Gruss aus Chrzanow (Greetings from Chrzanow) - A Little Geography

Postcard from Chrzanow - Market Square and Folk School

President Kennedy, on a visit to a divided Germany in 1963, famously declared "Ich bin ein Berliner" (I am a Berliner).  Daddy always proudly said, "I am a Galizianer."  It was his identity, and he was very proud of it, even though Galizianers historically were looked down upon by both the German Jews (who were proud that they were more German than Jewish) and the Viennese Jews (who were very proud of how intellectual and cultured they were).   I think being a Galizianer fit in well with my father not wanting to be a "big shot."

You may think that I have been negligent about my "picture of the day" blogging responsibilities, which I have, but mostly I have been involved in doing  research so I could provide some background on some of the geography and towns in our story, which I thought might be helpful.  This turned out to be more of an adventure than I expected, and led me through all kinds of distractions in many different directions.  As it turns out, these towns were in the path of history -- they changed their nationalities frequently, and they played minor roles in some major historical events.

So here is my first pass.  I'm sure there will be corrections and additions to this entry....

Here is an overview map to get you oriented:

If I blow up the section around Cracow, it looks like this:

We are not talking about large distances here.  The distance between Chrzanow and Gleiwitz or Beuthen is less than 40 miles.

The important towns for our story are:

Chrzanow -- where the Hochbaums and the Schorrs (and possibly the Brauners) were all born, and where most of the previous generation were born and died.  I don't know anything about generations before that, but I wouldn't be surprised if they came from Chrzanow too.

Beuthen (Bytom in Polish) -- "Over the border" in Germany, where the C. H. Hochbaum, Tropical Fruits, Fruits, and Vegetables wholesale business was located.  Most of the family lived here during the week.  Before his parents died, Daddy and his siblings would all return to Chrzanow on Friday for the weekend.  Charlie Grun was born in Beuthen, as was his cousin, Chaim Hirsch Hochbaum, Erna's son. 

Gleiwitz (Gliwice in Polish) -- Also over the border, in Germany.  Daddy had a second store there, as did Dave Ulreich and Dave Redner.  (These were Daddy's future partners in America.  In Europe they were competitors.)  I'm not sure when either of their businesses in Gleiwitz closed.  Daddy and everyone else referred to Beuthen (pronounced "BOY-ton") much more frequently than Gleiwitz.  It may be that they all lived in Beuthen and commuted to Gleiwitz.

Auschwitz (Oswiecim) -- The site of the Auschwitz and Birkenau concentration camps.  Charlie's parents died here.  Auschwitz is only about 12 miles from Chrzanow.

In addition, the town of Bendjin (Bedzin), which doesn't show on the map above, is about 12 miles east of Beuthen.  It's where the Brauner part of the family emigrated from.  I'm not sure where they were born.  (Mom thought Chrzanow.)

If you google these towns today, the names show up in Polish, because this whole area is now in Poland.  But that wasn't always true.

From 1846 until the end of WW I, Chrzanow and the rest of Galicia was part of Austria-Hungary, under the rule of the Habsburg Monarchy, most notably under Emperor Franz Joseph, who was (relatively) good to the Jews, and hence, well-liked.  Beuthen and Gleiwitz were in Germany, in an area known as Upper Silesia.

After WW I, the Habsburg Monarchy was disbanded.  A new Polish Republic was formed which included chunks of Germany and most of Galicia, including Chrzanow. There was a dispute, however, between the Allies about what should happen to the area of Upper Silesia that included Beuthen and Gleiwitz and Katowice.  While most of the surrounding area was rural and poor, the triangle formed by these three cities was an industrial and mining center.  France, wanting to dismember Germany, wanted this area to go to Poland.  England wanted the area to be left in Germany.  Ethnically the area was mixed, with large numbers of both Poles and Germans.  As a result, the Treaty of Versailles required a plebiscite, which was held in 1921.  The plebiscite was marked by uprisings on the part of both the Poles and the Germans and with mixed voting results -- Beuthen voted heavily for joining Germany, Katowice and the countryside for staying with Poland.  The issue was turned over to the League of Nations, which drew new boundaries.  Beuthen and Gleiwitz became part of Germany, Katowice stayed with Poland, and the whole area became an economic zone with some rules for protecting minority rights and resolving disputes.

As you might have surmised from this account, these towns were not Fiddler-on-the-Roof type shtetls.  Here is a postcard that was in with my grandmother Rose's papers of the synagogue in Kattowitz (Katowice):

And here's a picture from Wikipedia of the synagogue in Beuthen, built in 1869 and burned down on Kristallnacht (November 7, 1938).

Both of these cities had more than 60,000 people.  It's estimated that the Jewish population of Beuthen in the inter-war period was about 5000, according to a former resident (this is from Wikipedia), who thought that about 4000 of that number left the city (as our whole family did) between 1933 and 1939.  During the war, Beuthen's Jews, numbering around 1300 became the first Holocaust transport to be gassed at Auschwitz-Birkenau.  I don't think any of our family was part of that transport -- Charlie's family had moved to Prague, where they thought they would be safer, I believe Erna's family had moved back to Chrzanow.  Daddy and his brothers Sam and Henry had emigrated to the United States, and Gina had gone to Palestine.  Charlie did witness Kristallnacht in Beuthen, however, and wrote about it in his remembrance of the Holocaust.

Chrzanow, in contrast, was smaller and less industrialized, but it was still a real town and not a village.  Before WW II, Chrzanow had a population of about 20,000, about evenly divided between Poles and Jews. It had been that way for a long time -- a Wikipedia article has the Jewish population (2069) in 1838 slightly exceeding the Catholic population (2009).  Jews owned some of the major houses around the market square and the main street, Aleja Henryka, was a "Jewish street."  (Regina Rappaport's family owned an apartment building on or near that street.)  

Ed and I went to visit Chrzanow in 1998, while I was on a business trip to Warsaw.  Through Regina Rappaport's lawyer, we had arranged a guide, a 21 year old college student from Katowice named Dagmara, who taught English at a Berlitz-type school in Chrzanow.  She and her "driver" (her father) picked us up at our hotel in Krakow, took us to Chrzanow and then to Auschwitz.  I didn't know what to expect of Chrzanow and was surprised by what a pleasant, substantial town it was. I tried to find Daddy's address and apartment, but couldn't because I didn't know the address, and because they didn't own the building there weren't any records at town hall.  In case anyone else gets to go, I know the address now -- it's Krakowska 23B.  The creepy part -- and it really was creepy, was that the only trace of the vibrant Jewish community are a couple of rooms in the small Chrzanow museum.  We also visited the Jewish cemetery, which is just outside town, and under lock and key.  It is in a state of disrepair, but isn't vandalized at all.  Somewhere I have some pictures, which capture the cemetery well, but not the town, but at the moment I can't find them..... 

One final interesting footnote to all this history:  it was an attack on the radio station in Gleiwitz on August 31, 1939, staged by the German secret police, which served as a pretext for Nazi Germany to invade Poland, marking the start of WW II.

There are two additional resources about Chrzanow and the war.  There's a book called Chrzanow: The Life and Destruction of a Jewish Shtetl that is available in its entirety online on one of the Jewish genealogy sites.  No one in our family except Max (Markus) Schorr is mentioned in that book, but it provides some history of the town before and during the war.  And there is a well-written memoir, The End of Days: A Memoir of the Holocaust," by Helen Sendyk that describes her family's experiences in Chrzanow during the war.  It is out of print but there are used copies available online, and I have a copy if anyone would like to borrow it.  Her family seems to be much more religious than I think our family was.  Chrzanow seemed to have supported a wide range of belief, from a large Chasidic community to more traditional observant Jews, free-thinkers and Socialists and Zionists.



The Ancestors

The story, as I remember it, was that Mom bought "the ancestors" at an antique store on 2nd Avenue, for $25.  They hung above the fireplace in the house in Bayside for many years.  They seem like nice people and we all became very fond of them.  When the Bayside house was sold they moved to Mom's apartment in Florida, and now preside at Chet and Debbie's house, back in Manhattan.  We don't know much about their provenance, and nothing about the people, though Mom thought the portraits came from Vienna.

Our actual ancestors were a little less posh (or perhaps they just never had their portraits painted).

These are my grandparents on my father's side, Chaim Hirsch Hochbaum and Feigel Laufer Hochbaum. I was named for my grandmother.  Charlie, Chet, and Charles Hochbaum I believe were all named for my grandfather. (Chuck, on the other hand, was named after my mother's father, Hyman Brauner.)

They were born in 1876 and 1880, respectively, in Chrzanow and, according to my father, both died in Chrzanow in 1928. 

We don't know a lot about these grandparents.  Everything I do know came from Gina.  I have an undated, somewhat illegible set of handwritten notes that I took after questioning Gina about her history one day.  Between Gina's recollections and my handwriting, these should all be taken with a large grain of salt, but I'll get them into this blog one of these days.

And below are my mother's grandparents:  Zanvel or Samvel Schorr and his (second) wife, Miriam Leah Hochbaum.  He lived from 1848-1914.  She lived from 1868-1916.  She married him after his first wife died, leaving two daughters, the younger about 3 months old.  My guess is that Aunt Margie (Margaret Lydia), who was born the year after Miriam Leah died, was named for her. 

My parents were, much to Lexi's continuing dismay, first cousins once removed, by a step-sister/step-brother relationship.  Here is the connection:  Miriam Leah Hochbaum, Mom's grandmother, and Chaim Hirsch Hochbaum, Daddy's father, had the same father, Moshe Lieb Hochbaum, but different mothers.  Yes, you do need a family tree to sort this all out.

And just to finish off this post, my mother's cousin Sally Crown sent her this photocopy of Zanvel's passport.