. At the age of 17, he opened his own workshop and was already financially independent.

In the next photo, probably taken around 1931/32 (perhaps in Bochnia?), Leon is already an adult (standing first from the right with a cigarette). Standing next to him is Mania, then Moniek, who emigrated to Argentina before WWII, and Szlomo, who must be about 15-16 years old in this photo. Sitting on a chair is Reśka with her little son Janek.

The Horowitz family circa 1931/32. Photo from the Horowitz family archives

Leon moved to Tarnów around 1935/36, where he had a shoemaker's workshop with Hirsch, the brother-in-law of his fiancée Erna Siegfried (her sister's husband), whom he met in that city in 1938. In the interview, Leon also talks briefly about Polish-Jewish relations at the time: "Life then in Poland was normal, most Jews were poor, Polish-Jewish relations were good, I had Polish friends. There were anti-Semitic incidents, but not terrible ones, we were always treated as strangers, young Poles organized themselves and attacked Jews, these were not pogroms, but actions against Jews, but they were not frequent."

Leon Horowitz. Photo from the Horowitz family archives

Leon's parents and part of the family lived in Bochnia at the time, while he and probably still his brother Chaim lived in Tarnow.

Also dating back to the 1930s is a photo of Eliasz with his mother at a health resort in Morszyn (in what is now Ukraine). Eliasz, like his father, was a shoemaker. From Bochnia, where his family lived, he moved to Tarnów. In 1938 he married Helena Reinfeld, who was the daughter of a rabbi from Stanislawow. Helena ran away from home and did not maintain contact with her parents. Like many young people, they were both fascinated by the ideas of communism and took part in demonstrations. Eliasz was even arrested and served time in prison. In January 1939, Helena and Eliasz had a daughter, Kirena.

Kreisel with his son Eliasz at the Morszyn-Zdrój health resort in 1936. Photo from the Horowitz family archives

About Chaim we knew that in the late 1930s he probably married in Tarnow (ca. 1937-39) to a woman with whom he had a daughter (born ca. 1938-40).

Schifre Horowitz (née Schiffman) with her daughter Helena Photo from the Horowitz family archives.

After checking documents in the archives, I found the marriage certificate of Chaim, then already Henryk Horowitz to Schifre Schiffman dated August 13, 1938 in Tarnow. It states that Henryk was 24 years and 7 months old on the day of the wedding, and Schifre was 26 years and 5 1/2 months old, meaning she was born in early March 1912. The deed shows Rzuchowa, a town near Tarnów, as her birthplace; her father was Leib Schiffman, a tailor by trade, and her mother was Sara Estera, née Blum, of Rzuchowa. The marriage certificate erroneously (perhaps deliberately) listed Henryk/Chaim's father's occupation as a butcher, rather than tailor, which he actually was. The wedding was administered to them by the deputy rabbi of Tarnów, Izak Rapaport, and witnesses were Naftali Berglas and Salke Kanarek. It was also possible to find information about their daughter. A copy of the birth certificate shows that Helena Horowitz was born on May 9, 1940 in Tarnów.

Another photo is related to the outbreak of war. Szlomo was mobilized and, in the uniform of the Polish Army, poses for what is probably his last photo. According to family accounts, he was killed at the beginning of the September campaign.

Szlomo Horowitz in the uniform of the Polish Army. Photo from the Horowitz family archives

Leon gives a fairly detailed account of his wartime wandering after the war began in 1939. Together with his sister Adela, her husband Henryk Goldman, their son Jan and Henryk's brother, they fled east on foot, as the railroads had already been bombed. His fiancée Erna Siegfried (born 10.07.1912, she had a sister Bella) had gone earlier to join her father Szymon in Podborze near Mielec. Leon and his family reached Erna's hometown and took her with them, the next stop was Modliborzyce near Janow Lubelski, where they survived the German bombing. After a few weeks of wandering, they reached Lvow, where they met Chaim (presumably his wife Schifra and daughter Helena stayed in Tarnow and later died in the Holocaust). Leon married Erna at the beginning of the war, and already as a married couple they decided to go from Lviv to Donbass, as did Chaim. Their sister Adela went with her husband to another city in the Soviet Union, and her brother-in-law returned to Poland. Leon and Chaim worked in a coal mine in Irmina in the Donbass, while Erna worked in a laboratory. After about a year, thanks to the Weiss family they met on the spot, they found employment at a kolkhoz near Kherson, where working conditions and food were better, Leon organized a shoemaking workshop there, and in the meantime their daughter Linda was born. The next stop for refugees from Podhale was Rostov, from where they left for the territories of today's Georgia and Chechnya (Mineral Waters, Machachkala, Khasavyurt, Gori) when Linda was one and a half years old. 

Eliasz, on the other hand, with his wife and young child, escaped to the east in September 1939 and tried to get to Stanislavov, where Helena's parents lived. They were unable to reach Stanislavov. They stayed in Rostov-on-Don, and from there ended up in Kermine (today's Navoi) in Uzbekistan. Helena bought leather from which Eliasz made sapogi for adults and children. Eliasz taught Uzbek schoolchildren the shoemaker-skinner's trade. Kirena went to kindergarten together with Uzbek children.

According to family accounts, Chaim and his brother-in-law, Henryk Goldman wanted to join Gen. Anders' army, but were reportedly not accepted because of their Jewish background. We even know the exact date and place of Henryk's departure for the unit, as two photos he received as souvenirs from his wife and her sister Reśka have survived - with the notation "Gori, May 28, 1943, on the day of departure for the army."

Leon, on the other hand, was conscripted into the Red Army and, according to his account, in 1943, as its soldier, he reached the former Polish border, then Lublin, and in 1944 he stayed in Lodz, from where he headed for Berlin. After the German capitulation, he returned to Lodz, where his wife and child were already waiting for him. He deserted his Red Army unit, which was to go to Manchuria, and went to Krakow, where they stayed with his wife's cousin. With the help of an acquaintance from a Zionist organization, they managed to take a train through Czechoslovakia to Austria, where they landed in a DP camp in Bad Gastein in the American occupation zone, from there they arrived after some time in the US, where his descendants live.

Eliasz very much wanted to join the Polish army that was being formed in Kermine. He applied to the selection committee, but was not accepted due to his poor health and short stature.

Leon recalls that the last time he saw his parents was in August or September 1939 in Bochnia, where they lived during the war. They died during one of the executions outside the city and were buried in a mass grave. Jakub with his wife and children and sister Fela died in a camp, Mania shot herself during the war in Bochnia. 

Eliasz with his wife Helena and daughter Kirena returned to Poland, first to the so-called Recovered Territories, then to Tarnów, but there were no more family or friends there, so they came to Krakow. They stayed with Chaim, who lived on the corner of Królewska and Urzędnicza streets. Later they moved to Sobieskiego street. Eliasz commuted to Katowice, where he taught upper and shoe design at a vocational school. Then he worked at a cooperative in Krakow as a cadre. For a year, the Horowitzes ran a kitchen at the TSKŻ on Sławkowska street. At the eatery, Helena served 50 dinners a day, which were very popular. Later the family moved to 33 Nowowiejska St. Kirena graduated from the Medical Academy and became a doctor. She married Ludwik Rympel and gave birth to two sons, Jakub and Jan. Helena Horowitz died suddenly around 1970, Eliasz a few years later.

Moniek Horowitz in a 1928 photo in Buenos Aires. Photo from the Horowitz family archives.

Moniek left Argentina in the late 1960s with his wife Paulina to join his brother Leon in the US, where he died childless. Adela and Chaim and their families lived in Cracow after the war, but left for Denmark around 1969. Jan, Reśka's son, left for Israel in 1957; her first husband died in prison in Russia. Reśka and her second husband Adam Zonabend also emigrated from Poland to Israel in 1969.

Kreisel (Karolina) and Józef are seated, with their youngest son Szlomek between them. Standing from left are Leon, Fela, Eliasz, Mania, Jakub, Adela, Moniek, Reśka, Chaim. Photo from the Horowitz family archives.