Lost Histories

26/09/2024

It's not everyday that we come across the real, actual signature of a legendary Polish figure, Gen. Władysław Anders - in fact, in my case, I have never had a document before me where his real signature appears, so this is a big deal!😮😍

Courtesy of the Paszkowski family.

19/08/2024

Be careful what you wish for when searching for your family Coat of Arms. Our colleague Zofia Kusztal was looking into the family tree of her g-g-grandmother, which starts in modern Poland but goes all the way back to Hungary - and discovered the Csato Coat of Arms, which shows a Hungarian holding the severed head of a Tatar! She’s in two minds about displaying it on her front door!🤣

07/06/2024

Poland joined the European Union on 1 May 2004 which means it’s now been TWENTY whole years since we started doing Polish citizenship applications!

In 2004, I’d been doing genealogy and translations for several years, and so, when a client asked me to help him apply for confirmation of his Polish citizenship, I was thrown into the deep end. It was a steep learning curve and we’re still learning (Polish citizenship laws are complex!) but I have loved doing these applications because they’re about history, and every application has its unique, often harrowing history. There’s also some closure that comes with a client receiving confirmation of their Polish citizenship – they have been brought closer to their ancestry, and a Polish passport helps in often complex ways, to take back something of what was lost.

Twenty years after we started, today we’re doing applications for children and grandchildren of our original clients.

Our very first client was Andrew, who parents Wolf Rajcher and Dora nee Moszkowicz, were Holocaust Survivors from Sosnowiec and Częstochowa. In the last twenty years, Andrew has been doing incredible work in Poland. He is now the longest-serving volunteer at POLIN, where he has been a guide and Polish-English translator for 18 years (he started even before POLIN was built!) He is on the Executive Committee of the World Society of Częstochowa Jews and Their Descendants, he volunteers for CRARG, the Częstochowa-Radomsko Area Research Group, and he has established the Wolf & Dora Rajcher Memorial Fund, which makes substantial donations to projects of organisations in Australia, Poland and Israel. At the Jan Długosz University in Częstochowa, Andrew has further honoured his parents through The Wolf & Dora Rajcher Memorial Academic Prize for the best new work on the history of the local Częstochowa Jewish community. And, of course, he’s been able to travel to Poland and live there for parts of almost every year since 2004, all thanks to his Polish passport😊.
Thank you Andrew for introducing us to Polish citizenship twenty years ago!

The Fund provides donations towards capital projects for not-for-profit or charitable organisations.

17/04/2024

(for English scroll down)

🟠 Dziś w nocy przypada 82. rocznica śmierci Menachema Lindera. Był członkiem grupy Oneg Szabat, w Archiwum Ringelbluma zachowało się m.in. sporządzone przez niego obszerne sprawozdanie z działalności Żydowskiej Samopomocy Społecznej w 1939 i 1940 roku.

🟠 Z wykształcenia był ekonomistą, specjalizował się w demografii i statystyce. Przed wojną prowadził badania poświęcone społeczno-ekonomicznej sytuacji Żydów dla Instytutu JIWO w Wilnie.

🟠 Był zaangażowany w rozwój kultury żydowskiej – także w getcie, gdzie założył podziemne stowarzyszenie JIKOR (jid. Jidisze Kulturele Organizacje) popularyzujące język i kulturę jidysz. Zabiegał o finansowanie szkół z wykładowym językiem jidysz, organizował wieczory literackie, odczyty czy akademie, podczas których sam też występował.

„Menachem nie zajmował się nauką dla samej nauki. Jako przekonany socjalista, wprzągł naukę do pracy na rzecz codziennej pomocy społecznej” – pisał o nim Emanuel Ringelblum.

Menachem Linder zginął w nocy z 17 na 18 kwietnia 1942 r. podczas tzw. rzezi kwietniowej, kiedy to Niemcy rozstrzelali w miejscach publicznych osoby powiązane z podziemiem.

🇬🇧 🇬🇧 🇬🇧

🟠 Tonight marks the 82nd anniversary of Menachem Linder's death. He was a member of the Oneg Shabbat group, his extensive report on the activities of the Jewish Social Self-Help in 1939 and 1940 has been preserved in the Ringelblum Archive.

🟠 He was an economist, specializing in demography and statistics. Before the war, he conducted research on the socio-economic situation of Jews for the YIVO Institute in Vilnius.

🟠 He was engaged in the development of Jewish culture. In the Warsaw Ghetto, he founded the YIKOR (Yiddishe Kultur Organizatsye), an underground society popularizing the Yiddish language and culture. He sought funding for schools with Yiddish as the language of instruction, he organized literary events, lectures and presentations during which he also performed.

“He wasn’t preoccupied with science for science itself. As a devoted Socialist, he applied science to his work towards everyday social aid”, Emanuel Ringelblum wrote about him.

Menachem Linder was killed at night, on 17/18 April 1942, during the April massacre – mass killings of people linked to the resistance by the Germans.
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Menachem Linder, zbiory Ghetto Fighters' House.

04/04/2024

The mementos some families have, never cease to surprise us. For example, Polish wartime zloty...

31/12/2023

New Year's Eve is called "Sylwester" in Poland, after Pope / Saint Sylvester.
The paradoxical beginnings of New Year’s Eve parties can be traced back to the year 999, when the world was supposed to end on the last day of that year. This is because of a widespread legend based on Sibyl’s prophecy, according to which the Leviathan monster, said to be imprisoned in the Vatican dungeons by Pope Sylvester I, was to wake up, break out of prison and breathe fire, burning the sky and the earth.
So as the year 999 drew to a close, there was real terror in Rome and neighboring countries, which historians call the “millennium crisis.” People who believed in the legend devoted themselves to prayer, penance and fearfully awaited the coming of the end of the world and the final judgment.
However, when that day came to an end and midnight struck, and nothing had changed in Rome - Leviathan had not appeared and the world had not ended - universal fear changed into spontaneous joy. People ran into the streets, wishing each other well and celebrating in the light of torches, and the then Pope Sylvester II gave his blessing "urbi et orbi" (“to the city and the world”) for the new year, century and millennium.
In this way, the joy of surviving the world and the beginning of a new millennium initiated the custom of celebrating the coming of the New Year, or Sylwester. (https://histmag.org/Skad-wzial-sie-wyk-swietowania-Sylwestra-23429)

Yet, while the world did not end then, we can be forgiven for thinking it might be ending now. War, conflict, poverty, suffering – all these still exist now, as they did back then – and we’ve added our special 21st-Century problems like global warming and plastics everywhere. It’s depressing, but history shows it was ever so – and Polish history especially. It’s hard for historians to be optimists! But when we find bits of lost puzzles of the past, we can give closure or joy to people – and that’s worth something!
(photo of Marysia Olszewska, in pre-war Warsaw with her brother Wiesław. She drowned not long after this photo was taken, so it’s a precious keepsake for the family).

27/07/2023

This work is often challenging, unrelenting, painful (how can it not be when almost every family has its sorrows, dysfunctions, silences, tragedies - both in the past and present?). But then we get something like this from a lovely client, and it makes everything worthwhile!

25/07/2023

A "history" lost, found, and returned - what a story!
https://www.polskieradio.pl/395/7991/Artykul/3212103,polish-wwii-soldiers-dog-tag-unearthed-in-israel-returns-home?fbclid=IwAR1mYalGaMF5oIhn0e7gcyk95vZ8-Z1uw-_GsZhZ5heSAFzn3b6DPN_c-Bs

A dog tag belonging to a Polish World War II soldier that was discovered in Israel, has been handed over to the soldier's family at a ceremony in Warsaw.