Location :
Belarus , 53º 09' N 24º 27'
E
137.5 miles ( 221 Km ) WSW of Minsk
Other names : Vawkavysk ( Bel ), Volkovysk
( Rus ) , Wolkowysk ( Pol ) . Volkavisk ( Yid ) ,
Volkovyskas ( Lith ) , Waukawysk (
Ger ) , Vilkovisk , Valkevisk , Vaukavysk .
Near Large City : Grodno
This website is dedicated to the study of Jewish family history
in the town of Volkovysk now in Belarus
in Grodno Province but formerly part of Bialystok
District , Poland .
Jewish Community
In 1861 the total amount of Volkovysk residents were 3.434 and the
Jews were 1202 ( 494 men,708 women )
( 35%) , there were 867 property owners( 507 Jews ), Small stores
were 100. Bulk storages 4, hotels: 5, Inns : 10
Alcohol selling stores: 3, small cafes : 23 , Artisans 155 ( 116
were Jews , watchmakers: 3, tinsmiths : 8
joiners : 18, carpenters : 22 , locksmiths : 2, blacksmiths : 4 ,
tailors : 35,shoemakers : 31, painters : 18 ,
sawyers : 14 .
Manufacturers : Brick: 4, Lime : 1, Tile an pottery : 2 ,Soap: 1,
Candles : 2, Beer : 1, Honey processing : 4
Tannery ; 2, Weaving : 2 and Tobacco : 2 .
In 1928 Volkovysk Jewish
population was 27.254 or 43.2% ot total population .
In 1939 Jewish population decreased to 6901 or 40.1 % of total
population .
In 1948 after WWII Jewish population was 25 , in 1999 there were
only 31 Jews and in 2009 were only 12 ( twelve ) .
In 1935 before WWII there were three synagogues, 1 Talmud Torah
and nine Cheders .
There were two cemeteries but one was full and closed
for new burials .
There were two mikvahs, One private Jewish Hospital , a
Jewish Theater, school Gertzliya and also a sport
organization " Makkabi "
two Jewish communities Newspapers and one Magazine .
Vawkavysk(Belarusian:Ваўкавыск,Yiddish:וואלקאוויסק,Polish:Wołkowysk;names in other
languages) is one of the oldest towns in
southwesternBelarusand
the capital of theVawkavysk raion. It
is located on the Wołkowyja River, roughly 98
kilometres (61 mi) fromGrodnoand
271 kilometres (168 mi) fromMinsk.
Its population is estimated at 43,826 inhabitants.[1]
Vawkavysk
was first unofficially mentioned in theTurovAnnals
in 1005 and this year is widely accepted as the
founding year for Vawkavysk. At that time
Volkovysk was a city-fortress on the border of the
Baltic and the Slavic ethnic groups. Since 12th
century, Volkovysk was the center of a small
princedom. TheHypatian
Chroniclementions
the city in 1252.
The
name is thought to be derived from the local
dialect for the phrases for searching for wolves
("wołków isk") or the howling of wolves ("wołków
wisk"). Old Belarusian tradition refers to the
area surrounding Vawkavysk as once being occupied
by vast forestry filled with wolves. The river
flowing through the town was named Wołkowyja. This
also explains the appearance of a wolf's head or
body on the town's coat of arms.[2]
However,
modern scholars have also hypothesized that the
name of Vawkavysk was of more recent origin and
hence succeeded the original legend. Vawkavysk was
mentioned in a manuscript written by the priest D.
Bułakowski at the end of the 16th or beginning of
the 17th century. It was stored in theSapiehafamily's
library inRuzhany
Palace, where it was translated into Russian
in 1881 and published in aVilniusgazette.
According to the manuscript, in the place where
Vawkavysk is now situated, were large swathes of
forest, through which flowed the now non-existent
Nietupa River, and consisted of winding travel
routes on which travelers were frequently
attacked. Within this forest, two robbers, named
Voloko and Visek, had their hide-out. A prince
named Vladislav Zabeyko, upon hearing of these
attacks, tracked down the robbers and hung them on
trees for the birds to feed upon. A settlement was
built in the location of the robbers' hide-out,
which was named Volokovysek, and occupied by
slaves. At the execution site, a large stone was
placed but, according to local tradition, was
later broken up to be used to build a temple.[2][3][4]
Vawkavysk
is located in the valley basin of the Wołkowyja
river near its confluence with the Ros River,
which flows, in turn, directly north about 25
kilometres (16 mi) to theNeman
River. The historical core of Vawkavysk lies
on the left bank of the river. The town has been
expanding to the west and south. The town has an
urban area of 79 square kilometres
(31 sq mi), while together with its
metropolitan area it covers 1,192 km2(460 sq mi).[5]Forests
occupy an area of 288.69 km2(111.46 sq mi),
swamps 33.42 km2(12.90 sq mi),
and water facilities 14.36 km2(5.54 sq mi).
Its raion is bordered by those ofMastyto
the north,Zel’vato
the east,Pruzhanyof
Brest oblast to the south,Svislachto
the southwest, andByerastavitsato
the west.
On
the left bank of the Wołkowyja, the town is
surrounded on three sides by hilly terrain,[2]while
the highest point of Vawkavysk proper is Swedish
Mountain, located on the southeastern outskirts of
town, with its height from the base to the top of
its defensive wall varying from 28 to 32.5 metres
(92 to 107 ft). The mountain's base is round
with a diameter of about 350 metres
(1,150 ft). A flat top of "the Swedish
mountain" nearly round and is 55 metres
(180 ft) wide east to west. The perimeter of
the flat top is surrounded by a powerful defensive
wall broken in the south by the entrance. The
mountains of Zamchishche (Castle Mountain) and
Muravelnik (Mouse Mountain) lie to the west and
east of Swedish Mountain, respectively.[6]
Raphael Lemkin (June 24, 1900 – August 28, 1959) was a Polishlawyer
of Jewish descent, who emigrated to the United States in 1941. He is best
known for his work against genocide,
a word he coined in 1943[1]
from the rooted words genos
(Greek for family, tribe, or race)
and -cide (Latin for killing).[2][3]
He first used the word in print in Axis Rule in Occupied
Europe: Laws of Occupation - Analysis of Government -
Proposals for Redress (1944), and defined it as "the
destruction of a nation or an ethnic group."
Lemkin was born Rafał Lemkin in the village of Bezwodne
during a period when it was part of the Vilna Governorate of the Russian Empire, now in the Vawkavysk district of Belarus.
Not much is known of Lemkin's early life. He grew up in a Jewish
family and was one of three children born to Joseph and Bella
(Pomerantz) Lemkin. His father was a farmer and his mother a
highly intellectual woman who was a painter, linguist, and
philosophy student with a large collection of books on
literature and history.
After graduating from a local trade school in Białystok he began the study of
linguistics at the Jan
Kazimierz University of Lwów (since 1945 Lviv, Ukraine). He
was a polyglot, fluent in
nine languages and reading fourteen.[4]
It was there that Lemkin became interested in the concept of the
crime, which later evolved into the idea of genocide, which was
based on the Armenian experience at the hands of the Ottoman
Turks then later the experience of Assyrians[5]
massacred in Iraq during the 1933 Simele massacre. Lemkin then moved
on to Heidelberg University in Germany
to study philosophy, and returned to Lviv to study law in 1926,
becoming a prosecutor in Warsaw
at graduation. His subsequent career as assistant prosecutor in
the District Court of Brzeżany (since 1945
Berezhany, Ukraine) and Warsaw, followed by a private legal
practice in Warsaw, did not divert Lemkin from elaborating
rudiments of international law dealing with group
exterminations.
Working life
The plaque (Polish/English), 6
Kredytowa Street, Warsaw,
Poland
From 1929 to 1934, Lemkin was the Public Prosecutor for the
district court of Warsaw. In 1930 he was promoted to Deputy
Prosecutor in a local court in Brzeżany. While Public Prosecutor,
Lemkin was also secretary of the Committee on Codification of
the Laws of the Republic of Poland, which codified the penal
codes of Poland, and taught law at Tachkemoni College in Warsaw.
Lemkin, working with Duke University law professor Malcolm
McDermott, translated the The Polish Penal Code of
1932 from Polish to English.
In 1933 Lemkin made a presentation to the Legal Council of the
League of Nations conference on
international criminal law in Madrid,
for which he prepared an essay on the Crime of Barbarity
as a crime against international law. The concept of the crime,
which later evolved into the idea of genocide, was based on the
Armenian Genocide[6][7][8]
and prompted by the experience of Assyrians[5]
massacred in Iraq during the 1933 Simele massacre.[9]
In 1934 Lemkin, under pressure from the Polish Foreign Minister
for comments made at the Madrid
conference, resigned his position and became a private solicitor
in Warsaw. While in Warsaw, Lemkin attended numerous lectures
organized by the Free
Polish University, including the classes of Emil Stanisław Rappaport
and Wacław
Makowski.
In 1937, Lemkin was appointed a member of the Polish mission to
the 4th Congress on Criminal Law in Paris,
where he also introduced the possibility of defending peace
through criminal law. Among the most important of his works of
that period are a compendium of Polish criminal fiscal law, Prawo karne skarbowe
(1938) and a French language work, La réglementation des paiements
internationaux, regarding international trade law
(1939).
World War II
During the Polish
Defensive War of 1939 Lemkin joined the Polish Army and defended Warsaw
during the siege of that city, where
he was injured by a bullet to the hip, afterward evading capture
by the Germans. In 1940 he traveled through Lithuania to reach Sweden,
where he first lectured at the University
of Stockholm. With the help of his pre-war associate
McDermott, Lemkin received permission to enter the United States, arriving in 1941.
Although he managed to save his life, he lost 49 relatives in the Holocaust; they were among over 3 million Polish Jews and Lithuanian Jews who were murdered
during the German occupation. Some members of his family died in
areas annexed by the Soviet Union. The only European members of
Lemkin's family who survived the Holocaust were his brother,
Elias, and his wife and two sons, who had been sent to a Soviet
forced
labor camp. Lemkin did however successfully aid his
brother and family in emigrating to Montreal,
Canada
in 1948.
After arriving in the United States, at the invitation of
McDermott, Lemkin joined the law faculty at Duke University in North Carolina in 1941.[10]
During the Summer of 1942 Lemkin lectured at the School of
Military Government at the University of Virginia. He
also wrote Military Government in Europe, which was a
preliminary version of his more fully developed publication Axis
Rule in Occupied Europe. In 1943 Lemkin was appointed
consultant to the U.S. Board of Economic Warfare
and Foreign Economic
Administration and later became a special adviser on
foreign affairs to the War Department, largely due to his
expertise in international law.
In 1944, the Carnegie
Endowment for International Peace published Lemkin's most
important work, entitled Axis Rule in Occupied Europe,
in the United States. This book included an extensive legal
analysis of German rule in countries occupied by Nazi Germany during the course of World War II, along with the definition of the
term genocide.[11]
Lemkin's idea of genocide as an offense against international
law was widely accepted by the international community and was
one of the legal bases of the Nuremberg Trials.
In 1945 to 1946, Lemkin became an advisor to Supreme Court of
the United States Justice and Nuremberg Trial
chief counsel Robert H. Jackson.
After the war, Lemkin chose to remain in the United States.
Starting in 1948, he gave lectures on criminal law at Yale University. In 1955, he
became a Professor of Law at Rutgers School of Law
in Newark. Lemkin also continued his campaign for international
laws defining and forbidding genocide, which he had championed
ever since the Madrid conference of 1933. He proposed a similar
ban on crimes against humanity during the Paris Peace Conference
of 1945, but his proposal was turned down.
Lemkin presented a draft resolution for a Genocide Convention
treaty to a number of countries in an effort to persuade them to
sponsor the resolution. With the support of the United States,
the resolution was placed before the General Assembly for
consideration. The Convention on the
Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide was
formally presented and adopted on December 9, 1948. In 1951,
Lemkin only partially achieved his goal when the Convention on the
Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide came
into force, after the 20th nation had ratified the treaty. This
treaty had confined its consideration solely to physical aspects
of genocide which The Convention defines as:
…any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy,
in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious
group, such as:
(a) Killing members of the group;
(b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of
the group;
(c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of
life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in
whole or in part;
(d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within
the group;
(e) Forcibly transferring children of the group to
another group.
Lemkin's broader concerns over genocide, as set out in his
"Axis Rule in Occupied Europe",[12]
also embraced what may be considered as non-physical, namely,
psychological acts of genocide which he personally defined as:
"Generally speaking, genocide does not necessarily mean
the immediate destruction of a nation, except when
accomplished by mass killings of all members of a nation.
It is intended rather to signify a coordinated plan of
different actions aiming at the destruction of essential
foundations of the life of national groups, with the aim
of annihilating the groups themselves. The objectives of
such a plan would be disintegration of the political and
social institutions, of culture, language, national
feelings, religion, and the economic existence of national
groups, and the destruction of the personal security,
liberty, health, dignity, and even the lives of the
individuals belonging to such groups. Genocide is directed
against the national group as an entity, and the actions
involved are directed against individuals, not in their
individual capacity, but as members of the national
group."
"Genocide has two phases: one, destruction of the
national pattern of the oppressed group; the other, the
imposition of the national pattern of the oppressor. This
imposition, in turn, may be made upon the oppressed
population which is allowed to remain or upon the
territory alone, after removal of the population and the
colonization by the oppressor's own nationals."
He also outlined his various observed "techniques" [13]
on achieving genocide which ranged from:
Less well known was Lemkin's view on crimes against humanity
perpetrated by the Soviet Union. In 1953, in a speech given in
New York City, he described the "destruction of the Ukrainian
nation" as the "classic example of Soviet genocide," going on to
point out that "the Ukrainian is not and never has been a
Russian. His culture, his temperament, his language, his
religion, are all different... to eliminate (Ukrainian)
nationalism... the Ukrainian peasantry was sacrificed...a famine
was necessary for the Soviet and so they got one to order... if
the Soviet program succeeds completely, if the intelligentsia,
the priest, and the peasant can be eliminated [then] Ukraine
will be as dead as if every Ukrainian were killed, for it will
have lost that part of it which has kept and developed its
culture, its beliefs, its common ideas, which have guided it and
given it a soul, which, in short, made it a nation... This is
not simply a case of mass murder. It is a case of genocide, of
the destruction, not of individuals only, but of a culture and a
nation."[16]
On Sunday, 20 September 1953, “10,000 Americans of Ukrainian
descent. . .gathered at Washington Square, as many of their
compatriots had done on Nov. 18, 1933, in a protest parade that
moved up Fifth Avenue to Thirty-fourth Street and hence to the
meeting place on Eight Avenue,” reported The New York Times.
[11] Among the marchers were members of clergy of the Ukrainian
Orthodox Church of America and people in Ukrainian folk
costumes. Later, an audience 3,000 strong filled the Manhattan
Center, while “hundreds more stood on the sidewalks at
Thirty-fourth Street.” Ukrainians had gathered to remember “that
dark hour in the history of the Ukraine when 5,000,000
inhabitants of the Russian ‘granary’ were starved to quell the
resistance of an independent people to the Soviet regime.”
Congressman Arthur G. Klein, noted the Times, “urged that the
fight for Ukrainian liberation be continued,” while Raphael
Lemkin “said that high crime had been employed 100 years ago
against the Irish.” The Ukrainian Weekly was more
explicit on Lemkin’s speech:
“
An inspiring address was delivered at the rally by
Prof. Raphael Lemkin, author of the United Nations
Convention against Genocide, that is, deliberate mass
murder of peoples by their oppressors. Prof. Lemkin
reviewed in a moving fashion the fate of the millions of
Ukrainians before and after 1932-33, who died victims to
the Soviet Russian plan to exterminate as many of them as
possible in order to break the heroic Ukrainian national
resistance to Soviet Russian rule and occupation and to
Communism.
”
Lemkin’s views on the Ukrainian genocide remained obscured for
55 years. His perceptive analysis of the Ukrainian tragedy
remained virtually unknown and hardly ever figured in
publications on the famine of 1932-1933 or studies of genocide.
The text was brought to public attention only in 2008. Lemkin’s
holistic approach to the Soviet regime’s systematic destruction
of the Ukrainian nation was highly innovative in its time and
has not lost its significance today.
Lemkin is the subject of the plays Lemkin's House by Catherine Filloux (2005),[17]
and If The Whole Body Dies: Raphael Lemkin and the Treaty
Against Genocide by Robert Skloot (2006).[18]
Lemkin died of a heart attack at the public relations office of
Milton H. Blow in New York City in 1959, at the age of 59. Only
seven people attended his funeral.[19]
He was buried in Mount Hebron
Cemetery, Flushing, Queens, New York.[20]
Eliyahu Golomb
From
Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Eliyahu Golomb, founder of the
Haganah
Eliyahu
Golomb(Hebrew:אליהו גולומב, born 2 March
1893, died 11 June 1945) was the leader of theJewishdefense effort
inMandate Palestineand chief
architect of theHaganah, the
underground military organization for defense of theYishuvbetween 1920
and 1948.[1][2][3]at the age of
52. His sonDavidlater served as
a member of the Knesset.
In
1941 Warhaftig and his family travelled east from
Lithuania to Japan. On 5 June 1941 the Warhaftigs leftYokohamaon
the Japanese ocean linerHikawa
Maruand
on 17 June they landed atVancouver,Canada.[1]He
described the trip as "a summer vacation and with the
war seeming to be so far away" although, he said "I
didn't have a peaceful mind because of the strong
responsibility I had to help the Jewish refugees with
the troubles they faced."[1]
In
World War II Rabbi Warhaftig convinced the Japanese
Vice-Consul inKaunas,
Lithuania,Chiune
Sugihara, to issue visas for the entireMir Yeshiva. By so
doing, Chiune Sugihara saved thousands of lives and
families from the Nazis who had occupied first Poland
and then Lithuania.
The
party contended in the1951 electionsalone.
Although it won only two seats, it was included inDavid
Ben-Gurion's coalition, and Warhaftig was
appointed Deputy Minister of Religions in thefourth government. In
1956, Hapoel HaMizrachi and Mizrachi merged to form
theNational Religious Party.
Warhaftig led the party and retained his ministerial
role until the end of thethird Knesset.
After
the1961 elections(the
fifth Knesset) he was appointedMinister
of Religions, a position he held until 1974. In
1981 he retired from the Knesset.
In 1920 he
took eighth in Moscow (Russian Chess Olympiad, 1st URS-ch).
The event was won byAlexander
Alekhine. In 1925 he tied for second/third withBoris Verlinsky,
behindAleksandr Sergeyev, in the Moscow
championship.
Abraham
Friedberg
Abraham Friedberg was born Abraham Judel
Taratotsky on September 17, 1883, in Volkovysk,
Byelorussia, the son of Bezalel Taratotsky and his
second wife Leiba Frieda (maiden name unknown). He
was the youngest child, the only child of his
mother. There were three other children by
Bezalel's first wife, Gila Argenetsky; a girl,
Dora, and twin boys.
Bezalel was an itinerant tinker, that is, he went
from town to town fixing things. Leiba Frieda was
much younger than her husband and had the
responsibility of caring for her son Judel and her
three stepchildren. Photo:Betzalel Taratotsky
with his son, Abraham Judel, circa 1890.
One evening, while Bezalel was out of town, the
twin boys complained it was very cold. Leiba
Frieda told them to sleep inside the fireplace on
a ledge where it would be warm. The next morning,
when she awoke, she found the boys dead,
asphyxiated by fumes from the fireplace. The boys
were buried the next day according to Jewish law.
When people died in town, it was customary to hold
a feather to their nose to demonstrate they were
not breathing therefore confirming their death.
There was a rumor in Volkovysk, where superstition
was part of daily life, that this test was not
done, and the boys were not dead but buried alive.
When Bezalel returned home a few days later and
heard the news he was besides himself. Family
legend says that he cried so hard and rubbed his
eyes so much from the anguish of his loss that he
blinded himself. There are three known pictures of
Bezalel Taratotsky in existence, each taken at a
different time of his life. In all, his right eye
is half closed as if it had a permanent droop.
Things were never the same between the husband and
wife after the incident. Leiba Frieda decided to
abandon her husband and, in about 1887, left
Poland and traveled to Palestine with her small
son Judel. When she arrived there, the Turkish
government refused to allow Judel to remain in the
country. Male Jews were not permitted to be
permanent residents. Leiba Frieda took her son
back to Volkovysk, left him with his father, and
returned to Palestine where she lived the rest of
her life as a pious woman, praying daily. She died
about 1900 and supposedly is buried on Mt. Carmel
near Haifa.
Young, motherless Judel was brought
up by his half sister Dora, until she immigrated
to the United States about 1891. When he was about
eight years old he learned a trade, that of a
bricklayer, the occupation of many of his cousins.
Photo:
1936 bricklayers union card of Abraham Friedberg.
Rose
Cemnic Friedberg
Rose Friedberg was born Frushe Cemnic (pronounced
Tzemnitz) on July 7, 1888, in Jalowka, Poland, a
town about 30 miles southwest of Volkovysk. She
was the eldest child of Abraham Cemnic
(c1847-1919) and Sarah Malka Warnofsky
(c1866-1922) and had a younger brother Meir
(called Zaidele) and sister Sima (Sadie). Sarah
Malka was the second wife of Abraham. He divorced
his first wife of 12 years because she was barren.
Abraham was a weaver by trade but was also a money
lender. He was quite rich and employed servants.
Rose's sister, Sadie, immigrated to the United
States on July 1, 1913 on the SS Gothland from
Antwerp. She married Samuel Lazovick and lived in
Philadelphia until her death in 1997 at age 99.
Their brother Zaidele remained in Bialystok and
died during the Holocaust. He was married and his
one daughter, Tzima, a participant in the
Bialystok resistance movement, died also.
In their early teens, Frushe and Judel were part
of the same social group. She had her eye on him
because he was a very handsome man; however, he
was accounted for--he had a girl friend. No
problem for Frushe. She bought herself a beautiful
belt, put it on and went over to Judel's
girlfriend and exclaimed, "Look at the beautiful
present Judel got me." The girl was furious and
refused to associate with her boyfriend after the
incident.
They were married on October 25, 1902, Frusha was
just 14 years old and Judel was 19.
They lived in Bialystok, a major Polish city just
25 miles northwest of Jalowka. Their first child
was born in 1903, a girl named Frieda, who was
named for Judel's mother who had died some months
earlier. While Frusha was pregnant with her first
child, a witch told her that the child belonged to
her, and if she would not share the child, it
would die. Frusha was petrified. After the child
was born, she brought her to the witch's home and
left her as requested. This process of sharing the
child became tiresome and one day she stopped
bringing the baby to the witch. The child died
shortly thereafter.
The young couple decided it was time
to leave Poland and immigrate to the United
States. As was the custom with many couples then,
the husband immigrated first, found a job, and
then called for his wife. Judel came to United
States about 1904. The exact date is not known. He
arrived in New York and no doubt went to his
sister Dora's house. For some reason, he went to
Chicago to visit relatives. Who these people were
is not exactly known, but there were Taratotskys
as well as Cemnics living in Chicago in the first
decade of this century.
Judel was having a good time in the United States.
He was a very handsome man and was not very
motivated to call for his wife. His family set him
straight and finally Frushe arrived in New York on
December 19, 1905, on the SS Blucher from Hamburg,
Germany. At that time, Judel was living at 17
Barclay Street on the Lower East Side of New York.
When Judel Taratotsky changed his name to Abraham
Friedberg is not known but it appeared to be a
gradual process. One family legend says it was
changed at Ellis Island. This is definitely not
so. Another legend says that it was changed at the
bricklayers union office. This might be true
regarding the `Friedberg' part of his new name.
Evidence suggests he first changed his name to Joe
Friedberg. That is how he is named on his eldest
son's birth certificate. `Joe' was the
Americanizing of Judel and Friedberg was the
married name of his sister Dora. What motivated
him to change his first name from Joe to Abraham
is unknown but Judel Taratotsky's American name
became Abraham Friedberg, the exact name of his
brother-in- law.
Photo:
Abraham and Rosse Friedberg on the occassion of
their 60th wedding anniversary in 1961
The couple lived their entire life on the Lower
East Side of New York. They had eleven children in
the United States: Hyman (Herman), Rebecca
(Peggy), Sadie (Sally), Philip, Henry, Tzerel
(Sylvia), Rhoda (died aged nine months), Alvin,
Murray, Benjamin and Natalie.
The
Friedberg family portrait taken in 1936 on the
occasion of Abraham and Rose's 35th wedding
anniversary.
Seated on floor:
Arlene Rosenthal, Carl Berger, Anita Berger,
Natalie Friedberg
Seated: Peggy
Friedberg Berger, Herman (Hy) Fried, Rose Cemnic
Friedberg, Abraham Friedberg, Pearl Rafalowitz
Friedberg, Stella Terris Fried
Standing: Murray
Freidberg, Alvin Fried, Sam Berger, Sallie
Friedberg Rosenthal, Jack Rosenthal, Sylvia
Friedberg Mokotoff, Jack Mokotoff, Toby Sparber
Fried, Henry Fried, Philip Fried, Benjamin Fri
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Belarus
Abraham
Friedberg
Young, motherless Judel was brought
up by his half sister Dora, until she immigrated
to the United States about 1891. When he was about
eight years old he learned a trade, that of a
bricklayer, the occupation of many of his cousins.
Photo:
1936 bricklayers union card of Abraham Friedberg.
The young couple decided it was time
to leave Poland and immigrate to the United
States. As was the custom with many couples then,
the husband immigrated first, found a job, and
then called for his wife. Judel came to United
States about 1904. The exact date is not known. He
arrived in New York and no doubt went to his
sister Dora's house. For some reason, he went to
Chicago to visit relatives. Who these people were
is not exactly known, but there were Taratotskys
as well as Cemnics living in Chicago in the first
decade of this century.
