Part one - 15 May 2005
I just had a look at a new index of records from the town of Trembowla,
south of Skalat, for the late 1890's and early 1900's.
There are three births there for children of Arie-Majer Tunis and Sara
Pikholz. We won't know for sure who her parents were until we
order a
record or two, but I am quite sure I know.
Arie-Majer is from Loszniow, which is a small village near Trembowla.
Sara is from Zalosce, which as you know is where our family lived.
The
three children are Jechel-Jakob (1898), Syme-Ester (1901) and Chaim
Benzion (1902). I also see what seems to be a 1902 death record
for
Syme.
Hersch Pickholz, Lea Braun and Bassie Frankel/Franzos had a brother
Yehiel whose wife was Syme. Since forms of both these names appear
in
Sara's family, I am quite sure that she is their daughter. There
may be
additional children in later records.
I then went into Yad VaShem and found two Pages of Testimony for Leib
Tunis of Loszniow. One was submitted by a friend in 1956.
The other was
submitted by his daughter-in-law in 1999 and I have determined that
this
woman was born in 1911. In 1999 she was living in an old age
home in
Rehovoth and I have a call in to them to see if she is alive and coherent
and if not, can they refer me to her family (or pass a letter to them
for
me). According to the Testimony, Leib (=Arie) was a widower and
had (at
least) two sons - Chaim age 40 and Leizer age 38.
This looks like our guy.
More as it happens.
Part two - 20 May 2005
I tried to speak with the widow of the person who I think was married
to Sara's
son Chaim. She died last November, but I spoke with her daughter
(born
after the war - not Chaim's daughter). She could not help much,
but I
did learn that Chaim was a physician had a younger brother Leiser who
was
an attorney. She sent me to a cousin (83) who knew them.
This cousin
(Marta) was able to tell me that Leiser has a living son in Wroclaw
Poland, but didn't remember his first name.
I checked with a contact I have in Poland and it turns out that Stanislaw
Tunis of Wroclaw died last year.
So here we stand for now. |