Elli Ginsburg – Straussburg memories from Lackenbach, 1927-1938.

As told to Yohanan on 10/5/2010 and 3/5/2011 in her nursing home in Hertzelya.

(translated from Hebrew 23/11/2014)

Memories from Lackenbach:

Shlomo Yitzhak Ginsburg, Elli’s father, was a goldsmith: He used to make silverware, rings, silver decorations etc. Some of his work was part of the decoration of the Lackenbach synagogue.
A few silver art work survived (see photos in the Ginsburg-family page). When Rabbi Krausz left Lackenbach to Israel in 1935, he took with him some of the silverware and they passed to his son Adonyahu Krausz.
His successor as the Lackenbach Rabbi, Rabbi Ungar, also made it to Israel, to Bnei Braq, after the war.

Before the war, before 1938, there were 4 lanes, dead end streets, off SchlossGasse to the north.

The 4^th lane walking on SchlossGasse from the train station into the town was TempleGasse. These 4 streets were mostly Jewish.

The Jewish centre used to be in the centre of the town, in Temple Gasse. Temple Gasse lead to a paved yard with a well in the middle and the synagogue on the side. 

The Jewish school was located next door to the synagogue. It had year 1 to 8.
After finishing school children would study in a Yeshiva in Wien or leave school and study any profession.

Because there were small year level groups, there were 3 groups: year 1 to 4 studied together, year 5-6 and year 7-8.
They studied in two shifts – morning shift and afternoon shift. It was quiet in the classrooms though they were separated inside the class to sub age groups,
each group sitting in a different corner. The teacher used to move from one group to th other to teach, while the others were practicing.

Next door to the school were 2 rooms, inside was a large oven, that served for baking the Matzot for Pessach. Each family paid for her baking time.
They used to take a wooden box, like a small trunk, coverd with white paper, into which they placed the baked Matzot. All members of the family participated:
Elli’s duty was to check that all Matzot were thin flat and no Matzah was folded, because if it was, it would have been considered as none Kosher.

During the rest of the year the oven was used to warm the cholent (meat stew traditionally eaten on the Sabbath) –
all the housewifes used to bring their dishes to cook as it was wide and had space. Elli remembers how they used to get dirty from the baking and cooking.

Another social service was the ‘Kehila House’, where Torah studies were conducted every morning. Elli’s father used to get up at 5AM every morning to study,
and again went there to study at night after work. Not everybody used to work, here were those who studied all night, Elli remembers their women bringing fish to eat...
The Rabbi was the teacher. It also served as a reception hall for all kind of events, also for weddings.

Many Jewish families used to live in TempleGasse: The Ginsburg family lived there, near them the Lobl family:
Ya’akov Lobl was Elli’s mother’s cousin: His mother was Neufeld, sister of Elli’s grandfather David Neufeld. 
Lobl had a grocery store next door to his house, in the north east corner of SchlossGasse and TempleGasse.
Opposite this store, in the other corner, lived the widow Wallisch with her two daughters. 
Opposite Ginsburg lived Austerlitz. In the Austerlitz house, one of the rooms somehow used to belong by inheritance to Elli’s family.
It used to serve as a guest room, where visitors could stay, and in everyday life it served as the kids playroom. Elli remembers playing in there with dolls for hours.

Also lived in the street Kalman family and another Lobl family which were not related.

There were in the neighbourhood also: Rigler the shoemaker; Sussmann the tailor; Austerlitz, who  had also a grocery store somewhere else in the town. Wiselmann was the butcher.

The Chasan and Shochet was Tauber. He was a good friend of Elli’s father. His children were the girl Thea, and her 3 brothers Bendit, Alush and  Motush.
They lived on the  side of the well yard, next door to the Rabbi (Unger and Krausz lived in the same house.

Further on used to live Lederer – the head “Shamash” (attendant); one of his jobs in the community was to wake up all the men early morning to go to the synagogue to pray and to study.
He used to knock with his wooden stick and shout: “Austerlitz, Ginsburg, Lobl, Tzeit Tzum Shool” (“time for synagogue” in Yiddish).
On Saturdays he used to shout only, not to knock!

Next door to the synagogue lived Ostreicher. Above him, via the staircase seen at photos behind the well used to live Kohn (pronounced: Kon); they had several kids including Herta Kohn.

In SchlossGasse 10 near the 3^rd lane lived Loeffler family.

Elli’s best friends were Erna Rigler, Esti and Nuri Lobl and Lili Polack. In their free time they used to play with marbles, jump with ropes, play with the ball and play “Class” (Hopscotch).

Hauptplatz used to be the street leading to the Jewish Cemetery, turning from SclossGasse.

On the left side used to stand the Wallisch bread Bakery and next door the Kornfein bakery; further was a grocery store near the church.

Greensfeld, the father of the twin girls, had a textile shop closer to the cemetery.

Opposite the train station was the Krutzenberg hill ‘The Berg’. It spread all the way from the train station to Friedhof (cemetery).
It was a favourite place for the kids because they used to play out there in nature and roll down the hill in the green grass.

Neugasse was built later, when Lackenbach spread larger, and single houses were built – the old Lackenbach was built as a farm, each house had an adjoined farm land behind.

The playground and the Jewish kids meeting place after school used to be the wide paved yard between the school and the Kehila House, near the well.
The boys used to play there football.

There were hardly any cars. In the winter they were sliding in the snow. The next door Lobl had a horse that lived under the house;
 Lobl used to ride the horse with groceries to the nearby villages.

It all vanished on March 1938.

***

                ***