Subject: Genealogy #65 Reply-to: IsraelP@pikholz.org Date: Mon, 14 Apr 2008 13:43:32 +0300 Dear Cousins, This is a long one, but I think well worthwhile, so please bear with me. Sunday evening, I had the pleasure of participating in the wedding of Yana Sokalsi and Alex Kisluk. Yana was born in Uzbekistan and her late grandmother Taube Pikgolz had four Pikholz grandparents. Taube disappeared from Skalat in 1941 and no one in the family had contact with her until I found her two daughters here in Israel five years ago, seven years after Taube died here. Taube belongs to the ELIEZER and ORENSTEIN families. (I told you about this discovery in my mailings #39 and #40, which are archived on our website.) So mazal tov to the family. Mazal tov on four births - some a bit late. To Ron Burger (BREZDOWICZ) on a granddaugther Lily Nicole Walowitz, to Herb Braun (PITTSBURGH) on a great-granddaughter Reese Cronier Braun, to Jona Riss (RISS) on a granddaughter Noa Ariel Riss and to Jacob Laor (LAOR) on a granddaughter Bar Laor. Condolences to Herb Braun on the passing of his son Mark. We have been found by two Pikholz descendants that I knew nothing about and both are now on this mailing list. (Welcome!) One is the daughter of the late David Pickholtz (RavJG family), living in upstate New York. The other is a bit more complicated. A couple of years ago, a friend who was working with a Holocaust list of Galician doctors, found a woman named Anna Lippman, whose mother was Gittel Pikholz (MIGDEN family) from Skalat. Anna's husband Jacob Schwefelgeist was a doctor in Lwow and they were killed. Anna'a brother David was also a doctor and all evidence was that he survived, but I had no success in finding him. His daughter - named Anna, after her aunt - found our website and we are now in touch. Her father changed his name on post-War Poland and eventually went to Australia, where he died in 1978. Anna lives in Virginia and her brother, also a doctor, lives in Sydney. Another odd story dropped into my lap a few weeks ago. A man named Blaustein, who is from Pittsburgh (Mt Lebanon, actually) but now lives in Israel, tells me that his grandfather's wife - Cipora Morgenroth - was the daughter of one Gitel Muhlrad, whose sister Chancie was married to Moshe Pikholz of Skalat (TONKA family). These Muhlrads also lived in Skalat. (The Blausteins were from Zbarazh.) What is very interesting here is that the Morgenroths are from Husiatyn and I already have a theory that Moshe Pikholz of the TONKA family is the same Moshe Pikholz who was born in Husiatyn in 1851. This hardly qualifies as proof, but it would fit well to see the two Skalat Muhlrad sisters both marrying men from Husiatyn. Retirement suits me. I have never been so busy. I hope to be even busier if I can develop some genealogy clients. I have redesigned the home page of pikholz.org to reflect the services I am offering (at the top), with the family part linked from the lower part of the home page. Actually, I probably need to get some professional design, at least for the commercial part, but it will do for now. I mentioned last time that I have been appointed editor of the Israel Genealogical Society's quarterly journal Sharsheret Hadorot, a volunteer position, to be sure, but one that takes up quite a bit of time. My first issue is out and the next is on the way to the printer. See more at http://www.isragen.org.il/NROS/BIB/SHD/shdMain.html. We are moving into Jerusalem in July and I shall not be participating in the Gen Conference in Chicago in August. (There is some connection between those two clauses, but one is not a direct result of the other.) I might, however, make a trip in November, depending how the bit about the clients works out. Now for the main course - the International Tracing Service of the Red Cross (ITS) archives in Bad Arolsen Germany. After the War, the ITS was entrusted with collecting all documentation regarding the fate of civilians during the War. This would include transports, camps, refugees, inquiries made afterwards and anything else. These millions of documents.were kept in Bad Arolsen and were supposed to be used to answer inquiries. Unfortunately the Germans were very concerned about the privacy of their victims, so were very stingy (and slow!) about letting out any information. There is a collection of ITS microfilms that has been available at Yad Vashem for the last fifty years and I have used that resource for our family research, but that merely hinted at what was closed to researchers in the main ITS archives. As you may know from the newspapers, the eleven-nation consortium that supervises the ITS has come under pressure in the last few years to make the Arolsen records available for research and the last of the eleven has finally agreed. The terms of the agreement state that each of the eleven countries would receive a single copy of much of the material and that no electronic reproduction would be permitted. Much would still be available only in Germany, but researchers coming to Arolsen would be allowed direct access and they revamped their staff and are now willingly replying to inquiries from abroad. The Israeli copy of the available data is at Yad Vashem and I have gone to look at it several times. (It is still being run by the German computer program and if you have ever used SAP, you can imagine what a disaster it is.) Even at this early stage, I have found many references to Pikholz descendants whom I don't know how to identify. (That's in addition to some unidentified Pikholz from the earlier ITS microfilms.) I will review these for you in a minute, but first I must tell you how we would like to identify them or learn what happened to them. The Galician research group Gesher Galicia (of which I am a board member) is sending its research coordinator (a volunteer, who lives in the US) to Arolsen in early May as part of an organized genealogy research group. Gesher Galicia is willing to have her do research for members, provided the member gives a donation (US-tax deductible) to GG. Considering that we have some fifty names, the $500 overall cost is not a lot of money. Is there someone who would like to sponsor part of this $500 expense? We have to sign up for this soon and in the meantime I am preparing our list of files that I want her to get for us. Just to give you an idea what we are after here, let me tell you about some of new people I have found thusfar. Maybe you recognize someone. 1. Jetty Pickholz Margel b. early 1880s in Skalat, daughter of Yaakov P and Henie-Malka Ginsberg. (IRENE family) I have her birth record, but nothing else, so I always figured that maybe she died in childhood. Her husband Theodore was killed in Europe, maybe Czernovitz. She was in Siberia in the early part of the War, then went to Iran in 1942 and from there to Israel. In 1946, she is in Jerusalem, inquiring about her daughter Paulina Horowitz of Jaroslaw, who was with her in Siberia until they were separated. Jetty died in 1970 and a photo of her grave now appears on our site. The burial society says that next of kin is a daughter Franceska (Mrs Daniel) Angelo of Jerusalem, but that was 1970 and I have not been able to find them afterwards. Yet. I want to see the full file from Arolsen. 2. Yetta Pickholz Schaffer of Lwow. A man in Baltimore (another "welcome" to the list) inquired about her in 1994. He is a grandson and he also inquired about his mother's brother and sisters. I want to see the file. (The man's mother was born in 1905 and I am ordering the birth record from Warsaw, which should tell us Yetta's parents' names.) 3. Rachel Pickholz b. 1895 in Mikolayev (near Rozdol), daughter of Yosef and Gittel, married a man named Isak Dreier/Greenwald. She had a daughter Freide and a son Leon/Leib (married to Hinde). They were killed in Belsitz. I found the family of the man who made the inquiry - he is a son of Rachel and Isak. He passed away nearly seven years ago, but it turns out that his daughter is someone I know, in Chicago. (Yet another "welcome" to this list.) Until we succeed in attaching this family to other existing families, I plan to open a new family called MIKOLAYEV, since they have five generations. (We already know the name Dreier - Vitche-Beile Dreier married Pinchas Pickholz of Rozdol, but this was an older couple.) 4. A card showed up for Hersch Pickholz b. 1905, son Pinchas and Vitchie. But we know their son Israel-Hersch to have been born 1883. I want to see the file from Arolsen 5. Two cards show up for Granek (or Granik) Pickholz, born 1908. No further information. I assume this is a nickname, but I don't know what for. I want to see the file from Arolsen. 6. Israel (1920), Raisel (1922) and Matias (1926), children of Schmuel Pickholz and Lea Lauterbach of Boryslaw. I want to see the files from Arolsen. 7. Sara Teitelbaum Pickholz, daughter of Schmuel T and Chaya Loewenstein, born 1907 in Ostrolenko Poland. Went to Israel after the War. I don't know who her husband is or if they had children. And of course what happened to her. I want to see the file. 8. Solomon Pickholz born Sarny 1918. I don't know anything about him. It would help if I could read the German on the card - but I still want to see the whole file. And Isak Pickholz also born 1918 in Sarny. Other than the given names, the two cards are nearly identical. I think Solomon should be 1906. 9. Szlomo Pickholz, b. Grzmaylow 1911 to Israel Pikholz and Necha Birnbaum. I know who he is and I have some one-way contact with his daughter here in Israel, but we know very little and I want to see if the full files can tell us more. There are also cards for Israel and Necha, both listed as Birnbaum and both born 1869 in Grzmaylow. 10. Friede Pickholz Halpern Hellenberg (I'm not sure which name is which) b. 1893 Boian / Czernovitz, married to Mendel. I don't understand a thing, but I hope the file from Arolsen will make it clear. 11. Besa Pickholz b. 1890. That's all I know. 12. Chaim Pickholz b. 1924. That's all I know. 13. Estera Pickholz - not even a year of birth. 14. Hana Kutschik Pickholz, b.1924, Gorki. 15. Klara Mandler Pickholz b. 1905, Stanislawow 16. Lea Pickholz Keller, born 1906 Drohobycz. Parents are Benzion and Rivka Rachel. I don't recognize the parents or anything else here. 17. Maurice Pickholz b. 1906 Czernovitz 18. Mitel Pickholz.. No personal information at all! This is likely a nickname for someone we know. Or maybe not. And there are more. So you see why I am very interested in getting a look at the full files from Arolsen. A few years ago, I figured I had reached the point that new information would provide answers rather than questions. Sometimes that is true, but new questions keep coming. Let me close for now by wishing all of you and your families a happy, kosher and meaningful Passover. Israel P. -- End --