My great uncle Max (Menachem Mendel) Hillman or Ilman belonged to a long line of rabbis who originated in Metz. To my surprise in my research I found that the family first settled in Lithuania in the town of Zagare and then Linkuva where a good many others did as well and they then traveled to Bauska, Latvia where they managed to make a living and settle in.
Being on the border, Bauska was a place to purchase or obtain horses. Whilst being a horse thief may have been an occupation worth promulgating. It was quite the occupation to follow despite the negative aspects.
In fact there were a number of other towns in Lithuania who provided the initial jobs and support for the Jewish families from places even further afield such as Hamburg/Altoona, Cologne, and Metz. The family names coincided many times with a particular spelling such as the Hillman’s who were listed as Ilman or Hillman or even Gilman.
Many times too the Jews of Bauska were buried in nearby cemeteries such as Skaistkelne, Latvia, as many of the Jews were intermarried with families of the neighborhood. My great uncle Max remembered too that that the Jews were blamed first for the poisoning of the wells in Bauska and there was much negative activities by the Latvians in regard to this.
In addition, Max was one of eight siblings with seven brothers and one sister and his oldest brother Leib or Louis and some of his other brothers were involved in the 1905 Student Revolution in Bauska where they passed out political publications and did such other things and were arrested and in the end managed to flee in 1905 through 1907 to South Africa, German Southwest Africa, Panama and finally to New York, New Jersey and Connecticut in America.
Samuel Simon was a friend of my great uncle Max’s from Bauska who was a house painter and he married Rose Zadekowitz, the sister of Max’s wife Asna Leah Zadekowitz. There were Tankelovitz and Singers too and even Meyrowitz in Birzai and Kupiskis. In fact, there were several sisters and cousins who intermarried into these families. Their names were abundant in the birth records of Lithuania and there were copious notes that they settled in Bauska.
Not only did Bauska families come from Linkuva, but quite a number of the Rabbinical families who had settled in Zagare, Lithuania. One of the most famous of the Hillmans there was Sidney Hillman who was known as the diplomat of labor in America. He was a left of center political personality and had to flee to Manchester, England, where many of his political stripe of the Bundist group or even Menshevik group and others settled in and some of his relatives such as his uncle and two brothers lived. And yes, Marx and Engels as well as other famous political leaders lived and wrote there too.
Latvia for such a small place had an over-abundance of outstanding rabbis and reverends such Rev Leib Isaac Falk who was born in Bauska and attached to the WWI Legion, Rabbi Kook who served in a rabbinical post was known throughout the Jewish world and Rabbi Rosen a brilliant rabbi, and many others.
On that note, let me state that there were a number of female communist or bundist apparatchiks. The sister of Samuel Simon of Bauska was a high up communist apparatchik to Lenin and her family had to flee and change their names when the top level Jews were dispatched so to speak by their boss Lenin. I believe that Samuel Simon’s sister may have been killed at that time, but Samuel’s mother managed to escape the long arm of Lenin and was able to reach America and her son Samuel.
In addition, my great uncle Max’s sister Sheine “Jenny” Feldman and her husband also were part of the political scenery of Bauska too as was Samuel Simon’s sister. Jenny managed to leave Bauska with her parents Chatzkel Hillman and Fanny Tankelovitz Hillman and ended up in Bridgeport, CT.
Ann Rabinowitz