All saints day in Przemysl Jewish cemetery

thanks to John Hartman

Professor Mario Hübner Lehrer

 Dr. Pablo Santiago Hübner Varela, from Montevideo, Uruguay, is searching for information on his father Professor Mario Hübner Lehrer (1925-2008) who was born in Nizankowice, south east of Przemyśl just over the present-day Ukrainian border. He was descended from a long line of rabbis and scholars and after immigrating to Uruguay with is parents he went to university became a noted scientist. Pictured below, he converted to Catholicism in 1950.

If you have any information on his family  you can email him at hublan(at)netgate[dot]com[dot]uy

Pablo writes:

My father was Jew, my mother Spaniard. He born zadik Kohen, family of Rabbis, chief of Jewish communities, Town Hall Council etc. For me is important all about Lehrer Family, Hübner family, Nizankowice, Nyzhankovychi specially where born my father. Also Dobromyl an Bircza where HÜbner comes from and Lwow,Lviv, Lemberg. Also Lublin and Krakow.

Grandfather ABRAM JAKOB LEHRER

Great-grandfather Abram Jakob Lehrer with friends walking in Nizankowice

Mania Lehrer Ganz in Przemysl

Abram Jakob Lehrer at Yeshiva Jajma Lublin,1930 near him is his son, the future Rabbi Efraim Lehrer Ganz

My father Mario, Majer, besides him Naftali Hübner his father, Chaja Hinda or Hela Lehrer Ganz, Hübner by marriage and the eldest people, Abram Jakob Lehrer and his wife Leah Ganz (really Lehrer by marriage and birth.

The new Gesher Galicia web site...

... is awesome!

If you have any interest in Przemysl, nearby towns, maps, data sources, researchers, stories, everything --in one place--you just have to become a member of Gesher Galicia. Trust me, it is the best $25 you will ever spend looking for your roots.

Is Herman Kosterbaum David Rosenberg?

From an email from Susan:

I am trying to find any information on Herman Kostenbaum. I have a birth certificate that shows that he was born 27 June, 1886 and I also have papers that show he served in the military.

The thing is that my grandfather's name was David Rosenberg. His birth date is the same as Kostenbaum. I know that my grandfather's mother (given name Marem) was married several times. We think Kostenbaum was one of her husbands and that possibly my grandfather changed his name before coming to America. I pulled up the Jewish Records Indexing from Poland on Jewishgen.org and it does show a Herman Kostenbaum born to Marem ( which is the correct name of his mother) but does not list father's name. My grandfather had two sisters and a brother but again not sure which last name.

Anyone with information please email me and I will forward to Susan.

Please Help Preserve The Przemysl Cemetery

The long Polish winter is almost over and soon Mr. Joachim Glettner will begin the annual spring maintenance of the Jewish Cemetery in Przemysl, Poland. Mr. Glettner is one of the last remaining acknowledged Jews in Przemysl and for the last 15 years he has partnered with the Remembrance and Reconciliation Foundation to restore and maintain the cemetery.

While the Foundation covers material costs: mostly stone, concrete, and equipment rental, Mr Glettner does masonry work for the site without any compensation. Just keeping up with storm damage and erosion now runs over $5,000 per year and as we continue to gain access to more and more sections of this large cemetery, those costs will increase considerably.

On top of routine maintenance, this year Remembrance and Reconciliation will partner with Daemen College of Buffalo, New York and the East European State College of Przemysl in a project involving the Jewish Cemetery. Students from both colleges will work this summer to map each gravestone in the cemetery as to name, pertinent information, and location. We have had the names of most people in the cemetery but not locations so it has been difficult for relatives to locate their relatives’ graves. Modern technology will allow us to access names and locations of each individual grave site on computer or other electronic device. This should prove to be an exciting and quite unique contribution to preserving the Jewish heritage in Eastern Europe.

Please help us again this year with a generous donation to fund our yearly maintenance as well as the new mapping initiative. US tax-deductible donations may be sent to: 

Remembrance and Reconciliation, Inc. 

300 S. Hyde Parke Avenue, Suite 150 Tampa, FL 33606 USA

Or by PayPal at: http://www.remembrance-reconciliation.org/contribute.html 

Thank you for helping to preserve the cemetery, one of the few remaining Jewish treasures in Przemysl, Poland.

Warm regards,


John Hartman, President
David Semmel, Treasurer
Remembrance and Reconciliation, Inc.

Precious (metal) Przemysl

Dear Blog-friend Marla's ancestors were goldsmiths in Przemysl. Below, she researches:

My RAUCHER family came from Przmeysl, Poland, today at the Ukraine border. My great-grandfather Selig and his son Marcus were goldsmiths in that town. They emigrated to NY in 1891 and 1897, respectively, where they continued this occupation. Marcus' son, David (my grandfather) later also went into this line of work. Logan advises me that you had an ancestor who was a famous goldsmith from Lwow, and that you are something of an expert on Galician Jewish goldsmiths' marks. I am wondering if perhaps you have some info or leads that might be of interest to me for my Przemysl ancestors Selig and Marcus RAUCHER/RAUSCHER?

Mastermarks...?

How nice of Logan to call me an expert. I have done lots of research in this area, hoping to find more of Baruch Dornhelm's (From Lemberg) works with some success. One problem is that many Polish -Ukranian Jewish goldsmiths did not sign much of their work. I can give you a list of some key books to look at and I will look myself. I never found our relatives master mark in a book. I did find his brother's in Vienna but maybe you will be more successful. Fortunately, the family has his tools, including his mark. Do you have the mastermark they used in New York? It could be the same. Did they work for themselves? The best resource is probably in the Polish/Ukrainian Town Archives of business records. Contacting the archive is one resource I have not done as yet so I am guessing. There was an assay office in every town. Pieces that are marked have the town mark, year and metal quality marks and sometimes the maker mark. Let me know what questions you have. I will send you some book titles/ internet sites. They are in various languages. Looking forward to hearing from you, Marilyn P.S. I have a great grandmother Penner/Panner from Przemysl area.

Brief dead-end...

I am afraid I have no information on the "mastermark" my RAUCHERs may have used, either in NY or in Przemysl. Nor do I know if they worked for themselves or for others, in either location. I have personal experience in the Przemysl archive and also with a professional researcher and friend who lives in Lviv who has done quite a bit of work in that archive as well. Perhaps I can pursue this avenue, as you have kindly suggested. In the meantime, if you can please send book and internet references my way, I would be most appreciative.

The mark of Przemysl...

I found the story of your discovery of your grandfather fascinating. Now I understand your search better. Having been away this last year or so from my research, I will have to review what I have. The timing is perfect since I have planned to start the process to do something productive with this research. There are many books on Jewish Art, which includes silversmiths but one stands out because its focus is Galicia and the vicinity. "SILVER: Masterpieces of Jewish Art" by A.Kantsedikas I am assuming that your gggrandfather made Jewish items as well as secular and other. Also, if you can get all the marriage records of your gggrandfather in Przmysl, you might find information about his apprenticeship signed by the master and required for the marriage. The mark for the Przmysl assay office was F1, in a rectangle, for the years 1866-1922. This would be in addition to other marks, the mastermark and the fineness mark. Their are lists of mastermarks online. I hope this is useful. I have to dig a little deeper for the references for mastermark sources. Best Regards, Marilyn

Family Rosenberg

Over the transom comes an email from Tanya looking for more information on her Przemysl family:

My great grandfather was Max Rosenberg 1860-1934 maybe born in Sambor. He was a glass and ceramics manufacturer in Przemysl.

His parents were Dawid and Perla. Dawid was a doctor; I'm not certain where. It could perhaps have been Przemysl, Sambor or Chyrow/Stare Miasto. Dawid's father was Mordechai Rosenberg, 1819-1878. Mordechai's father was Sjyje who was married to Blime. Max's first wife was Bronia (nee Sperling).

They had two sons, Ignacy (1888-1976) who was a doctor and Josef (1894 or 5 - 1966). Josef was in the business manufacturing (I think) large kitchen supplies and he lived in Vienna until the war and then he and his wife (Hilda Roth) and son (my father) came to NYC. Max's second wife was Ida Graff.

They had one son, Edward Czerny (Graff) born in Przemysl, 1912. He lived in Varsovie Poland and married Mila Czerny. They had one son, Adam and a daughter, doctor Kristina.

Any information on any of these people would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks, Tanya

Marla's pictures from Przemysl

Blog friend Marla was in Przemysl last year and took some wonderful shots.  See them all.

Looking for family Licht

By email:

Hi, I am looking for any records concerning Sara and Moses Licht form Przemysl. As I know they were living on Slowackiego street. They where my grandmothers grandparents. can you help me? regards, Magda

I know that they lived at Dworskiego 48 in 1910 before moving to Słowackiego 96. Anyone know this name?

ul. Dworskiego back in the day.

Gerda's Story: Family Krebs

Hello David and thank you very much for your kind note.

Yes, Pesach Krebs was my grandfather, though I never knew him. My father took over the store on  Franciszkanska No: 8 after my grandfather died. My other grandfather David Goliger (my mother's father) owned a large lumber yard and wood processing plant right on the river San.  We lived on ulica Pilsudskiego 27 in a house owned by my mother, which faced the lumber yard.

In October 1939 Russians occupied eastern Poland & our river San became the border between Germany & Russia at that point. The communists took all our personal  possessions since they considered my father an enemy of the State.

In the spring of 1940 we moved to Lwow, trying to avoid being sent to Siberia. (In retrospect, we may all have survived if we had gone to Russia)

We spent the rest of the war in Lwow, but unfortunately I was the only survivor. Out of 40 close relatives only one other cousin & I survived the Holocaust. His name was Zygmund  Schwarzer & he lived in Jaroslaw before the war. His mother Zofia was my mother's older sister & his father Wilhelm, was a physician.

When the war began, they joined us in Premysl  & later entered the Ghetto.  The parents were both shot, while hiding in the cemetery, while Zygmund was sent  to Auschwitz. During one of the worst & longest Actions (round-ups) in the Lwow Ghetto, I was sent into hiding, outside the ghetto and spent 6 weeks in a cellar of a Polish woman who was willing to hide me for a price.  My young cousin Richard about 11 years old, lived with us. His mother  Helena (my mother's youngest sister) was taken out of a bread line several months earlier & never returned. Her husband Henryk Leibel (they lived in Bielsko   & he practiced law) was sent to Russia with his aged parents where he survived. Richard lived with us & my father sent him into hiding as he did me. Unfortunately, Richard was afraid to stay in his hiding place & returned to the  Ghetto.

My mother could hide alone, but since he'd be left alone, she opted to stay with him. My father worked in a textile factory & was considered  a useful Jew with a good Ausweiss so he was "safe".  My dearest mother and Richard were taken to Janowska Street camp & from there they were sent to Belzec. My father desperately tried to save me & found a Polish woman, who was willing  to take me in as her illegitimate daughter( who in fact died in infancy, but had she lived, she'd have been my age)

I spent the rest of the war living with her as her daughter & her slave. Though my father paid her generously, I performed all the house work, cooking, took care of her baby son, (also illegitimate). Actually, she needed me as much as I needed her, but despite the fact that she was very mean & treated me badly, she did save my life.

My father planned to go to Germany on false papers, since he spoke fluid German & did not look Semitic.  I hoped to see him when the war ended, but fate took a different turn. My father was recognized on the street in Lwow by some Polish anti-Semite & pointed him to the police. I don't know how or where he died, but he died because he was trying to help other Jews. THAT MUCH I KNOW.

When finally I was able to tear myself from her clutches in January of 1946, I went to Katowice to stay with a friend of my parents, who wanted to adopt me. I was too old for adoption but I was grateful for her rescuing me from the Polish woman.  Soon after I was able to go to England  with a transport ow Jewish war orphans, led by Rabbi Solomon Schonfeld.

We arrived on a Swedish ship in March 1946 and I began a new life. After learning enough English, I entered Nurses Training at St. James' Hospital and graduated in 1950 as an RN. By then, my cousin Zygmund lived in the US in Brooklyn & was able to obtain a visa for me. I arrived on August 11-th 1951 to New York & started my third stage of my life in America, a country I dreamed about since my early childhood and never believed, that I would ever be able to live here.

Each move and each change  presented many problems & difficulties, but nothing was impossible. I was young, full of hope & energy and I was always full optimism. I met my future husband Harold Seifer at Mt. Sinai Hospital in New York and we've been married 56 years. We have resided in Long Beach since 1956, have 3 children and 4 grandchildren. We are a very close knit family and our children all  live in the Los Angeles area.

Well David, this is quite a long story, though I did not mean it to be so long.

SINCERELY,  GERDA.

read more about Gerda in the JPost

I've been a poor correspondent

Seems the blog has been off line for some time. No more. The Przemysl Blog is back!

A father without a face - family Pritsch

To find the missing is hard; to find a photo is next to impossible. Nevertheless, I fully understand why the emailer, below, must try. Anyone have any leads that might help this family?

Dear Mr Semmel,

My name is Richard Sherman. For the past several years, my sister and I have been attempting to locate any information, but ESPECIALLY a picture, of our Polish grandfather, Josef Pritsch.

Our mother, Irene Sherman (originally born Ruth Pritsch), has never seen a picture of her father; she only has descriptions from her mother and uncle. We believe Josef Pritsch was executed by the Nazis in Poland in approximately 1943, possibly in Auschwitz, and possibly by hanging instead of the gas chambers.

The reason I am writing to you (I got your e-mail from the Jewish Przemysl Blog site) is that we are desperate and all of our family's efforts to date have not been successful. Based on family stories, we have strong reason to believe that, at some point prior to the German invasion of Poland, our grandfather temporarily went to Palestine, but returned to Poland when our grandmother refused to leave. So he came back.

Our presumption is that, if the story is true, he must have received some kind of travel documents, possibly a passport. I have been unsuccessful in attempting to confirm this however. Another website had a list of surnames, but his was not listed. The instructions stated that it wasn't an exhaustive list, and several other factors may account for missing names. Attempted contact with the person who I thought ran the website, a "JR Baston" did not get a reply.

Information I can provide about my grandfather in addition to his name is: He was born and lived in the town of Przemysl for most of his life. I believe he was born in 1910. His parents' first names may have been Mordechai and Tauba. He was married to Klara Kurzweil, who was also his cousin. Klara's family may have operated some kind of import/export business before the war. He was a college student (possibly in Austria?) before the war.

We believe he went to Palestine at some point, possibly in the 1930's. His daughter, Ruth Pritsch (my Mom), was born on June 6, 1938. We believe he was executed by hanging by the Nazis, likely in 1943, possibly in Auschwitz.

I have filed records requests with other organizations through the US Holocaust Museum and received some responses, but no information more than what we already have. My sister and I have also attempted contact and sought help from both the Polish Embassy (which was no help), and some more distant relatives that settled in France and in Israel. (who also didn't have any information or pictures we could positively identify as him. This was hampered more because the relative in France we found was blind, didn't speak English [we had to use an interpreter], and was still angry at my grandmother's side of the family for her not going with grandfather to Palestine when they had the chance.)

Since the website listed your contact info regarding your book, I thought you might have some help or advice for us as to how we might find any photographic evidence of our grandfather.

It would be the greatest gift I could give my mother if I could allow her to see the face of the father she is too young to remember. If you can, please help us. I eagerly await your reply.

Richard can be reached at: rsherman1 (the "@" sign) yahoo.com