Monday, November 19, 2018

Visiting the Strausbergs in France

This past August I visited my newly discovered cousins in France. Liliane Strausberg invited me for holiday with her and her daughter Catherine, in a small port town near Nantes (Pornic) France. It was a vacation and also a genealogical mission.    

I brought the FamilyTree DNA kit for Catherine to take... to help her track down her dad's half-sibling. Back in March 2015 I had relayed the story my mom told me about Catherine's paternal grandma, Jeanette Karetchsky Sztrausberg.  Jeanette came to France from England when she was unwed and pregnant.  My dad's parents helped Jeanette put the baby up for adoption in Paris & kept it a secret. I am hoping that the DNA results from Catherine's sample could connect us to this lost child's family, who may not be aware of their Jewish heritage.  

Lilianne's Story:
I videotaped Lilianne sharing testimony from her childhood during the Holocaust.  Her father had been taken by the French police and never returned, leaving Lilianne as a toddler,  alone with her mother in Paris. One day the French police came for them. "Madame you must come with us". Lilianne's mom Sonia Linderman Konkowksi told them "I need more time, I will give you all my money". They took the money and warned that they would return. Sonia took little Liliane to hide in the cellar for the whole day. At night Sonia ventured back to the apartment to get some food. She overheard voices in her apartment, speaking Flemish. Her Uncle Menachem Konkowski, her mothers brother, had sent them to smuggle Liliane and her mom out of France, to safety in Belgium.  Liliane survived the Shoah in Belgium in hiding with her three cousins: Henriette 7, Rene 5, Claudine 3.

Lilianne knew my parents and my Aunt Claire. She retold the terrifying ordeal my Aunt shared of getting stuck under a train during her clandestine escape across the border at the Vierzon train station in 1942.  The train began to roll as my Aunt was left frozen in place lying between the rails and train wheels.

Lilianne also shared her concern that her granddaughter Justine was disconnected from her Jewish heritage.  Justine did not consider herself Jewish and was trying to hide it. I felt that if she knew her family's story, she would not be ashamed.  Her grandmother's uncle,  Menachem Konkowski was the hero of her family and also a nationally recognized hero of Belgium.  His brigade committed many acts of sabotage against the Nazis in Belgium.  He also saved many Jewish family members and children, including Liliane, with his factory as a front.  I showed Justine a Facebook post of the
commendation letter from President Eisenhower to Konkowski.  I also showed her the family tree. The Shoah and what happened to her family should not be a source of shame.

Lilianne and I also went to meet Simonne Nathalie Sebrenick.  I had connected with Nathalie late 2014.  It was quite amazing that I discovered Nathalie through Remy, her nephew. He followed me on Twitter. I don't know how he found me or why he followed me. I believe it to be beshert, fate.  I had been searching for family on my dad's side and they found me online; first Yael on JewishGen and then Remy. Remy was not even looking for me.

Nathalie lives in a medieval chateau in Huile, France, about 2 hours from Catherine, near Angers. For someone going through chemotherapy she looked amazing, young.  She loves classical music, her 3 dogs and her 3 horses.  Her dogs are named after classical music/ musicians: Amadeus the beagle, Fantasia the Labrador, Barcarole the Schnauzer. Since her husband Claude Chuteau died she lives in this big chateaux alone with her dogs.

Nathalie's Story:
She shared some old photos and heart-wrenching stories. The violin story stands out: Nathalie wanted to play the piano since she was 4 years old.  But her parents were against it, wanting her to focus on your schooling.  One day she told a teacher that she could not have a piano. The teacher suggested a smaller instrument. When Nathalie found a broken violin in her basement she showed her father to ask to play.  He was enraged.  It turned out the violin belonged to her young cousins Fanny & Lucienne Lerner, the sisters were music child prodigies. They were deported from Paris and sent to the gas chambers; The loss of those precious children and their musical gifts never shared with the world. The murder of these children were now more real and tragic.  I discovered their picture on the Serge Klarsfeld site

Saturday, June 9, 2018

Finding the Strausbergs – confirming cousins through chance conversations


In Sept., 2011, I connected with Diane Davison through JewishGen. We were both searching our Binsztok from Bedzin, Polish roots.  According to the Bedzin census there were four Binsztok families living there in 1939. Diane shared with me that her Great Grandma was Marja Bienstock Konkowski.  Most of her family settled in Brussels. She also had cousins in  Paris and Canada. Whatever she knew was based on conversations she had with her mom’s two cousins, daughters of Marja and Josek Zelman Konkowski: Lilianne in Paris and Renee in Canada.
 

We did not know how we connected. When I connected with Marilyn, I was able to confirm we were cousins with the Y-DNA test, because we shared the Bienstock surname through our fathers. My brother Claude matched Marilyn’s father with a distance of 0. That meant that Marilyn and I were related within 4 generations. With Diane the connection was on her mother’s side.

Diane and I shared and compared  old family photos.  I had a photo from 1920 of my dad’s Aunt Sheindle with her family.  On the back my dad wrote “all killed in the Holocaust”.  Diane was convinced that this was a photo of her great grandparents,  Josek and Marja (Bienstock) Konkowski. The older boy was her grandfather Menachem (Maurice), the younger boy her great uncle Adolphe, and the girl was her great aunt Sonya. Sonya’s daughter, Lilianne, was living in France. The resemblance was undeniable.

Diane posted a photo of her ancestor Josek Konkowski.  Again, he looked like Sheindle’s husband.  All photo clues pointed to my Sheindl Bienstock as a match with Diane’s Marja Bienstock Konkowski . In my 2nd vinatge photo, my ggma Screnca (ggpa Alexander’s wife) appears as a match to Marja’s mother: Hana Malka Szajndel Kownkowski.

Images compared on TwinsorNot.net website
My Screnca on left matches Diane's Malka on right

After more than a year of research, including Jewishgen,  Facebook and email discussions,  a chance conversation with my brother Claude in early January 2013 gave us the key to our connection.  Claude randomly mentioned that he visited cousin Adolf Konkowski in Montreal Canada in 1974.  Adolf had also visited us when we lived in Paterson.  As Diane relied on her older cousins for advice, I relied on my brother. Claude was 11 years older and had a good memory for details of family names and dates.

This solidified that we were related. Diane and I connected our family trees on MyHeritage. She had done extensive research on our tree, so connecting with her provided me with a goldmine of data.  By end of 2013 Diane was able to identify her connection with Marilyn, through CRARG, Czestochowa-Radomsko Area Research Group (www.crarg.org), Szczekociny records.   We still could not figure out how my grandpa David matched on the tree, because for some unknown reason, according to his immigration records, he was born in Poltava Ukraine while all the other Binstoks were born in Bedzin area.

It was 2 years later, 2/26/2015, that I had a conversation with Diane about her mom’s first cousin, Lilianne. Diane told me that Liliane remembered my Aunt Clara, my dad Jacques, and their father David!  Lilianne had met my family in 1970.  Lilianne told her my gpa David was first cousins with her mother Sonia, Diane’s Gpa Maurice, & his brother Adolfe! 

I dug deeper into Diane’s tree, and discovered that Liliane was a Stzrausberg!    I knew that surname well. That was the cousin my dad often spoke about.  I shared two pictures of Jean Strausberg from my dad’s photo album.  Lilianne confirmed that she was the woman in that photo with her husband Jean. Jean was the 15-yr-old boy who hid in Ceyroux with his father Max, from 1942 until liberation.

In my dad’s memoire, he writes ….  

CEYROUX Chapter:  My father’s cousin Jeannette, originally from London, was married to Max Strausberg, my father’s business partner, in the early 1930's.  In August 1942 they left Paris for Ceyroux with their 15 year old son Jean.  Unfortunately as they were crossing the demarcation line into the free zone, the Germans spotted them.  They ran as fast as they could.  Jean and his father made it, but Jeanette did not.  They caught her and she was never seen again.  It was a terrible thing.  Mr. Strausberg and his son found a room to rent in Ceyroux.  Later they received some work from Paris and were able to survive the rest of the war.  Occasionally Marie worked for Max as a seamstress.

When my niece Danielle visited Ceyroux to meet the farmers who rescued our family, she spoke with someone who remembered Max and Jean having dinner at the restaurant in Ceyroux.   

I posted & tagged the Strauzberg photos with Lilianne, and her daughters Val & Catherine on FaceBook.  After many interactions in email, online and by phone, I finally met Diane and her mother Claudine in-person in April 2015.  This August, 2018, I will be traveling to France to finally meet Lilianne and her daughter Catherine. 

Wednesday, February 7, 2018

Honoring My Family's Heroes of the Holocaust, Then and Now


Heroes who saved my family during Holocaust

  1. My dad, Jack Bienstock - It was his ego, so humiliated by having to wear the "Juif" star, he insisted on leaving Paris immediately, within days of the edict.   Timing was key, since the final solution -"la grande rafle - the big roundups", had begun June/ July 1942. My dad, left Paris just days before his 21st birthday on July 1, 1942. It was my dad who convinced the rest of the family to follow him to Ceyroux.  "Mon pere etait le hero de ma famille parce que c'etait lui qui dit les mots, l'address de Ceyroux."  Hear him tell his story on youtube.com/bevmargo.
  2. The cheminot from Vierzon - This hero lived and worked in Vierzon, one of the largest railroad stations, strategically located on the boundary between zones. He gave his life for the lives of desperate Jewish families. He smuggled my dad, my mom, my aunt, & countless others onto coal trains headed south to the Free zone, "la zone libre".  My dad did not know this hero's name & often referred to him as the "cheminot",  French for railroad worker. 
  3. French resistance fighter, Albert Mayne. He provided the house in Ceyroux Les Brisseau, where my parents and grandparents lived in hiding for two years. My dad did not know who owned the house he was renting. Mayne's daughter Bernadette, who I met at the Yad Vashem ceremony 12/4/2017, still lives there today.
  4. Parcelier and Simonnet families - farmers also members of the resistance.  Alice Meillassoux was a bicycle courier for the Maqui, the resistance of the woods. These families also provided an occupation on the farm and made Ceyroux-Les Brisseaux home for them for two years.
  5. Mayor Leon Daquet - provided my dad with a new Identity card to disguise his Jewish identity, changing his name from "Jacob Joseph" to Jacques and his occupation from printer to cultivateur, farmer.

Some heroes of today:

  • Nicki Haley - Ambassador to the UN - fights for Israel
  • Alan Dershowitz - speaks up against Anti-Israel hate groups
  • Ben Shapiro - outspoken journalist
  • Brigitte Gabriel - Lebanese author of "Because They Hate"
  • Ryan Bellerose- Native American who fights for the indigenous rights of the Jewish people to the land of Israel.