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Krzywcza קשיוצ'ה Poland (Kriftch)
This website is dedicated to the memory of the Jewish community of Krzywcza and to the history of the families from the town. Those with ancestors from Krzywcza live in many locations throughout the world. Formerly in western Galicia in the Austrian Empire, Krzywcza is the seat of the Gmina Krzywcza, a rural administrative district in Przemyśl County (Powiat Przemyski), Subcarpathian Province (Podkarpackie Voivodeship) in southeastern Poland.
Please contact Joy
Kestenbaum for comments or contributions.
Compiled by Joy Kestenbaum (jkestenb@gmail.com) Copyright © 2016 Joy Kestenbaum You are visitor # **** Many thanks to
Krzysztof
(Chris) Malczewski and Elzbieta (Ella)
Kwapisz, who accompanied me to Krzywcza in
the summer of 2010 and led us to our
serendipitous meeting with Piotr Haszczyn,
local historian knowledgeable about the
history of Krzywcza, including its Jewish
past. Piotr guided us on an afternoon tour
in which we discussed where some of the
Jewish families had lived and the location
of the site of the destroyed synagogue.
Piotr has developed a website on Krzywcza
and its three cultures, Polish Catholic,
Ukrainian Greek Catholic, and Jewish.
Krzysztof, Elzbieta and I also undertook
research on Krzywcza at the Polish
State Archives in Przemyśl.
My thanks also to Lukasz Biedka for
introducing me to journalist
Jacek Szwic, whom I met with
Lukasz in Przemyśl,
and to
Gustava Weiner, nee Rosner, with whom I
corresponded. I
thank Betty Amara, who first contacted me
through
JewishGen's Family Finder
a few months after my return from Poland
and Krzywcza and her subsequent visit, for
her friendship and to Betty, Joseph Weiss,
Chet Ringel, Laurie Margolies, Judi
Kirk, June B. Backer
and Elaine Gordon for
contributing photographs and sharing
information about their families.
Fortunately, my late father told me that
my paternal grandfather David Kestenbaum,
for whom my brother was named, was from
Krzywcza and had ties to Przemyśl,
which has been supported through research,
and provided me with the names of his
aunts, uncles and cousins. (I had met only
one of his paternal aunts, Regina, and
three of his first cousins on that side.)
Unfortunately, I never followed up with
his suggestion to speak with his
older cousin Leo Kestenbaum to
inquire about our family history,
for much later I learned that Leo had been
the last president of the First Krzywcza
Am San Sick & Benevolent Ass'n and had
donated some of its records to YIVO
Institute for Jewish Research. Later
research informed me that my grandfather
and two of his brothers, including Leo's
father, were among the landsmanschaft's
founders and first directors. My first
visit to the society's cemetery plots at
Beth David Cemetery was for the funeral of
Leo's wife Vicki, who died in 1991, when I
met some of my Kestenbaum cousins for the
first time. Since
then I have visited the cemetery,
where my paternal grandparents are
buried, numerous times.
Additionally, Betty asked me to find
Joseph Weiss, her relation, who shared photographs
and personal memories with me and connected
me with his cousin, whose mother was a
close friend of my paternal great-aunt
Regina in Krzywcza and remained so after
they both immigrated to New York. They are
buried near each other in the Krzywcza
plots at Beth David. More recently
Betty put me in contact with Laurie
Margolies, the granddaughter of
Regina Weiss Bessen, my great-aunt
Regina's close friend from Krzywcza. During
the past ten years I've also located and
connected with my second cousins Michael
Hertzberg, Susan Ullman Z"L,
and Gail Odoherty and have also identified
through research and connected with a
few third cousins and have explored DNA
testing. Michael, Susan and Gail also
shared family photographs. I have also
learned more about the Rymanow branch of
the Kestenbaum family through Malka Shacham Doron,
with whom I first corresponded through
JewishGen's Family Finder and later met in
Rymanow in 2010 and in Israel in 2015; in
Israel I also met Betty, as well as the
daughter-in-law and grandsons of one of my
father's Kestenbaum cousins, the only one
in her family to have survived the Shoah,
as she managed to leave Poland before
the start of World War II.
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