The Fusgeyers, Part III: What Came Afterwards

Posted on April 29, 2014 by Amy

In my last two posts, I wrote about the vast emigration of Jews from Romania between the late nineteenth century and World War I in the face of widespread anti-Semitism and poverty. According to one source, almost thirty percent of Romanian Jews migrated to the United States or Canada between 1871 and 1914; many others migrated to what was then Palestine.[1] Wikipedia estimates that about 70,000 Jews emigrated from Romania, almost a quarter of the total Romanian Jewish population in that period.

Many of those who left were part of the Fusgeyer movement, groups who walked from their home towns across Romania to escape, often depending on donations raised by entertaining the crowds in towns throughout their route to freedom. My grandfather was one of these walkers, and so perhaps were his siblings, cousins and other family members, though I’ve not heard any other descendant report that their grandparent walked across Romania. According to Culiner, there are no statistics on how many people were a part of this movement or how long it lasted. Groups ranged in size from forty people to 300 people, and in 1903 about 200 to 300 Jews were leaving Romania each week, many on foot. (Culiner, p. 20).

Although Jacob Finkelstein’s report of the experiences of his 1900 Fusgeyer group painted a generally rosy picture of their trek, being welcomed and well-fed in most places they visited, other groups faced greater struggles. One observer reported that he saw groups where people were famished, in some cases starving, and living in horrible conditions. He wrote:

One has to imagine 300 people, men, women and children wandering through the cemetery [where they were then living] like famished wolves, burnt by the sun during the day, tormented by mosquitoes in the night, all three hundred of them with bare feet, sick, some moaning, others crying: fever-racked women who are incapable of feeding their young, the children pale and suffering.[2]

Is it any wonder that my grandfather never talked about his life in Romania, other than to mention the music and beautiful horses he remembered? I’ve asked many of my newly-found Rosenzweig and Goldschlager cousins if they knew anything about their ancestors’ lives in the “old country,” and the response I’ve heard over and over is that their grandparent never wanted to talk about those days, but wanted to focus on the present and the future. Given the conditions they endured both living in Romania and leaving it, why would they want to remember any of it?

Despite this large-scale emigration of Jews before World War I, there were close to 800,000 Jews remaining in Romania at the end of that war. (This large increase resulted from the addition of Bukovina, Transylvania, and Bessarabia to the territory controlled by Romania in accordance with the terms of the 1919 Paris Peace Conference after World War I.)

the death train from Iaşi (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

By the end of World War II, that community had been further decimated. Approximately 300,000 Jews were murdered in the Holocaust between 1941 and 1944 by the Romanian government, the largest number of people killed by any Nazi ally other than Germany itself. Nevertheless, unlike in many other countries in Europe, the majority of the Jews in Romania survived the war. Estimates vary, but approximately 300,000 Romanian Jews survived. Most, however, did not return to or remain very long in Romania. The Communist era resulted in further reduction of the Jewish population with many who had returned emigrating to Israel or the United States or elsewhere. Wikipedia includes this chart of the declining population of Jews in Romania:

Historical population
Year	Pop.	±%
1866	134,168	—
1887	300,000	+123.6%
1899	256,588	−14.5%
1930	728,115	+183.8%
1956	146,264	−79.9%
1966	42,888	−70.7%
1977	24,667	−42.5%
1992	8,955	−63.7%
2002	5,785	−35.4%
2011	3,271	−43.5%
Censuses in 1948, 1956, 1966, 1977, 1992, 2002 and 2011 covered Romania’s present-day territory Source: Demographic history of Romania

These facts are important in order to put into context my next post: what Romania is like today, as seen through Jill Culiner’s eyes in her book Finding Home and through Stuart Tower’s eyes as depicted in his photographs of Romania.

[1] Joseph Kissman, “The Immigration of Romanian Jews Up to 1914,” YIVO Annual of Jewish Social Science (New York 1947-1948), p. 165, as cited in Jill Culiner, Finding Home: In the Footsteps of the Jewish Fusgeyers (Sumach Press 2004), p. 19.

[2] Isaac Astruc, “Israelites de Roumanie,” p. 43, as translated by and quoted by Culiner, p. 23.

The Fusgeyers, Part II: How They Did It

Posted on April 28, 2014 by Amy

A Group of Fusgeyers from Iasi, c. 1900 http://epyc.yivo.org/content/photos/14_q_RM-RUMANI-4_lg.jpg

Yesterday’s post described some of the reasons that Jews like my grandfather and his relatives decided to leave Romania in the early years of the 20^th century: rampant anti-Semitism, poverty, violence, false accusations, and laws depriving Jews of access to education and to most means of earning a living as well as denying them the legal rights of citizens. Thousands of Jews left Romania between 1900 and 1910, many of them on foot, including my grandfather. In both The Wayfarers by Stuart Tower and Finding Home by Jill Culiner, there are vivid descriptions of how these people managed to accomplish the task of walking about 1500 miles to cross the border from their homes in eastern Romania to Hungary or Galicia, where many then caught trains that would eventually bring them to the ports where they could sail to the United States.

Both Tower and Culiner relied heavily on the unpublished manuscript written by Jacob Finkelstein around 1942, describing his personal experience as a member of the first group of Fusgeyers. Finkelstein’s memoir appears to be the most important primary source regarding the Fusgeyers, and Culiner begins most of her chapters with an excerpt from that manuscript. The first group of Fusgeyers walked out of Romania in 1900, traveling by foot from Barlad to Predeal and crossing into Hungary. As detailed in both Tower’s and Culiner’s books and as described by Finkelstein, that first group was an outgrowth of a club of young people in Barlad who put on theatrical works to raise money for charitable causes. Members of the group decided that they could use their talents to raise money to pay for their travels out of Romania. They raised some initial money through donations and from fees collected from those who wished to join them, and eventually there were seventy-five men and three women who joined the group and left Barlad in April, 1900.

Barlad, Romania

Română: Timisul de Jos,Predeal,Brasov,Romania. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

One person was selected to be the leader of the group, and others were appointed to various roles: treasurer, medical care, scouts, and security. They had flyers printed to distribute in the towns they planned to visit, and the people of Barlad provided not only financial support, but food and supplies to the group. The group then walked from town to town across Romania, often being treated very well; in some places people provided them with food, shelter, and generous donations. The group would stage musical performances to raise money. Many newspapers publicized the movement, bringing even more donations and larger audiences to greet and support the Fusgeyers. Moreover, this first group inspired new groups to form and to leave their homes as well. My grandfather, who loved music and was smart and funny, might very well have been one of the Fusgeyers who left Iasi in 1904.

Sometimes, however, the group met up with hostility. In Ramnicu Sarat, the police confiscated the passports of that first Barlad group, telling them to keep themselves from being noticed. The passports were, however, returned once they left the town. The group was threatened with arrest if they entered the town of Mizil, so they stayed out, sleeping in tents in the rain instead, and they were told to avoid the next town as well, resulting in another night of sleeping in the rain. There was even trouble within the group; money was wrongfully taken by one of the group representatives. Overall, however, at least according to Finkelstein, his group’s experience was a huge success—enabling not only that group to escape, but also inspiring thousands of other Romanians to do the same.

I cannot capture or describe all the details of the experiences of the Fusgeyers. All I have as primary material in Finkelstein’s memoir, but Stuart Tower’s book takes the skeleton of facts provided by Finkelstein and builds from those facts a novelized version of that experience that helps to bring to life the Fusgeyers’ trek through Romania. He developed characters and storylines that add an extra layer of humanity to this basic story.

The Wayfarers (Paperback) ~ Stuart Tower (Author) Cover Art

When I was doing some additional research about the Fusgeyers yesterday, I happened upon a website that described plans to turn Tower’s novel into a documentary about the Fusgeyers. I did not realize it at first, but the website was a page on Kickstarter, a crowd-sourced fundraising site that helps people raise funds for private projects—in the arts and otherwise. The Kickstarter page for The Wayfarers movie had not yet attracted any donors. I made a small donation and also left a comment for the contact person of the page, Ron Richard, explaining my interest and expressing my concern that there had not yet been any other donations for the project.

I have heard back now both from Ron Richard and from Stuart Tower, the author of The Wayfarers. Tower sent me some wonderful photographs of Romania from a Fusgeyer tour he ran in 2005, and I am hoping to get permission to post some of those photos here. If any of you would also like to help Ron Richard and Stuart Tower make this film about the Romanian Fusgeyers, please check out their Kickstarter site at https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1552736981/the-wayfarers-the-story-of-the-fusgeyers?ref=live It may be the best opportunity many of us have to see Romania and to understand better the experiences of our ancestors.

Jill Culiner’s book takes a different approach to exploring the Fusgeyer experience. After reading Finkelstein’s memoir, she decided to re-enact the walk of the Fusgeyers, also walking from Berlad to Predeal, but not with a large group, just with one companion. Her experiences doing this provide a chilling post-script to the story of the Jews in Romania, one that I found moving and haunting even re-reading it. I will post more about her book and her experiences tomorrow.

The Fusgeyers: Why They Left Romania

Posted on April 27, 2014 by Amy

Isadore Goldschlager

“Grandpa walked out of Romania to escape from the Romanian army.” That was the one story I knew about my grandfather’s life before he came to the US as a teenager. I knew a few other snippets about him in general—that he loved music and animals, that he knew multiple languages, that he was a union activist and very left-wing in his political views, that he was a milkman, and that he was a terrible tease and had a great sense of humor. But the story about him walking out of Romania was the one that always intrigued me the most. I would ask my mother questions: Did he go alone? Where did he walk to? How did he get to the United States? But she knew nothing more than that barebones story—that as a teenager, he decided to run away from the army and walked across the country to escape.

When I first started researching my grandfather’s family, I wanted to know more about this story. Was it just a myth, or was there any factual basis to it? I did some initial research and learned that there was in fact an entire movement of Jews who left Romania by foot beginning in the early 1900s, around the same time my grandfather left (1904). These walkers were known as the Fusgeyers or “foot-goers.” Unfortunately, I could not find many sources of information about this movement. I found only two books devoted in depth to the topic. One is a novel called The Wayfarers by Stuart F. Tower; although written as a novel, it was inspired by the author’s actual search to learn about the Fusgeyers. It tells the story of an American man whose grandfather left Romania by foot. The grandson, now an adult, takes his own teenage son and his elderly father to Romania to learn more about his grandfather’s escape from Romania. The author describes long conversations that the lead character had with a rabbi living in Romania who was familiar with the Fusgeyer movement. Although this book gave me a taste of what the movement was like, I wanted to read something more fact-based and scholarly to understand and know more about the Fusgeyers.[1]

I found that in the second book about the Fusgeyers: Finding Home: In the Footsteps of the Jewish Fusgeyers by Jill Culiner. This book, a work of non-fiction, is fascinating and heart-breaking. After reading Jacob Finkelstein’s “Memoir of a Fusgeyer from Romania to America,” an unpublished Yiddish manuscript written around 1942 and held by the New York-based YIVO Institute, Culiner, not herself a descendant of Romanian Jewss, decided to retrace the routes taken by the Fusgeyers as they walked out of Romania. She actually walked these routes, visiting all the towns and cities along the way, asking current residents what they remembered of the Fusgeyers and of the Jewish communities that existed in those towns before the Holocaust. What she learned about the past and present in Romania is what makes the book both fascinating and heart-breaking, and in a subsequent post, I will write more about that. But first, I want to set the scene by describing what I learned from this book and elsewhere about why the Jews left Romania in the early 1900s.

As reported by Culiner and others[2], Jews had likely been living in the two principalities that became Romania, Walachia and Moldavia, since Roman times. The Jewish population increased significantly in the second half of the 14^th century when many Jews from Hungary and Poland immigrated there after being expelled from their home countries. (Wikipedia). Ironically, Romania eventually became one of the most anti-Semitic of the European countries. In 1640, the Church Codes of Walachia and Moldavia declared Jews heretics and banned all relationships between Christians and Jews. (Culiner, p. 15). During the 17^th and 18^th century, there were repeated “blood libel” accusations against Jews—being accused of killing Christian children for their blood— followed by violence and persecution. (Culiner, p. 15; Wikipedia).

The widespread anti-Semitism really came to a head in the mid-nineteenth century during the movement for Romanian independence and the unification of Walachia and Moldavia into the independent nation of Romania. As the report on Romanian anti-Semitism on file with Yad Vashem reports, after the Crimean War and the defeat of Russia, which had previously controlled Walachia and Moldavia, the European powers (primarily France and Britain) put a great deal of pressure on the leaders of the independence movement in the region to grant Jews full legal status in the new country. Although the leaders had originally argued for such rights during the uprisings against Russia, the external pressure created a great deal of resentment, and in the end the European powers backed off from insisting on full legal rights for the Jewish residents of the newly-united nation of Romania. (Yad Vashem report).

The Yad Vashem report continues: “A real explosion of openly expressed antisemitism occurred as the prospect of achieving national independence became more certain. During discussions of the new Constitution of 1866, Romanian leaders began to portray Jews as a principal obstacle to Romanian independence, prosperity, and culture.” As finally drafted, Article 7 of the new Constitution for Romania provided that “[t]he status of Romanian citizen is acquired, maintained, and forfeited in accordance with rules established through civil legislation. Only foreign individuals who are of the Christian rite may acquire Romanian citizenship.” Culiner described this development, saying that “anti-Semitism had now become part of the national identity.” (Culiner, p. 15)

Despite protests and outcry from western European countries, the new country persisted in its anti-Semitic views and practices. Between 1866 and 1900, a number of laws were enacted restricting the business and other activities of Jewish residents in Romania. Jews could not become officers in the military, customs officials, journalists, craftsmen or clerks. Jews could not vote or obtain licenses to sell alcohol. Jews could not own or cultivate land. Jews could not own or manage pharmacies. They could not work in psychiatric institutions or receive care as free patients in hospitals. Jews could not sell tobacco or soda water or certain baked goods. Fewer than ten percent of Jewish children were allowed to attend public schools, and Jews were prohibited from opening their own schools. Jews were not allowed to work as peddlers, which was sometimes interpreted to include owning shops. Jewish homes were randomly destroyed as “unsanitary.” (Culiner, pp. 16-17)

Culiner wrote: “Eventually, 20,000 Jews found themselves on the streets of Romania and dying of starvation. There were many suicides in Iasi, Bacu, and Roman….In 1899 and 1900, harvests were poor and a severe depression gripped the country. Anti-Semitic decrees were applied with new severity and anti-Jewish speeches were delivered in parliament. Riots took place in several towns, and…a pogrom broke out in Iasi.” (Culiner, pp. 17, 19) (See also Wikipedia and the Yad Vashem report on Anti-Semitism in Romania.)

That pogrom in Iasi was described in the American Jewish Yearbook of 1900: “For several hours there was fighting, merciless blows, pillaging and devastation, all under the paternal eyes of the police authorities and the army, which interfered only to hinder the Jews from defending themselves.”[3]

In 1900, my grandfather was twelve years old. He lived in Iasi. He experienced this horrible violence and hatred. By that time his uncle Gustave and his aunt Zusi had already left for America. Is it any surprise that this young teenager would have wanted to escape from his homeland and seek refuge someplace else?

Isadore age 27

As I will report in a later post, he and thousands of other Jews did leave, many on foot, walking out of Romania to find a better life. My grandfather followed his uncle and his aunt, who had left in the late 1880s, but he left alone, without his parents or siblings. His first cousin Srul Srulovici, who became Isador Adler, had left two years before him in 1902, also alone and without his parents and siblings. My grandfather left in 1904, and by 1910 the rest of his family—his siblings, mother and father and the rest of his Srulovici cousins—had also arrived. I don’t know the details of how any of them got out or whether they were also Fusgeyers, but they all followed their two oldest sons and brothers, both to be called Isadore in the United States.

So my grandfather left Romania on foot, but not only to escape the Romanian army. He escaped a life of poverty, of hatred, of discrimination. He was only sixteen, but he was brave enough, smart enough, and strong enough to get out of a place that held no future for him. He led his family to freedom. Whatever life brought them in America, and it wasn’t easy, it was better than what they had left behind.

[1] Apparently the novel is being turned into a documentary about the Fusgeyer movement. See https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1552736981/the-wayfarers-the-story-of-the-fusgeyers

[2] Wikipedia has a long and detailed article on the history of the Jews in Romania at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Jews_in_Romania. I also consulted other sources, such as a report on Romanian anti-Semitism filed on the Yad Vashem website at http://www.yadvashem.org/yv/en/about/events/pdf/report/english/1.1_roots_of_romanian_antisemitism.pdf

[3][3] “Romania since the Berlin Treaty,” The American Jewish Yearbook (Philadelphia: The Jewish Publication Society of America, 1900), p. 83, as quoted in Culiner, p, 19.

Assessment time

Posted on April 21, 2014 by Amy

It’s time for my periodic review of what I have learned and where I am going in my research. I keep a Word document with lists of things I need to do, but sometimes I need to step back and see the whole picture, then step forward and see the details.

English: Forest trees Part of the forest which is a bit more mature than some of the other parts along the path here. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

On the Brotman side, I think I am in fairly good shape. I have found descendants of all but one of Joseph and Bessie Brotman’s children, although I am not in touch with all of the descendants. The only missing link is Sophie Brotman; I’ve had absolutely no luck finding any records for her. I don’t know when she arrived, whether she married and, if so, who she married, where she lived, where she died. And sadly, I don’t think I ever will. There is no one left alive to ask about Sophie; none of the descendants I’ve spoken with know anything about her. Perhaps one of Abraham’s descendants might know something, so I will contact Paula, the one Abraham descendant I’ve been in touch with, and see if she has ever heard of an aunt named Sophie.

Bessie

The big research area remaining for me on the Brotman side is finding out whether we are related to any other Brotmans, in particular the Brotmans who settled in Brotmanville. I am in touch with a few of Moses Brotman’s descendants, and one is a genealogist, so we plan to collaborate and see whether we can find the connection between our families. If we can, that may also lead me to other clues about where in Galicia Joseph and Bessie lived and to clues about other family members.

Moses Brotman—Joseph’s brother?

On the Goldschlager branch, I think I am also in fairly good shape. I have found the descendants of Moritz, my great-grandfather, and of Betty and David Goldschlager, my grandfather’s siblings, and I know about the lives of Betty and David and their children. I’d love to go back and research Moritz Goldschlager’s family, but since his parents died when he was a young child, there does not seem to be too much more I can learn. My Romanian researcher did not find anything more related to my Goldschlager relatives, so I may have reached the brick wall with respect to that line.

Moritz Goldschlager

On the other hand, the Rosenzweig branch, my great-grandmother Ghitla’s family, still has a number of unanswered questions. I have been able to learn a great deal about most of the children of David and Esther Rosenzweig, my great-great-grandparents, but Zusi Rosenzweig remains a mystery. Her descendants were not responsive to my inquiries, so I may have to find another way to get closure on Zusi and her son Nathan and her husband Harry Mintz. I’ve had better luck with Tillie Rosenzweig Strolowitz Adler and her children and grandchildren and have been in touch with two of her great-grandchildren. There are still some loose ends there, but for the most part I have been able to find a fair amount about the children of Tillie and Jankel and even about their grandchildren and great-grandchildren.

Ghitla Rosenzweig Goldschlager

As for the family of Gustave and Gussie Rosenzweig, I still have some open questions, mostly about the daughters Lillie, Lizzie and Ray. This week I spoke with one of Sarah’s granddaughters, and I am hoping that she will also be able to help me find out more about her grandmother’s sisters, but as of right now, I have not been able to find any of the descendants of Lillie, Lizzie or Ray.

So that’s where I am in this journey to find my mother’s family. I feel as though I am seeing the light at the end of the tunnel, though there is still plenty of tunnel to get through.

What do I do now besides continue to search for answers to the remaining questions? I have a number of thoughts.

For one, I want to continue to build the relationships I’ve made with all my new cousins on both sides of my mother’s family—the Brotmans and the Goldschlager/Rosenzweigs. Having found them, I don’t want to lose them again. Facebook and email make this so much easier, but it will still take effort. I also want to see if I can organize a meeting for the Rosenzweig/Goldschlager cousins like we had for the Brotmans earlier this month.

I also want to pull all my research together into a format that will make it more easily accessible. I’d like to tell the story of the Brotmans, Goldschlagers and Rosenzweigs as a chronological story so that someone can pick it up and get the whole story without having to jump from blog post to blog post, searching for the next discovery. That is a larger project, and I don’t even know how to start it, but that is what I see as my ultimate goal—to write the book that tells the stories so that our descendants will have it and know who their ancestors were.

And then there is the next huge research task: my father’s side. That will be a very different research experience. His family has been in this country for about fifty years longer than my mother’s family. They came from Germany and from England. They settled and lived in other places: Philadelphia, western Pennsylvania, New Jersey, New Mexico, among other places. There will be a lot more American and European records available, which will make the task both easier and harder. I’ve already traced one of my father’s lines back to the 1750s or so in Amsterdam, a full century earlier than I’ve been able to trace any of my mother’s relatives. I look forward to this research with some trepidation because of the size of the task ahead. But I am also excited by the idea that I have more discoveries, more stories, more understanding of my family and of myself ahead of me.

Passover wishes and thoughts

Posted on April 12, 2014 by Amy

Passover Seder Plate (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

As we approach the first night of Passover on Monday evening, I am feeling a bit overwhelmed, as I usually am this time of year. There is the cleaning, shopping, cooking, and all the other details that go into preparing the house for Passover and for the seder. I am also feeling torn because there are so many things I want to do in connection with my research and the blog. I have lots of photos to scan and post, both from my Brotman relatives and my Rosenzweig relatives, stories that need to be written, documents to request, people to contact. But I do not have time. So while the kugel is baking and before I start turning over the dishes and pots and pans for the holiday, I thought I’d take a few minutes to ponder what Passover means to me this year.

Passover was once my favorite holiday of the year. I loved the seder because as a child, it was my only formal exposure to Jewish history and Jewish rituals. I grew up in a secular home. We did not belong to a synagogue, I did not go to Hebrew school, and there were no bar or bat mitzvahs celebrated in our family when we were children. It was just fine with me, but I was also very curious about what it meant to be Jewish. Passover gave me a taste of what being Jewish meant and could mean. My Uncle Phil, my Aunt Elaine’s husband, had grown up in a traditional Jewish home, and although he was not terribly religious either, he wanted to have a seder.

So every year we had a seder, first only at my aunt’s house, and then my mother started doing a second seder at our house. My uncle, the only one who knew Hebrew, would chant all the blessings and sing all the songs, and the rest we would read in English from the Haggadah for the American Family (not Maxwell House). I was enchanted—I loved the music, the stories and all the rituals. I looked forward to it every year.

As an adult, I began my own exploration of what it means to be Jewish. I married a man from a traditional family, and he wanted to keep the traditions and rituals that were part of his childhood. I also wanted to learn more and do more. I took classes, I read, I got involved with the synagogue, and over time the Jewish holidays and rituals and prayers and services became second nature to me and provided me with meaning and comfort and joy.

Passover has become just one small part of my Jewish life and identity now, and over time, it has lost its magic. It no longer is my favorite holiday of the year. The matzoh gives me indigestion, the chore of changing the dishes and pots and pans has become tiresome, and the seder is so familiar that it no longer feels fresh and new and exciting.

If I look at it through my grandson’s eyes, I can feel some of that old excitement, but he is still too young to ask questions or to understand the stories. He just likes the songs and looking for the afikomen and being with his family, which is more than enough for now. This picture, one of my favorite pictures ever, captures some of that feeling. From generation to generation, traditions are being preserved.

L’dor v’dor Harvey and Nate

But this Passover I will try to take the time to think about things a little differently. I will think not just about Moses and the Israelites crossing the Red Sea and going from slavery to freedom. I will think about all my maternal ancestors who made their own Exodus by leaving poverty and oppression and prejudice and war in Romania and Galicia to come to the place where they hoped to find streets lined with gold.

I will think of my grandfather Isadore, the first Goldschlager to come, leading the way for his father, his mother, his sister and his brother. I will think of how he traveled under his brother David’s name to escape from the army and come to America.

I will think of his aunt, Zusi Rosenzweig, who met him at the boat at Ellis Island. I will think of his uncle Gustave Rosenzweig, who was the first Rosenzweig to come to the United States back in about 1888, with his wife Gussie and infant daughter Lillie, a man who stood up for his extended family on several occasions. And I will think of his aunt Tillie Rosenzweig Strolowitz, who came to the US with her husband and her children, who lost her husband shortly after they arrived in the US. I will remember how she took in my grandfather and his sister Betty when their father, Moritz, died, and their own mother and brother David had not yet arrived.

And I will think about my great-grandfather Joseph Brotman, who came here alone in about 1888 from Galicia, whose sons Abraham and David from his first marriage came next, and whose son Max as just a ten year old boy may have traveled to America all alone. I will think of Bessie, my great-grandmother for whom I am named, who brought two small children, Hyman and Tillie, on that same trip a few years later, and who had three more children with Joseph between 1891 when she arrived and 1901, when Joseph died. The first of those three children was my grandmother Gussie Brotman, who married my grandfather Isadore Goldschlager after he spotted her on Pacific Street while visiting his Rosenzweig cousins who lived there as well.

All of these brave people, like the Israelites in Egypt before them, pulled up their stakes, left their homes behind, carrying only what they could carry, to seek a better life. I don’t know how religious any of them were or whether they saw themselves as brave, as crossing a Red Sea of their own. But when I sit and listen to the blessings and the traditional Passover songs this year, I will focus on my grandson and see in him all the courage and determination his ancestors had to have so that he could be here, free to live as he wants to live and able to ask us, “Ma Nish Ta Na Ha Leila Ha Zeh?” Why is this night different?

Why is this night different from all other nights? It isn’t because we are free; it’s because on Passover we remember what it was like not to be free and to be grateful for the gifts of those who enabled us to be free.

Happy Passover to all, and thank you to all my Brotman, Goldschlager and Rosenzweig relatives for making this such an exciting journey for me.

Max and Irving: The Sons of Abraham Rosenzweig

Posted on April 11, 2014 by Amy

Abraham Rosenzweig was the oldest son of Gustave and Gussie Rosenzweig and my grandfather Isadore’s first cousin. He was born in New York City on February 12, 1889, apparently the first of their children born in the US. He served in the Navy before and during World War I, and he worked for a bakery after the war and thereafter.

Although I do not have any documentation for Abraham’s marriage, it seems that he probably married in Pennsylvania. Rebecca Fagles, his wife, was born in Pennsylvania, and Abraham was stationed on the USS Georgia in Philadelphia in 1910.

Abraham Rosenzweig 1910 census US Navy

I assume that that was when and where they met and that they married around 1915 because although Abraham was living with his family and single as of the 1915 census, his first son Maxwell was born April 2, 1916. Abraham and Rebecca’s second son Irving was born April 26, 1919, and in 1920, they were all living in Brooklyn, according to the 1920 US census.

UPDATE: I was able to find the marriage of Reba Fagles and Abraham Rosenzweig in 1915 on the Philadelphia marriage index. I am assuming that that is the record for Abraham and Rebecca.

Abraham Rosenzweig and family 1920 census

Abraham and Rebecca, known as Abe and Beck, lived in Brooklyn for the rest of their lives, where they raised their two sons, Max and Irving. Max married Sylvia Herrick and had two sons, Joseph and Gerald.

Max and Sylvia Ross

Irving married Irene Rubenstein/Robbins and had two daughters, Jane and Arlene. Gerry remembers his grandparents very well since he grew up in Brooklyn where they lived. He remembers that his grandmother Beck served untoasted English muffins and used memorial candle holders as glasses. Gerry named his two children for his grandparents, his son for Abe and his daughter for Beck. Abe died in 1961, and Beck died in 1970.

Abe, Sylvia, Ray (Abe’s sister) and Beck

Here are some photographs of Max and Irving and one with their aunt Ray, an aunt I’ve otherwise been unable to locate.

Max and Irving Rosenzweig/Ross

Max and Irving with their aunt Ray

I was able to get some background information about the lives of Max and Irving from Gerry and Arlene.

Max and Sylvia settled in Brooklyn, where Max first was in the egg and poultry business and then in the business of reconditioning steel drums for storing oil. At some time after World War II while doing business with the army, Max changed his last name from Rosenzweig to Ross, believing that he would have more success with a name that was not obviously Jewish. Sometime thereafter Irving also changed his last name to Ross for similar reasons and also because their mother Beck did not like the idea of the two brothers having different last names.

Arlene told me that her father Irving had met her mother Irene when her uncle Max went to Sylvia’s house while they were dating and brought his younger brother Irving with him. One of Sylvia’s friends was there and arranged for Irving to meet her younger sister Irene. For Irving, it was love at first sight, but not for Irene. For a year, Irving pursued her. Irene had joined the Navy, one of the first ten women to become a WAVE, and Irving, himself in the US Army, placed an ad in the Stars and Stripes to find her and to get her attention. Eventually, Irene agreed to date him and fell in love with him as well.

They were married in 1945, and according to Arlene, to his dying day, her father would do anything to make Irene happy. Irving and Irene Irene and Irving lived at 41 Kew Gardens Road, Queens, and their two daughters were born at Kew Gardens General Hospital. Irving owned a share in a successful hardware business.

In 1957, Irving and Irene and their daughters went to visit Irene’s parents, who had moved to the Miami, FL, area. Irene was so taken with life in South Florida that within days after returning to Brooklyn, Irving sold his share in the hardware business and bought three tickets to Miami for Irene and his daughters, coming down a few months later himself once his business matters were resolved. He was, as Arlene said, determined to make Irene as happy as possible.

Within five years, Irving, a man who never graduated from high school, had obtained a license to sell insurance and had established a very successful insurance brokerage business. He was able to provide his family with a large, custom-built house and a comfortable lifestyle. Irving and Irene remained in the Miami area thereafter and only occasionally would they return to the New York area.

Sadly, their lives would be marked by tragedy. In 1968, Irving was admitted to Baptist Hospital in Miami for congestive heart failure. While he was being admitted, Irene and Arlene went to get something to eat, and while driving down North Kendall Drive, where Baptist Hospital is still located, they were hit head-on by a minibus going northbound on U.S. 1, South Dixie Highway. The minivan had defective brakes and had skidded across the median. Both Irene and Arlene suffered severe injuries, and Arlene underwent numerous surgeries and was laid up for a substantial time after the accident. For some period of time all three members of the family shared one hospital room.

Arlene and Irving Ross August1968

Not long after the accident, Irving was diagnosed with inoperable cancer and died at age 51 on August 5, 1970. Irene was only 49 when he died. She had to go to work to support herself and her children and became a purchasing agent at Florida International University, where she worked for many years. She died January 16, 2009, at age 88.

Irene Ross in 2006

Arlene Ross

Max also died at a prematurely young age. His wife Sylvia had a number of medical problems, and while accompanying her for treatment at Massachusetts General Hospital in November, 1975, Max had an aneurysm and died. He was only 59 years old. Sylvia lived more than twenty years after Max died.

Sylvia Ross

The two sons of Abraham and Rebecca, Max and Irving, thus had many parallels in their lives. Both were big strong men over six feet tall, both had changed their name to Ross, both had had two children and long marriages to women to whom they were devoted, and both had died before they were sixty years old. Gerry said he speaks to his father daily and has every day since he died in 1975; Arlene also spoke adoringly of her father. I could tell in speaking with both Gerry and Arlene that each of them loved their fathers dearly and want their memories preserved. I hope this blog will help to do that.

Thirteen Abraham Rosenzweigs or How I Almost Threw My Computer through the Window

Family Photo Album: Joe and Sadie and Their Daughters Irene and Mildred

Posted on April 9, 2014 by Amy

Joe and Sadie and their daughters

Photographs can capture so much—a moment in time, a relationship, the style of an era, a mood, an emotion. Even family snapshots can reveal a lot. These pictures of Joe and Sadie and their daughters capture a family. Thank you to the next generation for sharing these pictures of their mothers and grandparents.

These pictures from the early 1940s of Irene, in her early 20s, and Mildred, a teenager, are so touching. They show two beautiful sisters who seem close to each other and to their parents. They both look like they have so much ahead of them.

Ariela described her mother Irene as very outgoing and social like her father Joe, someone who would strike up conversations with total strangers. Ariela said that Irene loved to dance and ski and sail as a young woman and that she loved jewelry and clothes and other beautiful objects. She loved dressing up and attending parties, and you can see that love of life and people in her face in these pictures of her as a young woman.

Irene 1941 Rockaway Pkwy

Irene, Joe and Mildred 1941

Tragically, Mildred’s life was cut short when she died in 1951 at only 25 years old, leaving behind her young husband and fifteen-month old child. I am hoping to learn more about her, but from these pictures it looks like she was also a young woman who loved life and people and was adored by her sister and her parents.

Mildred

Sadie and Mildred 1942

Mildred 1941

Mildred and friend 1943

Mildred Rosenzweig and Seymour Sundick 1947

Ron and his mother MIldred Sundick at his first birthday, a few months before she died

This is one of my favorite pictures in this group of photos. It shows both Mildred and Irene surrounding a baby carriage. Although we cannot see the baby, the descendants of Mildred and Irene and I thought that it is likely that the baby is Ariela, based on the hairstyles dating it in the 1940s and the adoring look on Irene’s face, looking down at what must be her baby.

Mildred and Irene looking at Ariela 1947

You can also see that same adoring look on Irene’s face many years later as she looks lovingly at her daughter Ariela.

Irene and Ariela

And here is one of Irene with her grandson Aron. Same loving look—on both of their faces.

Aron and his grandmother Irene

Here are some photos of Joe and Sadie in the 1940s:

Here are some from the 1950s and after of Joe, Sadie and Irene:

This photo is of Irene and her husband Leo Kohl with her parents Joe and Sadie.

Leo Joe Sadie and Irene

Ariela told me that her mother was madly in love with Leo and missed him dearly until the day she died. Irene died less than a year and a half ago at age 91.

As I said, photographs capture so much. These capture a family over time, a family where children adored their parents and vice versa, a family that endured a terrible tragedy, but that survived and thrived and found love and joy in their lives again

A Romanian Surprise

Posted on April 4, 2014 by Amy

I am in NYC for the weekend and looking forward to meeting my Brotman cousins. Pictures and stories to follow.

But first, a little Romanian surprise. I received a few more documents from my Romanian researcher, Marius Chelcu. One in particular surprised me. It is a birth record for Sura Rosentvaig, born June 7, 1888, daughter of Ghidale and Ghitla Rosentvaig, of Iasi, Romania.

Sura Rosentvaig birth record

The first surprise was that Gustave and Gussie were still living in Iasi as of June, 1888. According to his naturalization papers, Gustave arrived in the US on April 12, 1887.

naturalization petition gustave rosenzweig

Before 1906, the government did not require strict proof of arrival, and obviously Gustave fudged it a bit. But when did he actually arrive? I still have not found a ship manifest for him or Gussie or the children, but this will narrow down the dates of my search by assuming they left Romania after June 7, 1888, and arrived before February 12, 1889, when I believe Abraham was born.

One inconsistency here is that according to earlier Romanian records, Gustave was born in 1856 and Gussie in 1864.

translation of marriage record

On Sura’s birth record dated 1888, it says Gustave was 25, making his birth year 1863, and Gussie was 22, making her birth year 1866. I guess it just goes to show that Romanian records are no more reliable than American records. Gustave and Gussie’s birth records, however, were created at the time of their marriage, not at their birth, whereas Sura’s was created at the time of her birth so presumably is more reliable in terms of her birthdate.

The second surprise is that Sarah, their second daughter, was born in Iasi, not in New York City. Every census indicates that she was in fact born in New York. This explains why I could not find a NYC birth record for Sarah, but why is she listed on the census as US-born? Lillie is listed (with one exception) as born in Romania. Why not Sarah?

Rosenzweig children 1900 census

Gustave Rosenzweig family on the 1905 NYS census

Rosenzweig family 1910

Kurtz family 1920

kurtz family 1930

Sam and Sarah Kurtz 1940 census

I am still searching for Sarah’s descendants and know their names, but have not yet been able to contact them. I wonder if they know she was born in Romania, not in the US.

Have a good weekend, everyone!

Women are Difficult, Part Two: Rebecca Rosenzweig

Posted on March 16, 2014 by Amy

I am continuing to search for my grandfather’s first cousins, and I am struggling to find the daughters of Gustave Rosenzweig. I have tracked Lillian up to 1910 and Sarah up through 1940. My next target was Rebecca, the second oldest daughter. This is what I have found so far, although I need documentation to confirm some of my conclusions.

Rebecca was born May 27, 1893, in New York (birth certificate on order, but I am quite certain I have found the correct one based on the report on FamilySearch, which includes her parents’ names), and she was living with her family until at least 1910, according to the 1900, 1905,and 1910 census reports. That is all that I can be certain about at this point. She is not living with her family in 1915 or thereafter.

Gustave Rosenzweig and family 1900 census

Gustave Rosenzweig family on the 1905 NYS census

Gustave Rosenzweig and family 1910 census

When I did a search for a Rebecca Rosenzweig on the NYC marriage index for the years between 1910 and 1915, there was only one potential person, a woman who married a man named Frank R. Elkin on March 22, 1914. I have not yet received the certificate for this marriage, but I am fairly certain that this is the correct Rebecca. She and Frank appear on the 1915 census, living at 1985 Pacific Street in Brooklyn.

Frank and Rebecca Elkin 1915 at 1985 Pacific Street

On the same census one page earlier are the Rosenzweig family, living 1918 Pacific Street.

Rosenzweigs 1915

In 1915, Frank was employed as a tinsmith.

(Also listed on the same page as Rebecca and Frank Elkin is my grandmother Gussie Brotman, living at 1991 Pacific Street with her sister Tillie Ressler and her family; perhaps Rebecca was the cousin who introduced my grandfather, her cousin, to my grandmother, her neighbor?)

Gussie living with TIllie 1915

In 1917 Frank Robert Elkin was employed doing sheet metal and had a wife and child, according to his World War I draft registration form.

Frank Elkin World War I draft registration

(Interestingly, the registrar of his draft board was someone named J. Rosenzweig.) They were living at 1875 Bergen Street. Frank gave his birth date as May 4, 1891 and his birth place as New York, New York. I could not search for a child born after 1914 since the NYC birth index to which I have access only goes up to 1902.

When I searched for Frank and Rebecca Elkin on the 1920 census, a number of things confused me.

Elkin Family 1920 census

First, the birth place for Rebecca’s parents is given as Minsk, Russia, not Romania. I would not be troubled by this since there are often errors on the census, but this one is so specific in identifying not just the country, but the city, which I had not seen on a census report before. Could I have the wrong Rebecca? Only the marriage certificate will tell me for sure, but I still think that I have the right one. Rebecca and Frank were now living at 1892 Bergen Street, and the Rosenzweig family was also now living on Bergen Street at Number 1918. Could it just be coincidence that both the Elkins and the Rosenzweigs had moved from Pacific Street to Bergen Street?

Rosenzweigs 1920 census

Frank was now working as a steam fitter in a shipyard, according to this report. Perhaps this was his war time employment, working at the Brooklyn Navy Yard.

The second puzzling thing about the 1920 census report is that although it does list a child living with Frank and Rebecca, a boy named Irving, he was only 8 months old at the time of the census, or born in May, 1919. (The census was dated January 7, 1920.) Obviously, Irving was not alive when Frank filled out his draft registration in 1917, so who was the child he referred to on his registration back then?

I searched the death index (which runs to 1948, unlike the birth index) and found an entry for a one year old child named Daniel Elkin who died on December 16, 1917. I will have to obtain that record to be sure, but I fear that the child Frank referred to on his draft registration in 1917 died later that same year.

After the 1920 census I could not find any record for Rebecca Elkin. There were two Frank Elkins on the 1930 census—one living in Brooklyn and one in the Bronx. After some confusion based on the fact that both Franks seemed to have sons named Irving, I was finally able to sort through the facts for both, looking backward to see where each had come from before 1930, and concluded that the Brooklyn Frank Elkin was the same one who had been married to Rebecca.

Frank Elkin with his parents 1930 census

That Frank was living with his parents and siblings on Linden Boulevard in Brooklyn that year, working as a salesman at an electrical supply company. His father Louis was listed as the head of household, and living with Louis in addition to Frank was Louis’ wife Ida, his two other sons Matthew and Edward and a daughter Celia and a daughter-in-law Fannie as well as two grandsons, Irwin, age 11, and Stanley, age 4. I cannot tell from the census who was Fannie’s husband—Frank, Matthew or Edward—or who were the parents of Irwin and Stanley. They could be cousins or brothers; they are only identified as Louis’ grandsons.

My hunch is that Irwin is the same child as Irving, Rebecca and Frank’s son born in 1919. He would have been eleven in 1920 when the census was taken. My other hunch is that Rebecca had either died or was institutionalized; I cannot find her on the 1930 census at all, nor can I find a death record for her. I don’t know whether Stanley was her son or her nephew. Unfortunately, I also could not find either Frank or Rebecca on the 1925 census, nor can I find Frank or Irving/Irwin on the 1940 census. There are a number of Irving Elkins born around the right time, but I have not yet had a chance to narrow down those possibilities.

So pending receipt of the marriage certificate for Rebecca and Frank Elkin and the death certificate for Daniel Elkin, I am putting on hold further research about Frank and Irving. I want to be certain that I have the right Rebecca before I go further into the lives of the men I assume to have been her husband and son.

And on that note, let me leave you all in suspense. I will be out of town for the next week and unable to do much research. I will, however, try to post some tidbits and photos I’ve been saving up.

Women are Difficult…to Find and Track, Part I: Lillian Rosenzweig

Posted on March 14, 2014 by Amy

One thing that has been clear to me for a long time is that women are much harder to track in vital records than men, largely because they traditionally changed their names when they married. The Rosenzweig daughters are a case in point.

I have now located and tracked from birth to death the five sons of Gustave and Gussie: Abraham, David, Jacob, Harry and Joe. For those who survived to adulthood, I know who they married, where they lived, and what they did for a living and their military service. I still need to trace the children of Abraham and Jack, but I wanted to see what I could find about the five daughters of Gustave and Gussie first. I’ve been looking all along, but kept hitting walls and so decided to focus on one daughter at a time. Here’s what I know about Lillian.

The oldest child and the only one born in Romania was Lillie or Lillian. According to the 1900 census, she was born in July, 1884, in Romania, but since that was only a month after Gustave and Gussie’s marriage, it seems likely that this was an error and that Lilly was probably born during 1885. The census also says that Lillie arrived in 1884, but her father’s naturalization papers say that he arrived in 1887. In 1900 when she was only fifteen years old, Lillie was working as a typist while her younger siblings were all in school.

Gustave Rosenzweig and family 1900 census

In 1905 the family had moved to Fulton Street in Brooklyn, and Lillian, now 21 according to the census, was doing housework as her employment. In addition to the siblings listed on the 1900 census, there were now two additions, Rachel, who was four, and William, who was three. William is described as a son of the head of the household, which led me to believe that he was another child of Gustave and Gussie. I was unable, however, to locate William on the birth index as William Rosenzweig, nor did he reappear on the 1905 or 1910 census with the family.

Gustave Rosenzweig family on the 1905 NYS census

Once again I searched the death index for a child of Gustave and Gussie, but could not find a death record for William Rosenzweig either. If he was not living with his “parents” and siblings in 1905, where could he be? I searched on ancestry.com for William Rosenzweig and found him living at the Brooklyn Hebrew Orphanage in 1906. I knew it was the right boy by his age (four years old), the address from where he was taken (1021 Fulton Street, Brooklyn), and his mother’s name—Lillian nee Rosenzweig.

William Rosenzweig at the Brooklyn Hebrew Orphanage in 1906

Brooklyn Hebrew Orphanage

William was not Gustave and Gussie’s son, but Lillian’s son. His father is only identified as “Frank (dead),” with no surname. For the other children listed, their father’s first name is also all that is supplied, but that’s because the child presumably has that surname. For William, his surname is the same as his mother’s—Rosenzweig, and no surname is given for his father. I could not find any marriage record for a Lillie or Lillian Rosenzweig between 1900 and 1902 to a Frank, so had Lillian had William out of wedlock? Who was Frank? Was he really dead?

I did find a Frank Cramer who died between 1902 and 1906 and a William Cramer born on March 2, 1902, the birth date provided for William on the orphanage records. I sent for the birth certificate for William Cramer, but unfortunately that William’s parents were not named Frank and Lillian.

Then last night I went back once again to the marriage index and looked again for a marriage record for Lillian Rosenzweig, but this time I did not limit my search to grooms named Frank. I restricted the dates to 1900 to 1902, based on the fact that Lillie was single in the 1900 census and that William was born in March, 1902. I found one marriage of a Lillie Rosenzweig in July, 1901, to a Toscano Bartolini. Could Frank have been his more American nickname? I turned to the death index and searched for a death record, and there it was—Toscano Bartolini had died on April 27, 1904, at 27 years old. Finally I looked for a birth record for a William Bartolini and found one—born March 9, 1902, a mere eight months after Lillie’s wedding to Toscano in July, 1901. It was all starting to come together. I obviously have to send away for all these records to be sure that Lillie is Gustave’s daughter and that William is Lillie’s son, but it certainly seems likely that the records will back up my hunches here. In fact, I checked today on FamilySearch for Toscano Bartolini and found a more thorough description of the marriage record, including a reference to the bride’s parents’ names, Gustav and Gussie. I will still order a copy of the certificate, but I am now certain that Lillie married Toscano, who died just a few years later, leaving her with a two year old son named William.

UPDATE: All these facts were confirmed by the documents. See my more recent post with images of the documents.

After finding all this, I remembered something that Joe’s grandson Ron had told me—that one of Gustave’s daughters had married someone who wasn’t Jewish, and Ariela had said she thought one of the sisters had married someone with an Italian name. Ron had told me that the family was not happy about this, and that for a long time there was some estrangement. Despite whatever they felt, however, in 1905 after Frank/Toscano died, Gustave and Gussie took both Lillian and her son into their home.

It also occurred to me that perhaps the reason Lillie used the name Rosenzweig for William and not Bartolini was based on the fact that he was being taken to a Jewish institution. Obviously Rosenzweig would seem more clearly Jewish than Bartolini.

But why he was taken from the home in 1906 is not explained by the records. The orphanage record indicates that William was discharged to his mother on September 3, 1906, and reports that her address was then 307 East 120th Street in Manhattan, so perhaps there was a falling out with the family. But in 1910, Lillian was living again with her parents and siblings in Brooklyn, and William was not living with her. Lillian’s occupation was listed as a trained nurse at a hospital, and she was listed as single, not widowed. But where was William?

Gustave Rosenzweig and family 1910 census

I had not been able to find him as William Rosenzweig in the 1910 census, but now I searched for William Bartolini and found him, living at a residential facility, St. John’s Home in Brooklyn.

William Bartolini 1910 at St John’s Home, Brooklyn

Maybe Lillie placed him there so that she could get training to be a nurse. Perhaps she just could not take care of him. Perhaps I can find some records from St John’s Home.

I also was able to find where William was in 1915: another home for children, this one the New York Catholic Protectory, in the Bronx. (Interestingly, this facility was located where Parkchester is today; Parkchester is an apartment building complex developed by Metropolitan Life Insurance Company in the Bronx and is where my grandparents, my aunt and uncle, and my parents once lived; I lived there also until I was four and half years old.)

William Bartolini 1915 Catholic Protection Bronx

William Bartolini 1915 Catholic Protecory Bronx

It seems that in both 1910 and 1915 William had been placed in Catholic institutions after being at a Jewish orphanage briefly in 1906. Had Lillie given up her parental rights? Was neither set of grandparents interested or able to take care of the boy? Was William troubled or disabled in some way that made caring for him at home a problem for everyone? I don’t know the answers, but will try to find out what happened to William after 1915. Apparently you can order microfilm from the Family History Library and see the actual records for the children who resided there, which I plan to do.

And I cannot find Lillie in 1910 or thereafter. She was not living with her mother and siblings in 1915 or in 1920. I cannot find her as Lillie Rosenzweig or as Lillie Bartolini. Perhaps she remarried and changed her name, but I have not yet found a marriage record. But now I know that I just have to keep looking. I almost gave up after Frank Cramer did not pan out. And then last night I looked a different way and found Toscano Bartolini. I hope I can eventually uncover what happened to Lillie and to William.

Brotmanblog: A Family Journey

Adventures in Genealogy

Tag Archives: Rosenzweig

The Fusgeyers, Part III: What Came Afterwards

The Fusgeyers, Part II: How They Did It

The Fusgeyers: Why They Left Romania

Assessment time

Passover wishes and thoughts

Max and Irving: The Sons of Abraham Rosenzweig

Family Photo Album: Joe and Sadie and Their Daughters Irene and Mildred

A Romanian Surprise

Women are Difficult, Part Two: Rebecca Rosenzweig

Women are Difficult…to Find and Track, Part I: Lillian Rosenzweig

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