To: @PIKHOLZ.PML
Subject: Genealogy #46
Reply-to: IsraelP@pikholz.org

Dear Pikholz descendants,

I just did a count on the number of people receiving these summaries by 
email.  I am used to saying "over eighty" but it seems that while I 
wasn't paying attention, the number has grown to over 120.  Considering 
how we started this as just a handful fiva and a half years ago, I am 
amazed.

No mazal tovs or condolences this time.  

The Magnates Project is off and running.  At least we collected enough 
contributions to have the folks in Lwow start a search for three names.  
Afetr we see how that goes, we will decide how to proceed further, 
depending on the kind of results we receive.  Any one else who wishes to 
contribute to this project can do so by sending a check to Jacob Laor, 
our Director of Finance.

The Schreibers - whom I mentioned in my last summary - have been fully 
identified and now appear on the RavJG page, descended from Josef ben 
Moses and Sarah.

One of our unsolved puzzles has been the RISS family (see 
http://www.pikholz.org/Volunteer/Puzzles/Riss.html ) and my attention was 
concentrated on Egon Riss (born Pickholz in Vienna in 1917, but the 
family changed the name to Riss, which was the paternal grandmother's 
name), who was last seen leaving Vienna about 1938.  There was evidence 
that he survived the War, because someone added his mother's name to his 
father's grave.  (He died before the war and she apparently in 
Auschwitz.)  We have now found Egon Riss.  Professor Egon Riss.  Head of 
cardiology at Rambam Hospital in Haifa.  Unfortunately, he died in 1989, 
but I have been carrying on a spirited exchange of emails with his widow 
and we hope to be able to understand more about this family as we 
continue making inquiries among his cousins.

A set of birth, death, marriage records have now become available from 
Skole.  I had a hunch we would find something of value there and in fact 
there are fifty Pikholz records there, including the birth of Bendit (the 
grandfather of Robert from Connecticut) and the deaths of Bendit's 
parents barely a year later.  Most of the other records are connected to 
Fischel ben Moshe and Sarah of the RavJG family and Fischel's are now so 
numerous that I have put them on a page all their own.  There are some 
other records as well, including some which we cannot readily identify.  
a selection are being ordered.  (Thank you to Robert for that set.)

Speaking of records, Jacob Laor is in the process of making a close 
examination of records from the towns in which his family lived and his 
analysis has shown that his grandfather's Pikholz grandmother's maiden 
name must have been RECHEL, an discovery based on an analysis of the 
given names in that family.  (There had been no indication of that 
surname in any of the Pikholz records.)  There is a lesson to be learned 
here about how to use the available records (online) and I am  
encouraging Jacob to write an article for publication on how he did it.

We received the four RECHISTER-PIKHOLZ (KCMO family) birth records from 
odessa, but although they tell us things we didn't know, they still don't 
give us the identities of Nesia Pikholz-Rechister's parents.  

Steve is progressing in his inquiries into the London deaths which I 
mentioned last time.  After the widowed mother and daughter died, there 
was a young daughter left and we have no idea what happened to her.  the 
informant in the mother's death was a man named Hyman Silberman, who 
lived in the same building.  Maybe the orphaned daughter ended up with 
his family.

We took a researcher in Budapest to look at local birth records in the 
early 1900's (ip to 1911) and he began developing two families.  One is a 
Thalenberg (from Boryslaw) of the RavJG family - there were three births 
in the perion 1905-8 and we have no idea what happened to any of them.  
The father was still in Budapest in the 1920's.  the second family we 
knew about, but just barely.  Henrik Pickholz was born in Budapest in 
1911 (parents were Moshe and Erszebet) and lived later in tel-Aviv, where 
he died in 1983.  He has two daughters in Europe, who know only that he 
had about eight siblings, all of whom (save one who died later in 
Budapest, with no children) were killed in the Holocaust.  We have now 
identified this Moshe as brother of the grandmother of Ephraim and Zeev 
(IF3 family).  We also have six older siblings of Henrik - here too, we 
did not have budget to ask the researcher to look any further.

Someone found a Lea Pickholz on list of graves from Czernovitz, which is 
south of where we are used to finding our Pikholz descendants.  There was 
no other information available, so we don't know who this is.  I fdound 
someone who would check the grave itself, but I couldn't justify forty 
dollars for this, so she will remain unknown for now.  (She may well have 
remained unknown even if we had spent the forty dollars!)

There will be a ceremony in June dedicating a memorial on the site of the 
Belzec extermination camp, where many of the Galicians were killed.  The 
memorail is sponsored by the American Jewish Committee and the ceremony 
will include remarks by the Prime Minister of Poland.  I have additional 
information, if anyone is interested.

I am planning on attending the 24th Annual Conference of the 
International Association of Jewish Genealogical Societies which is 
scheduled for the first week in July in jerusalem.  Jacob will also be 
attending, at least in part.  Anyone else interested?

Let me wish you all a happy, kasher and meaningful Passover holiday.

Israel P.


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