Introduction
Yitzhak Gordon, one of the editors of Sefer Kobylnik introduced himself to me in the 1980s by sending me a copy of this Yizkor Book. Here is dedicated to those who perished notes and stories and images. In turn, Yitzhak helped me find the missing parts of my Gordon family genealogy in Kobylnik and Southern Russia. Years later he introduced me to Meier Swirsky with whom I corresponded and talked often by phone as we compared notes while working on this website. When I went to Kobylnik and stayed in the home of Monus Gordon they had already paved the way to my welcome in the town where my great great grandfather, Boruch Chaikel Horwitz, married my great great grandmother, Roche Beile Krivitsky. According to Meier, there was no point in trying to create family trees for the population of Myadel and Kobylnik because everyone was related to everyone else. So from 1795, when my Krivitsky family settled in Kobylnik, they had been inter-marrying in these small neighboring shtetls: Svir, Kobylnik and Myadl.
The Righteous Among the Nations
Kobylnik was a town where Jews and Gentiles went to school together. Zofia Dziergacz remained close to Meir Svirsky after the war and before his death working with him throughout the years on Jewish projects.
She continues to welcome the return of Jewish Kobylnikers.
This is a letter to us from Patrice:
I am a grand son of Piotr MARKIEWICZ, the son of Kazimierz and of Efrosyne HOPEN or GOPEN. Piotr left Kobylnik in 1930 for emigrating to France. My Markiewicz family is connected with the Dziergacz one. Meir Swirsky knows very well Zofia Dziergacz (he went to school with her when they were teenagers), who was a kind of cousin of my grand father, Piotr Markiewicz. The grand father of Zofia Dziergacz was the hair dresser and the photograph of Kobylnik. She kepts a “huge mine” of pictures concerning the village, the people, the buildings, the economic, social and cultural life. She lives alone and she is yet 88 years old. You could get in touch with her? I visited her once in 1992 and we still do correspond with each other.
I also have a genealogical tree concerning the Markiewicz and Dziergacz and others families of Kobylnik, some pictures, a movie that I did in Kobylnik in 1992. I still have some family there. I would like to back there sometimes in the next few months.
Feel free to contact me again,
Very Sincerely Yours,
Patrice MARKIEWICZ.
Content last updated Friday, May 15, 2015 at 04:28 PM US Eastern Standard Time
