Wednesday, January 10, 2007

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Everyone is welcome to post comments by clicking the "xx comments" link at the bottom of each post. You can comment anonymously or with a Google user name. I will answer all serious comments and look forward to hearing from you! - - David

2 Comments:

Blogger janice Aviva said...

I was extremely excited to come across your site. I found it by chance having "googled' “Przemysl,” somehting I do fairly often. An entire branch of my family lived in Przemysl until World War 2 and then disappeared.

My grandfather, Isaak (Erich/Israel) Rothmann was born in Przemysl in @ 1898 and lived there until he was drafted into the ustro-Hungarian army in WW1. He joined the cavalry. According to the family, he was not supposed to be drafted. The call came to his older brother but this brother was indispensible to the family business. At that time the family ran the local "taxi' service - troikas (horse powered of course.)My grandfather took his brother's name and identity and fought on the Russian front. His regiment marched to the Radetsky march. My grandfather was captured twice by the Russians. On one occasion he pretended to be a dentist and spent some time pulling teeth.
After his second escape he had had enough. He threw his uniform in the river (the River San?) and fled to Leipzig, Germany (maybe he had family or family friends there). He worked for a man who made leather goods, married the boss’ daughter (Betty Rappaport) and eventually moved to Berlin where he continued in the family business.
My father, Hermann Rothmann, was born in 1924. He remembers visiting Przemysl. Galicia was definitely less advanced and less sophisticated than Berlin. As a boy, he felt as though he was going back in time when he visited. He arrived by train and a fleet of horsed drawn takis was waiting to take him to the family home (remember, the family were in the taxi business.) He Rothmann house was on Kapernikov Street and the house backed onto the river. My father remembers a boy cousin his own age called Koby. (Yaakov).
My grandparents and father were luck enough to survive the war. My father was sent to England on the kindertransport and my grandparents fled and ended up in Israel. None of the Przemysl branch appears to have survived. My cousin in Israel (son of my father’s younger brother) has some more information on the family in Przemysl – but if anyone has any information about the Rothmann family (either remembers them or if they appear on a branch of anyone’s family tree, I would love to be in touch)

J. A. Leberman

12:35 AM  
Blogger David said...

Janice... wow... great story. Thank you for sharing it.

Do you have any old photos? Please email me privatly - I'd like to post your family story.

David

10:10 AM  

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