JRI-Poland Discovers New Information on Rutka Laskier's Family History

[Mark Halpern mark@halpern.com]

X-No-archive: yes
On what would have been the 89th Birthday of Rutka Laskier - June 12,
2018

An Announcement by Jewish Records Poland-Indexing, Inc. and The
Bedzin-Sosnowiec-Zawiercie Area Research Society

About Newly Discovered Information on Rutka Laskier's Family History

Rutka Laskier was a 13 year old Jewish girl when she kept a diary
chronicling the three months of her life in Bedzin, Poland, while under
Nazi German occupation -- from January 19, 1943 to April 24, 1943. Her
dairy was published for first time in 2006, drawing comparisons to the
diary of Anne Frank instantly. In fact, Anne Frank was born on the very
same day and year as Rutka Laskier - June 12, 1929. Rutka's diary has
since been released in numerous translations.

The Diary:

The diary begins on January 19, 1943, with the entry "I cannot grasp
that it is already 1943, four years since this hell began." One month
later, on February 20, 1943, she writes: "I have a feeling that I am
writing for the last time. There is an Aktion in town. I'm not allowed
to go out and I'm going crazy, imprisoned in my own house... For a few
days, something's in the air... The town is breathlessly waiting in
anticipation, and this anticipation is the worst of all. I wish it would
end already! This torment; this is hell. I try to escape from these
thoughts, of the next day, but they keep haunting me like nagging
flies..."

Rutka's Origins?

Ever since her diary was published, biographers and historians have
stated that Rutka Laskier was born in Danzig now Gdansk, a Baltic port
city in northern Poland. However, experienced genealogists know that
errors often occur in documenting Polish-Jewish family history - both in
the reading of records or false assumptions where records are not
available. Since the Gdansk birth records do not reveal an entry for
Rutka's birth, some have raised a question as to the validity of the
assumption that she was born there.

This led Stanley Diamond, the Executive Director of Jewish Records
Indexing-Poland (www.jri-poland.org) (JRI-Poland) and Jeffrey Cymbler,
JRI-Poland's Bedzin Town Leader and Founder of the
Bedzin-Sosnowiec-Zawiercie Area Research Society (BSZARS), to ponder the
assumptions concerning Rutka Laskier's place of birth and look for
answers.

Holocaust survivors and their families, as well as pre-war Jewish
immigrants from Poland and their descendants, may be unaware that a
remarkable number of Jewish records of Poland have survived the
upheavals of history and the ravages of war. JRI-Poland has created
indices/extractions to more than 5 million Jewish birth, marriage and
death records from more than 550 towns in current and former territories
of Poland. In addition to vital records, the JRI-Poland online database
includes other types of records such as Books of Residents, censuses,
army draft lists, school records, cemetery burials, Polish passports,
ghetto death records, birth, marriage and death announcements in Polish
newspapers and post-war court and legal announcements in official
newspapers. The data varies widely by town or region. JRI-Poland's
records for the Bedzin area are among the richest of its holdings.

Jeff Cymbler decided to renew the research of Rutka Laskier's origins.
JRI-Poland and BSZARS are now pleased to announce the results of their
findings.

Rutka's Actual Birthdate and Birthplace:

Recently, one of JRI-Poland's expert researchers in Poland, Jakub
Czuprynski, located the Books of Residents for Bedzin in the Katowice
Branch of the Polish State Archives. These huge books span the mid-19th
century to 1931 and are over 10,000 pages. The Books of Residents are a
treasure chest of information for family historians.

In these books, Jacob found the page with the Laskier family on page
9768. Here was the surprise. The Book of Residents revealed that Rutka
was not born in Gdansk. But according to the 1929 entry in the book,
Rutka was born in Krakow!

Determined to locate Rutka's actual birth record, with the permission of
Rutka's half-sister, Jakub was asked to search the Krakow city registry
for Rutka's actual birth certificate. Jakub found Rutka's birth record
in Krakow. The birth record states that Rutka was born on June 12, 1929.
From the birth record we learned that Rutka's mother's maiden name was
Hampel. It also states that Rutka was given her name by her parents in
the Bedzin synagogue, two days later, on June 14, 1929.

Jewish girls are traditionally given their names in the synagogue on the
Sabbath when the Torah is read. However, Rutka received her name on a
Friday when the torah is usually not read in the synagogue. However, it
was quickly determined that Friday June 14, 1929 was a Jewish holiday.
It was Shavuot -- the Pentecost - when according to Jewish tradition,
Moses received the ten commandments on Mt. Sinai. Research into Rutka's
family tree did not reveal any ancestors of Rutka who bore the name
Rutka. Therefore, Rutka's sister, Zahava, is convinced that Rutka was
given the name Rut (Ruth) because she was named on Shavuot - the holiday
when Jews traditionally read the Book of Ruth in addition to the torah
in the synagogue.

Rutka's Family's Address and Business:

Research into the "1938 Directory of Manufacturers of Poland" and the
1939 Telephone Book for Bedzin located the grocery merchant firm of "A.
Hampel & N. Goldsobel" as having been incorporated in 1916. Jakob
Laskier was one of the members of the board of directors. Another was
Abram Chil Hampel, Rutka's maternal grandfather. Among the products that
the company dealt in were rice, sugar, sardines and other food products.
The company also had branches in the neighboring towns of Sosnowiec and
Dabrowa Gornicza. The phone number was 71058.

The 1939 census of the Jews in Bedzin - renamed Bendsburg by the Germans
- was found in the Jewish Historical Institute in Warsaw. In it, the
entry for Rutka and her family appears on page 283. The census record
lists Ruth (born on June 12, 1929), her father, Jakob (born on August 7,
1900), mother Dwojra (Deborah) (born September 13, 1904) and her little
brother, Joachim, nicknamed Henius (born August 3, 1937). The family
lived in an apartment in the center of Bedzin on 4 Sw. Jana Street which
is now called Moniuszki Street.

Rutka's Grandfather's Grave:

In early 1940, Rutka's grandfather, David Laskier, died in Bedzin. In
his book on the Bedzin cemetery, "The Cemetery of the Jewish Communities
of Bedzin and Czeladz Poland," Jeff documented each of the over 3000
tombstones in the cemetery. The database and photos of each of the
tombstones are researchable on JRI-Poland's website. Jeff located the
tombstone in the cemetery which was erected after the war to remember
Rutka's grandfather, David Laskier, and the other family members who met
their "tragic deaths" during the Nazi German occupation.

From January 19 to April 24, 1943, Rutka kept a diary in an ordinary
school notebook. In it, she discussed atrocities she witnessed committed
by the Nazis, and described daily life in Bedzin.

Laskier Family Deportation to Auschwitz:

In April 1943, Rutka and her family were sent to the ghetto in the
Kamionka district of Bedzin. On August 5, 1943, Rutka and her family
were deported with her family to Auschwitz-Birkenau where she met her
death in a gas chamber. Her father, Jakob became prisoner 135519. Jakob
was later sent to Sachsennhausen Concentration Camp. Rutka's Auschwitz
number was probably somewhere between 52572 to 53820.

Although Rutka's uncles, Israel and Fiszel Laskier, and a cousin Michal
Laskier, had South American passports ordered for them by Polish
diplomats in Bern, Switzerland, in cooperation with Jewish organizations
in Bern and Lausanne, they did not survive. Jeff and BSZARS are
currently working with the Polish Ambassador in Bern, Switzerland, and
the Honorary Polish Consul in Zurich to fully document the story of
hundreds of Bedzin area Jews who were assisted by the Polish diplomats
during the Holocaust in attempts to obtain false South American
passports.

Revelation of the Diary:

In 1943, while writing the diary, Rutka shared it with Stanislawa
Sapinska, a then 21-year-old Polish woman, who Rutka had befriended.
Rutka gradually came to realize she would not survive, and, realizing
the importance of her diary as a document of what had happened to the
Jewish population of Bedzin, asked Sapinska to help her hide the diary.

After the ghetto was evacuated and all its inhabitants sent to the death
camp, Sapinska returned to the house and retrieved the diary. She kept
it in her home library for 63 years and did not share it with anyone but
members of her immediate family. In 2005, Sapinska told Adam Szydlowksi,
an historian in Bedzin, about the dairy. Recognizing the importance of
the diary to Holocaust memory, Adam arranged to have the diary
published.

Rutka's Half-Sister, Zahava, Is Honored

Rutka's father, Jacob, was the only member of the Laskier family to
survive. Eventually he emigrated to Palestine, remarried and had another
daughter, Zahava, named after Jabob's mother, Golda.

Recently, JRI-Poland and BSZARS hosted an event in NY, at which time,
Stanley Diamond and Jeff Cymbler had the honor to present Zhava with
this new historical information that they uncovered in connection with
Rutka.

Rutka's Final Words:

One of Rutka's final entries says "If only I could say, it's over, you
die only once... But I can't, because despite all these atrocities, I
want to live, and wait for the following day."

Happy Birthday Rutka - Your words live on and your memory is not
forgotten!

For those of you on Facebook, see Jeffrey Cymbler's posting at
https://www.facebook.com/1377812561/posts/10212320602955027/. Through
this Facebook posting, Jeffrey is raising money for JRI-Poland. If you
are not on Facebook, you can contribute to JRI-Poland at
http://www.jri-poland.org/support.htm

Mark Halpern on behalf of the Board of JRI-Poland and Board members
Jeffrey Cymbler and Stanley Diamond
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