Treasure trove of photos

Tomek Wisniewski's web site bagnowka.com contains the largest gallery of pre-war photos of Poland, images of Jewish cemeteries, and old maps of hundreds of cities and shtetls. In addition, there are photos documenting the old wooden architecture of Poland, extensive holocaust pictures, and even photos of pre-war mosques in Poland.

In all, there are over 40 000 images, each sorted alphabetically by town. It is quite a valuable resource; quite a treasure trove.

Below is a street scene, one of 37 pictures of Przemysl on his site.

[Photo copyright bagnowka.com]

Tomek Wisniewski

Gal from Israel wanted me to be sure and credit Tomek Wisniewski for locating the old map of Przemysl, published in a prior post. But there is much more to Tomek than just one map...

Tomek Wisniewski is a journalist, historian and writer. He is the author of three books (ie: "Jewish Bialystok and surroundings") and has written over one hundred articles (ie: "A Lost World… for sale") about Jewish culture, history, and social life, especially in the Bialystok region. He publishes articles regularly in Polish Jewish magazine "Jidishe Wort".

Born in 1958, he graduated from Warsaw University in 1984 and spent nine months in prison during war time in Poland. He has amassed a fabulous collection of old photographs and postal cards, using them to illuminate holocaust education projects and exhibitions like this one at the University of Southern California and this one at Szukamy Polski.

Tomasz has recently left the journalism business and is now devoting his full time to his real loves: tour guiding, photography and other genealogy-related pursuits. Contact him directly for more particulars about his various services. Tomy, as he is known to his genealogy friends, concentrates primarily in the Bialystok/Lomza/Suwalki area, but can easily assist people in any part of Poland and is willing to discuss his abilities to take extended trips to Lithuania and Belarus.

He can be reached via e-mail at: bagnowka (at) yahoo.pl (replace (at) by @ - to avoid spam)

Anyone know anything about family HANFLING?

This came in over my (electronic) transom today:

I am looking for information about my father's family.

Yosef Hanfling (left in the photo) was born in Przemysl on 16/05/1915 and died in 1989. The oldest of five sons, he came to ISRAEL in 1938 and lived in kibbutz Hamaapil.

He is the only one from his family that we know survived the shoah.

His father's name was DAN and his mother was PEARL. They may have lived at 41 SLOWACKIEGO street.

Email: Alex Hanfling

(email edited by DRS)

Counterfeiters

I was tipped off by an anonymous commenter to the existence of a counterfeit URL for the important Shoah site Deathcamps.org hosted by the ARC.

The more correct link to Mr Biedka's article on Przemysl wold be found at:

http://www.deathcamps.org/occupation/przemysl%20ghetto.html

Note the removal of the Hyphen in the URL. The hyphenated version of the genuine ARC website is a counterfeit copy.

I highly doubt Mr. Biedka would so dishonor the memory of those who perished in Przemysl by linking to fraudulent websites and holocaust profiteers.

Here is my response:

I have changed the UR on my post Przemysl Ghetto... it is hard to understand why anyone would want to steal this material when it is being freely offered as a public service...

My advice? Drop the hyphen. Use the real site.

Old Map of Przemysl

[Click to enlarge]

This map dates from the 17th century. Small note: the object in the lower left hand corner of the city that is marked "28" is the Alte Synagogue, destroyed by Nazis c. 1943.

This map comes to me courtesy of Gal V in Israel. Gal is researching his wife's family roots in Przemysl, names: Adolf and Zalc/Salz. Their daughter will visit Przemysl with her school this fall.

Shana Tova U'metuka !

5768

We wish you all a good year

filled with sweetness, joy, success, good health, peace and lovely surprises!

שנה טובה ומתוקה Happy New year!

David & Jocelyn

[post card c.1915 Image courtesy of cousin Meliza Amity]