This is the most important blog I will write about my distant cousins Shalom Hollander and (Lieb) Zissel Feuer. They are true Jewish heroes. They did not give up. They lived through the Shoah and they helped those who also survived. And I feel so honored to know that I am part of their family. I know that I just wrote about my renewed contact with their family, but I believe I need to just put it all in one place!
I have mentioned in other blogs that I met Zissel and Shalom when I was 19//20 years old studying at Hebrew University in 1974-75. When I met them, I knew about the Shoah, but I also knew it was not something you asked about. If someone told you something you listened, but you did not interrupt. You kept quiet. The 1970s they were only just beginning to open up about what happened to them.
To me Zissel was someone my grandparents wanted me to meet. Grandma had known him in 1931/32 when she took my mother and uncle to Europe. Zissel stole a pearl necklace from her. And now over 40 years later, he wanted to make amends. I was sent to collect the money and to listen to his story. I liked Zissel. He reminded me of my grandfather. He worked in a bakery, my grandfather owned a bakery. So from that point forward whenever I went to Tel Aviv, I visited Zissel. I did not ask questions about his past.
Shalom I only met once. When my grandmother and I traveled to Israel in January 1976, we met up with Shalom in Haifa. He and grandmother spent two hours speaking in Yiddish about what had happened in the war. About everyone who died.
Ziseel and Shalom had been married to sisters, my grandfather’s first cousins. They and all the rest of the family was murdered. (Except one of the sisters’ brothers and those who had already left .) Some were buried in mass graves; some died in concentration camps; some died in a ghetto; some died in the death camp Belzec. Shalom was saved by Schindler. Zissel survived hiding in the forest nearby as part of the Amsterdam group, a partisan group all members of my family who hoped to survive in the forest.
After the war they both returned to Mielec to find other survivors. They lived together in a house in town. Thanks to Izabela Sekulska of Mayn Shtetele Mielec, I now know what they did there. They saved lives. They testified against evil. They worked to keep the memory of the dead alive.
First they saved lives. Izabella told me that people were angry at Zissel. They said he lied and took money. Well maybe he did. I have a different view. The land of the Jews was now empty. The Jews were not coming back, or very few. Out of 5000 about 200 returned. Zissel became the head of the Jewish community of Mielec. Shalom was his deputy. They did not just let the Poles take the land that had belong to the Jews. They told them that the survivors who came back, those who had lived through hell, had owned those lands. And they made the Polish people who wanted the lands to pay the Jews. It makes sense to me. They had nothing. No Home. No clothes. No family. NOTHING. At least they could get some money to start a new life. And they did.
Second thing they did. They testified. They testified FOR the people who had helped the Jews. But they also Testified AGAINST many who had murdered the Jews. Including my great grandmother, who was also their aunt by marriage. They wrote out testimonies and they signed their names to them.
Third thing they did. They protected the site of a mass burial. The spot where the Germans killed 800 Jews on March 9, 1942, Shalom purchased the land and put up a monument to his parents who are among those who are buried there, probably along with my great aunts and uncle. They also built a wall around the Jewish cemetery.
Fourth, they helped an orphan Jewish girl who had been hidden and kept by a Polish woman during the war. Shalom remarried after the war to another survivor of the Shoah. They adopted the girl and brought her to Israel with them when they left Poland. They went on to have three more children.
Fifth. Shalom wrote testimonies for almost 40 people to be kept at Yad vShem, including for my great grandparents and my great uncle. As well as his wife, children, parents, in laws, and Zissel’s wife.
Sixth. Zissel came to America to see his brother in the early 1950s. He visited my grandparents and told my grandfather how his family died. My grandmother called him the Angel of Death, because he brought this horrific news into our family.
Seventh. They survived. They helped to settle the new Israel. They worked. They remained close. Shalom had a new family, new wife, children and grandchildren. Zissel never remarried, but he also had a life and a relationship with Shalom’s children.
I am honored that I knew them. I wish I had been braver and asked questions. I wish had written down what they did tell me. I wish I was not so timid then. But I am glad that I can close my eyes and still see them. Especially Zissel, who I spent so much time with 50 years ago.
I hope to keep their names and memories a blessing for my family.
There are many blogs about both Zissel and Shalom. You can find them on my blog site.
So much information has come my way since Izabela S. contacted me. But the first in-depth story I must tell is about Zissel Feuer, my grandfather’s second cousin, who married my grandfather’s first cousin. I have learned so many details about how he survived and what he did immediately after the war, before he made aliyah to Israel.
Before the war Zissel was married to my grandfather’s first cousin, Dvorah/Deborah. Zissel then used the name Sussel or Zygmunt, the Polish version of his name. His life was intertwined with Schulim/Shalom Hollander because they were married to sisters. Shalom’s wife, Cerla, and Devorah were the daughters of Zacharias, my great grandfather, Gimple’s brother. My grandfather told me that Shalom and Zissel were his second cousins from opposite sides of his family. But since his grandparents/or great grandparents were first cousins, there was much intermingling.
Both Zissel and Shalom and their wives lived on a farms in Trzciana close to where my great grandfather had his farm and both Zacharias, the father of their wives and Shalom’s parents had their farms.
In fact in the document I have, is a list of farms taken from Jewish citizens. The Germans documented everything. Her you can see that seven of my relatives in listed from 32 to 39: Mendel Amsterdam, Hirsch Feuer, Zacharias Feuer (Dvorah and Cerla’s father), Gimple Feuer (my great grandfather), Markus Amsterdam (Shalom’s father), Schulim (Shalom) Hollander, Sussel Feuer. They were all inter-related. My grandfather once told me that this entire plot of land was once owned by his great great grandfather, or even further back. But with each generation the land was split among the sons. There was so much intermarriage as they kept the land within the family.
Zissel was a farmer and a corn merchant. I know that they also had potatoes and other crops on their farms. But it doesn’t matter, they were all forced to turn over their lands to the Germans in 1941.
After they were all forced off their land, Zissel and his wife; Gimple and Chava, my great grandparents; Zacharais, along with other Jewish farmers, were resettled in Wola Mielecka, a nearby village. Shalom and Cerla and his parents were sent to Mielec where they had a home. And then began their efforts to survive. I will let you know in advance, only Shalom, Zissel and one other cousins, the son of Zacharias lived. The rest did not survive.
Much of this information about Zissel comes from the book “Sztetl Mielec. Z Historii mieleckich Zydow” written by Andrzej Krempa that Izabela S. translated for me. (In English, Shtetl Mielec. From The History of the Jews of Mielec.”) Other information came from documents that Izabela has uncovered and translated for me. Part is what Izabela and I have determined through our many email conversations and the research I did and memories I took from my grandfather. I will mix her information with the information I know from my family.
So where was Zissel/Sussel and Dvorah during the war after he was removed from his farm? At first they hid with a man named Stanislaw Wojtusiak in Gliny Male and then with Jozef Padykula in Platkowiec. At some point Zissel’s wife was exposed by a resident of Trzciana, then murdered by the Germans. At this point Zissel had to run. He hid in the Piatkowiec forest near Mielec, near the village of Piatkowiec.
In the meantime, On March 9, 1942 Shalom was sent to a Labor Camp in Mielec. He was then sent to Wieliczka, then to Płaszów. He then became one of the people on Schindler’s List and ended up in Brunnlitz.
My one issue about this, is that Zissel told me he had two children. I do not know where they were or their names. But Izabela told me there is a mass grave near Tarnow where 800 children were murdered and buried. These children came from the Tarnow orphanage and ghetto. Shalom and Cerla’s children, as well as any child Zissel and Dvorah might have had, if they were not taken to a camp with their parents, may be buried here. Or they could have been shot at the Tranow Jewish Cemetery. Or deported. In any case we do not know exactly where the children are buried.
Zissel spent the time from March 9, 1942, the date that the Jews were rounded up for deportation and many murdered, until April 19, 1944, wandering and hiding around the villages near Mielec. For part of this time, he hid in Polaniec (July 25 until October 25, 1942). He left that area after the Jews of Polaniec were deported and returned back to Mielec.
He was able to stay hidden for a while. But starting in April 1943, the Gestapo was looking for him. They knew there was Jewish man hiding in the woods. Honestly, I cannot imagine how he survived for so long, having watched so many of his family die and disappear. But he survived! I know he had to have help, because his freedom was always in doubt. Finally in 1944 he was caught by the Polish Forest Administration and turned over to the Germans. But the slippery and I think smart Zissel, escaped. On his way back from Polaniec he was attacked in the village of Otalezh, which he was stripped and robbed. But he survived.
We know this because he filled out a questionnaire at the Central Committee of Polish Jews after the war. (Izabela says this document is now in the Jewish Historical Institute.)
Some of the Jews who survived. Zissel and Shalom are on this list.
After the war, he returned to Mielec, where he became the President of the Jewish Religions Congregation in Mielec. He was among the 55-70 Jews who survived. Zissel, Shalom and a woman named Chava Amsterdam are listed. Zissel was now using the name Lieb Sussel Feuer. His post war address was Maly Rynek 1. Shalom also lived at this address for a while after the war.
I think they still had battles for survival after the war. Padykula, who helped Sussel was accused after the war for helping in the capture of Zissel. But Shalom Hollander wrote a letter saying this was not true. That he actually helped not only Zissel, but also Shalom’s son Nissan. (This is interesting because in his Yad V’Shem list, he details the names of his five children who died. There was no Nissan. There is also no Nissan mentioned on the list of survivors who returned to Mielec. So perhaps it was someone he took care of during the war.)
Zissel did leave Mielec for six months. He visited his brother, Arthur, in the United States. I never him. But I did know that Zissel visited my grandparents. He is the one who told my grandfather that everyone died during this visit. I know from Izabela, that Zissel is one of the witnesses for my great grandfather, Gimple’s death. I know how difficult this was for my grandfather. My mother once told me that after baking all night my grandfather would come upstairs to their apartment and sit and cry with his head on his arms on the table. Can you imagine, not only finding out that his parents died, but his siblings, his entire family. Of those that stayed in Austria/Poland, I only know of four close cousins who survived. Shalom, Zissel and one of Zacharias’ sons. ( will write about one of the son’s in my next blog.) Shalom moved to Israel and remarried.
Zissel also went to see another brother in Berlin and then on to Israel. He did not stay in Israel, instead he returned to Poland. I really cannot understand why he would return, unless he had unfinished business. Which, from what Izabela told me next, I think I know what he needed to accomplish.
In 1947 he owned an apartment building at 41 Sandomierska Street, where he lived. As President of the Jewish Congregation, he began the work of fencing in the Jewish Cemetery on Jadernych Street. But the Provincial Office stopped the work. This is the Cemetery that Izabela now cares for with a group of volunteers. A few kilometers from the cemetery, at Swierkowa Street, there is another mass grave, where the Holocaust victims from Mielec are burried. In the area of this mass grave, Shalom put a tombstone in memory of his parents Tovah and Marcus/Markus Amsterdam. (Tovah’s maiden name was Hollander). It is possible that my great grandparents are also buried in this mass grave.
Zissel also gave testimony for the Polish people who helped him, by writing letters to document what they had done. I have photos of two of these letters, where he mentions Polish people who defended and saved other Jewish people. Two of them are Loen Wanatowicz and Stanislaw Rebis.
Zissel also testified against those who did evil, included a war criminal named Jek. He testified that Jek beat Jews and humiliated Jewish women by ordering them to strip naked. In the Tarnow ghetto he also killed at least three Jewish men.
Besides these testimonies, Izabela told me that there are still rumors about Zissel stating that he cheated some of the people of Mielec. How so? There were many homes that were now vacant because almost all of the 5000 Jews of Mielec and the surrounding area were murdered in the Shoah. They basically were available for people to move in to without having to pay anyone. Zissel, as the President of the Jewish Congregation, said that those who survived and returned were descendants of people who owned some of the property. Therefore, the Polish people now living on the property and in the homes had to pay the survivors for the homes and or property.
I told Izabela, since the families were so interrelated it could very well be that they were distant relatives. But even more important. They had NOTHING left. Everyone was dead. Their homes were gone. They had suffered. In my mind Zissel had done honorable work. He found a way for these people to get some money to begin their lives anew. Perhaps some of them were not really related to the property owners. But they did not belong to the people now living in them either.
(On a side note, I once asked my grandfather if he had tried to get compensation from Germany after the war for the death of his parents or his property. He became very angry and asked the following questions. “Would getting the money bring my parents back? Would getting the money bring my brothers back, my sisters? Would it bring any of my family back? I don’t want their blood money?” We never discussed it again.)
When Zissel was done with this work, he left Poland for Israel. He started using the name that I knew for him, Zissel: no longer Lieb or Sussul or Zygmunt. I met him in 1974. He was living in an apartment near the center of Tel Aviv with another Holocaust survivor. He worked in a bakery not far from the Shuk HaCarmel, the Carmel Market.
The last time I saw him was in 1976 with my grandmother. Zissel was not a perfect man. He stole from my grandmother. He was a bit of a goniff. But perhaps that is what kept him alive and allowed him to help others after the war.
May his name be for a blessing. May his memory live on from the blogs I have written.
In my blog “Murdered in Belzec” I wrote about Shalom Hollander, the relative who put in the information about my great grandparents and great uncle on the Yad VeShem datebase. I had met him in 1976. when I was 20 years old in Israel, when took my Grandmother to Israel to see her brother (See blog link below).
After I found those three names, I decided I needed to see if Shalom entered other names on the Yad VeShem website, since I could only find one of my grandfather’s siblings. I did an advance search using only Shalom’s name as the one who put in the testimonies. About 45 names showed up. After going through all of them, I realized that he had duplicated some names. Mainly his own children. So in reality there were probably 40 names of people that were somehow related to me, of these 18 were children.
And although I was looking for my grandfather’s siblings and their children, finding these three families and their children touched my heart. They were also my family.
Among the many names were his wife and his five children. With this information I found out how he was closely related to me. His wife, Cerla or Tzira Feuer, was my great grandfather’s niece and so my grandfather’s first cousin. She was 38 when she was murdered. (I knew two of her brothers who survived the Shoah, one settled in Montana of all places and one in England. Another brother also survived.)
Shalom’s children were: Elish (Ptakhia), 11 years old when murdered in Auschwitz; Etla, seven years old when murdered at Auschwitz; Mordechai, five years old when murdered at Auschwitz; Gital Tila, four years old when murdered at Auschwitz; Ita, two years old when murdered in Auschwitz. They all were murdered in August 1942 on the day that the Jews of Mielec were deported .
Before they were murdered at the camp, they lived in the Tarnow Ghetto. What a horrible short life they lived.
In the earlier blog I wrote that I thought he had no family in Israel. I now know why. All of these deaths.
But it doesn’t stop there.
His sister also perished: Chaja/Serka/Khala Holander Viner/Wiener also died. I like how he gave all the names she used. She died in Belzec. Also dying was her husband: Pinchas Viner/Wiener. He died in a different camp, Plaszow Camp, which was first a slave labor camp. Then a death camp.
It doesn’t stop there because his parents Mordechai and Tova also perished in the Shoah. They died on March 9, 1943, in Beredechow, Ropczyce, Krakow. I wonder what happened that day? Why were they both murdered then? I tried seeing if such a date was important in some way, but could not find anything. But I guess it was important because Mordechai and Tova were murdered that day.
His father was related to my great grandmother, an Amsterdam. But Shalom chose to use his mother’s maiden name. Or perhaps his parents never had a civil marriage as what happened to many Jewish couples in Galicia, so he had his mother’s name.
I am looking back at my 20 year old self in horror. I remember spending several hours with Shalom and my grandmother. We had a meal or drink together in a restaurant. We walked around for a while as my Grandma talked to him. I remember being a bit annoyed because I had to take Grandma by bus to a place I really did not know so well to meet him. I think it was in Haifa. I knew Tel Aviv much better.
I still remember what he looked like. He was relatively tall for an ‘old man.’ Probably in his mid-70s. He had the look of my grandfather, but not as much as another relative I had met.
They spoke in Yiddish. I tuned it out. I was so exhausted from all the Holocaust memories I had been listening to during that four-week trip. Can a person have delayed Jewish guilt? Can those memories really cause so much sorrow to me now?
They do. I went back to Israel a year later and spent over three months. But I did not go to see him again. Other survivors who I knew, I did see. But not Shalom.
I cannot imagine what losing all those people he loved did to him. I cannot imagine what sorrow he carried with him. I knew another of my grandfather’s relatives who survived. I wondered if they knew each other. Now I know that they did. Although Ziesel and Shalom were both related to my grandfather from different sides of his family, they married into his close family by married sisters, his two first cousins.
I do remember a bit of that visit with Shalom. I remember Grandma telling me that this visit would be different, that I would be meeting one of Grandpa’s relatives, not one of hers. And that she did not know him very well. I remember the overwhelming sense of pain that came from him while they spoke. My grandmother spoke to him in a way I had never heard before. With him she was so gentle. Almost whispering to him as they conversed. Easing the words out of him.
I remember Grandma and me being exhausted after this visit. I remember Grandma went to bed as soon as we returned to the hotel. It really was too much to comprehend. Too much sorrow. So maybe I just let myself forget.
Now, as an adult, I realize that I must remember Shalom and his wife Tzira; his children Elish, Etla, Mordechai, Gital and Ita; his sister Chaja and her husband, Pinchas; his parents Mordechai and Tova. May their names be a blessing, may I use this blog to keep their memories alive. Baruch Dayan haEmet.
zicharonot 