Story of the Steiner family

The history of the Steiner family from Czarny Dunajec begins in Podmajerz (today part of Stary Sącz), where Abraham Steiner was born in the first half of the 19th century. He was a propinator, had a wife Reizla, and his son Szaje (Yeshayahu) Steiner was born in Szaflary in 1858. The oldest year of the marriage register available for our area comes from 1884, and the first entry in the register is a note about the marriage of Szaje Steiner with Hania Feit (born 1863) on January 29. The wedding took place in Czarny Dunajec, which is also the place of residence of the couple and the place of birth of Hania. Her parents were Baruch (merchant) and Rosa Feit. From other sources, we know that Baruch and his family previously lived in Chochołów. In Czarny Dunajec, Szaje worked as a merchant, and with Hania they had at least 12 children.

The Steiners' oldest son was Bernard (Dov), born in 1888, who married Chana (Tamer, Temerl) Messinger. Her parents, Jakub and Freida, have records of three places of residence: Zakopane, Zubsuche and Stare Bystre, but their family came from Raslavice in present-day Slovakia. Bernard ran a timber yard and a hardware store in Czarny Dunajec, and with Chana had at least four children: Rachel Adela (born 1920), also called Ruzsha (Rose) by the American family, Salomon (1925) and Salomea (1926). The youngest son Jakub was born in 1929 (or 1935). A few years before Rachel was born in Czarny Dunajec, three more Steiner children were born, but we do not have precise information whether their parents were Bernard and Chana: Jakub Leizer (born 1913), Baruch Hersch (1915) and Szlomo (1917).

According to the descendants of Ruzsha's family, she fought as a partisan during World War II, during which time she met Noah Roitman from Baranowicz, who was also a partisan (he told his story in an interview for the Holocaust Museum in 1999, he is considered a war hero by Israel, who saved about 80 people from the ghetto, as a soldier of the Red Army he took part in the Battle of Berlin, and in the 1950s thanks to his war experience he helped develop the Israeli army). After the war, they got married and left for Israel, from where in 1963 they went to the USA with their daughters Tamar and Esther, who live in Maryland with their families. You can read the story of Róża, a partisan from Czarny Dunajec, here.

Szaje and Hania's next son was Moses Steiner (born in 1890), who emigrated at a young age. In 1911 he came to Belgium for the first time, and in 1922 he returned to it from Baltimore in the United States, where he probably visited his sisters Rose and Minnie, who had previously emigrated to the USA (the passenger list of the ship Baltic, which sailed from Liverpool and arrived in New York on September 19, 1921, includes the name Moses Steiner). After returning to Belgium, he was called Mozes and was involved in the diamond trade in Antwerp, the world capital of these precious stones.

In Antwerp, Mozes met Sara Biron, who was born in 1899 in Blizne near Krosno and then lived in Jaśliska, from where she came to Belgium at the age of 10. Mozes and Sara married in 1924 and received Belgian citizenship in 1931. Three years later, their son Eddie (Edouard Juda Szmuel Steiner) was born. The Steiner family lived near the “diamond district” from 1926, first on Kroonstraat Street and later on Brialmontlei Street.

When the war broke out, the German authorities ordered the registration of all citizens, and then the registration of all Jews by the Judenrat. These documents show that Sara's father, Chaim Aron Biron, was born in 1879 in Nehrybka near Przemyśl, and her mother, Rifka née Kurz, was born in Blizne in 1874. Sara and Mozes continued to live in Antwerp for three years of the war, and during one of the roundups organized by the SS on September 23, 1942, the entire family was arrested and taken to a transit camp in Mechelen. At the end of June of the following year, they were released from the camp, probably because they had Belgian citizenship. However, they did not enjoy freedom for long - they were arrested again on September 4, 1943. 16 days later, they were taken to Auschwitz in transport no. XXIB, where they died. Eddie was 9 years old, Sara - 44, and Mozes 53.

Szaje's next daughter was Róża/Rose (born 1891), who emigrated to the USA and became the eldest of the family in Baltimore. She married Benjamin Weinstein, and was called Tululu by her family. Her daughter Syd (Sydonia) married Joe Goldsmith, while their daughter Loraine Goldsmith married Bill Weinstein, but from a different branch of the family. The fifth generation of Aunt Rose from Czarny Dunajec is already living in the US: Debbie Sugarman (née Weinstein), her great-great-granddaughter has grown-up children and grandchildren. It is possible that Baltimore was a haven for the Steiner family, because Chana Steiner's brother, née Feit, Bernard Feit, born in 1854 in Chochołów, had left there earlier. Rosa, Minnie and Moses were simply going to their uncle.

The second sister who left for the USA was Minnie - we do not know her name given at birth, perhaps it was Rickel (born 3.01.1889). Minnie had a husband Irving, who owned a grocery store.

Szaje's next daughter was Flora Frida Steiner. Three different documents indicate three different dates of her birth: 1892, 1894 or 1896. Flora married Aron Zachariasz Jeret (born 1890, in Poznachowice Górne near Myślenice). The Jerets lived in Czarny Dunajec. Aron traded in timber with his brother-in-law, Bernard Steiner.

Flora and Aron had at least five children: Benjamin (born 1923), Rachel Adela (1924), Rozalia Stela (1925), Lusia (1931) and Izrael Dawid (1933). At the beginning of the war they had to leave Czarny Dunajec, according to documents from the Krakow Jewish community, in July 1940 the Jerets lived on Zamojski Street in Krakow with at least two children: Benjamin and Rachel Adela. According to her brother Herman, during the war they also stayed in Dobczyce, where Aron had family. There, their traces end. Nothing is known about Isaac Aron (born 1896), while another brother, Samuel (born 1897), fought in the Imperial-Royal Army of Austria-Hungary, was an infantry private in the 20th Infantry Regiment, and died during World War I, on July 5, 1917, at the age of 20.

Eliasz Steiner (1900) married his sister-in-law, the sister of his oldest brother Bernard's wife. Bila Messinger, like her sister Chana, was also born in Raslavice (in 1902). We know nothing about their children and their fate.

Szaje's next daughter, Regina (born 1902), married Aron Bitermann, with whom she had three children: Ronia (born 1930), Szaja (1941) and a son born in 1935. During the war they also hid in Dobczyce (like Regina's sister Flora).

Beila or Berta (born 1904) married Edmund Grünspan and died in 1943 in Auschwitz. The Steiners had another son who died in 1905 as an infant.

The youngest child was Yecheskel Shraga (born 1906), who after arriving in the USA in 1938 or 1939 changed his name to Herman C. Steiner and is the author of many entries in the Yad Vashem archives about his family. According to the family, the older sisters, Rose and Minnie, who had been in the US for a long time, sent the family visas after the war broke out, and the only one who managed to leave was Herman, who had previously moved to the area around Baranowicze (today's Belarus) and married Sara Biteńska, a cousin and neighbour of the later partisan Noah Roitman. Herman left Sara pregnant, and was supposed to return for her, but he didn't make it. According to the American family, Sara was killed because of the fur coat she was wearing. In the US, Herman worked in a grocery store for his sister Minnie and brother-in-law Irving, and learned English from the New York Times. During the war, he served in the US army, stationed in England. He convinced his commander, who allowed him to go look for his brother Moses in Antwerp, but it was too late. After the war, Herman used the Red Cross to look for his nephew Edouard, who had died in Auschwitz with his parents. It was probably thanks to his visit to Antwerp that he began working in the diamond trade, and later bought land in Florida, where he moved to later in life. Herman had a daughter, Sherry (born 1951), and a son, Steven (born 1952), whom I managed to track down and who provided much of this story. Herman died in 2002 at the age of 96, 10 days before the death of his second wife, Else (née Streesover, born 1910), who died at the age of 92.

In the USA, there are descendants of Herman Steiner (Sherry and Steven), his sister Rose (Debbie and Howard), and Rose Steiner Roitman, who was their niece (Esther and her sister Tamar).