1920-1939 Polish Records

Twentieth Century Records:
Polish Records of Lyakhovichi Residents and
Emigres (from 1920-1939) by Deborah G. Glassman, copyright.

There is a rich core of material available from records created by and for the Polish government after World War I and before World War II. These interwar years were decades in which the Jews of Lyakhovichi were: educated in schools supervised by Polish authorities; serving in the military of the newly rebuilt Polish state; being counted in two national censuses; voting in national and local elections; buying and selling real estate and other assets; and fully participating in Polish life as modern citizens. On this page you will find extracted lists, both ordinary and extraordinary. A list of school children in 1926; a list of Polish citizens from Lyakhovichi and its surrounding towns applying for the passport visa referred to as Polish Aliyah passports; and a description of specific documents identified in archives, with details we look forward to posting. See the list of Polish citizens from our area applying for the Aliyah passports below.

Student Lists from Baranovichi Tarbut School and Gymnasium in Slonim, 1926
(high-resolution versions: left, right)

These images are part of a wonderful 1926 document where every school child in Poland signed a "birthday" greeting to the United States of America on the US's 150th anniversary. The many volume set of pages from each school in Poland is at the Library of Congress in Washington DC. and the not yet digitized volumes include a page from the elementary school in Lyakhovichi. If anyone is heading to Washington DC and can get us a copy of the Lyakhovichi page, we would post it immediately with full credit and our thanks! The children at the Baranovichi school imaged above have been indexed in our surname index for some time but were never separately noted here. They are now listed immediately below. Note that though most of the children's first names are simply initials, that girls can be distinguished from boys by the appropriate ending of their name Wengerovna vs Wenger, et al. The list is in the order in which the names appear beginning with column IIIa.

Students of Class IIIa: Feldenkrajzowna M; Florenswonna F; Kaplanowna S; Kudewicka M; Kaplanowna, R; Ruczynska L, Tureki N; Rabenowna M; Woloshwianska M; Farber R; Epsztejn A, Winograd T; Hobermanowna Z; Hobermanowna G; Gotlibowna R; Dawidowski G; Busel M; Jedlowicz F; Wejnger A; Wejngerowna B; Nageldowna F; teacher Lerman, W

Students of Class III: Kuydewicki H; Puczynski T; Turecka B; Brawermandowna B; Blochowna M; Kaganowne W; Kacnelson G; Kroszynska R; Kusznier G; Fino(?na) B; Szyf J; Grajnberg T; Szulkinsowna R; Rabinowicz P; Zdanowska M; Lewenbuk G; (illeg to me); Mukasiej M; Susnics(?) M; teacher Wajnberg, M

Records of Polish government agencies in the Belarus National Historical Archives in Minsk The Lyakhovichi Research Group and this shtetl website are tremendously lucky to have Dr. Neville Lamdan as the hands-on knowledgeable researcher contributing his expertise. His personal visits to the Minsk archives and to Lyakhovichi, and his considered study of every document identified by other researchers working at his direction, play an incomparable role in the discovery, accessing, and understanding, of the source material. Dr. Lamdan provided a fond-by-fond description of the Minsk archives" Lyakhovichi-relevant holdings, and though many still remain for further examination and inclusion - you would do well to study this list at the Inventory of Holdings at the Belarus National Historic Archives in Minsk.

Lyakhovichi Jews in Polish Schools (1920-1939)

In the 1920s Lyakhovichi had a public elementary school which most of the Jewish children attended. It also had a Tarbut school and around 50 people in a Yeshiva in the town itself. Lyakhovichi Yeshiva students also attended schools in Slutsk and Kletsk and Baranovichi. There is a list of some of the cheders, small Hebrew schools for children before bar mitzvah, listed in the Yizkor book. Gymnasium, or High School was not free, but there were well respected ones throughout the area including Baranovichi and Slonim, which had Lyakhovichi students. Jews also attended the Teachers' Colleges, the technical schools, the schools of Pharmacy, et al, in the region in this time period. We have more documents from such schools in the vicinity around Lyakhovichi, so let us know if Lyakhovichi students went to them. Baranovichi was the site for a number of educational endeavors from Western relief organizations that made a special effort to reach out across the Baranovichi region - schools run by ORT, by Tarbut, by the Orthodox Educational movement, and others, were abundant. We have two documents from nearby posts - the roster from the Baranovichi Tarbut School pictured above with 42 signatures and a comparable document from the Slonim co-ed gymnasium. There is a document for Lyakhovichi from an elementary school from the same series, and we would like someone to please get us a copy from the Library of Congress (or to just extract the information if a copy cannot be acquired.) In the State Archives of Brest there is a list of every teacher in the Baranovichi povet (including Lyakhovichi) for 1920-1939, purportedly including those in Jewish schools like the Tarbut schools and the Yeshiva and the Orthodox chederim. Please share school pictures, help us learn about resources, and inform us if research or historical materials related to any of these areas is published or available to be indexed, or if you have photocopies of any of these materials from the archives.

Jews in the Polish Army

Lyakhovichi was in Military District #9 of Poland between 1920 and 1939. The records of this group were at the Ministry of Military Affairs of Poland (DOK-9) and records related to servicemen from this group are stored at the Brest State Archives. Those records include personnel files of officers 1920-1939; the year 1920’s files on servicemen including: identity cards, birth & residence certificates, and other documents; and the names of young men born between 1904 and 1907 who were eligible for military service in military district #9 (no date on file in published inventory). Young men born between 1919-1922 for conscription, in a list of 1939. If you have researched these materials and can share sample documents or information learned, we would like to hear from you! View the image of Lyakhovichi Jews in Polish Army to see some of our young men in Polish uniform. We would like to quickly augment this section with some of the documentation at the Brest State Archives (or that you have on your family members) on Lyakhovichi Jews in the Polish Army.

Memorial to the Polish Jewish soldiers who fell in action in World War II in the ranks of the Polish Armies

This monument stands in the cemetery where Israel's soldiers are honored, Mt Herzel in Jerusalem. - May their memory be a blessing for all time.

When the German army rolled into Poland, Jews were still serving in that force, in the great numbers that reflected our population numbers and our five hundred year presence in the land. Among the thousands of Jews defending Poland were five Lechovichers who appear in the records of the Jewish Historical Institute in Warsaw as captured by the Wehrmacht. That there were five from our town, in this chance-reported group of under 3,000 captives, indicates that there were probably many others from Lyakhovichi who were still in Polish uniform on that date. Josef Birger survived, he campaigned vigorously for the recognition of the service of Polish-Jewish soldiers for years, though for many years he never discussed his wartime experiences with his children who were born in Israel. His testimony appears among the sources in the Polish State Archives cited in a book titled JEWISH MILITARY CASUALTIES IN THE POLISH ARMIES IN WORLD WAR II By BENJAMIN MEIRTCHAK, which was published by The Association of Jewish War Veterans of Polish Armies in Israel, 158 Dizengof St. 63461 Tel Aviv, Israel; Tel: 00-972-3-5225078; and Fax: 00-972-3-5236684.

The author points out that 200,000 Jews were fighting in Polish uniform as World War II began and among the 420,000 Polish soldiers taken prisoner by the Germans, around 60,000 were Jews. The memorial pictured above is for all of those Polish Jewish Soldiers who fell in defense of Poland and at the hands of inhuman treatment by their captors.

Polish Jewish POWs During WWII from Lyakhovichi

BIRGIER, Josif Wolfborn 1914 Lachowicze (webmaster note – survived and led campaign for recognition of Polish-Jewish soldiers)
BIRGER, Josef Volf(See Birgier, Josef)
CZARNY, Abraham Majerborn 1914 Lachowicze
CHARNEY, Abram Meir(See Czarny, Abraham)
LACHOWICKI, Max Ajzykborn 1915 Lachowicze
LACHOWITZKI, Max Yitzhak(See Lachowicki, Max)
LIPKUS, Nuchaborn 1915 Lachowicze
SENICKI, Mowsza Izraelborn 1910 Lachowicze
SHENITZKI, Moshe Yisrael(See Senicki, Mowsza)

Polish Records - Census

The Poles conducted Censuses in 1921 and 1931. Anyone with information about the accessibility of these records or even the archives or office holding them, please contact us. These records were stored on a national basis in or near Warsaw, and are not declared as destroyed in WWII.

Polish Records - Vital Records:
ZAGS Office State Archive of Register Offices for the Brest Region
18 Svobody Sq., 224030, Brest
Tel: (375-162) 26 73 22

This office is supposed to be able to tell us the location of Civil registration records for Lyakhovichi covering the last seventy-five years, and as acquisition is ongoing from local offices and passes on a schedule to a national archive, they are often knowledgeable about materials from dates not covered by their mandate. I have not seen information on any civil registration from Lyakhovichi, please help me learn more.

Polish Records - Voters

Poland elected a national Sejm (parliament) in 1930 and municipal authorities more frequently. Baranovichi's voters and those of Novaia Mysh were recorded in fonds at the Brest State Archives. I have not yet seen a list that specifies Lyakhovichi, though Lyakhovichi was in Baranovichi povet whose records are at Brest State Archives.

Polish Business Directories of Lyakhovichi and surrounds can be found in the Complete Lyakhovichi Records Catalog under Directories. Also see the Directories of Lyakhovichi - Russian Empire Period and Trade and Professional- Poland.

Currently includes information about Lyakhovichi and Baranovichi midwives in the Polish period. Hope to be adding Lawyers and Doctors in a future update. We have added a list of doctors who practiced in the Baranovichi area who were reported murdered in the Holocaust.

Polish Real Estate Records

In the Spring of 2008 we were fortunate to be able to publish records from the time of the Russian Empire related to property ownership in Lyakhovichi. We have a list of nine hundred people who owned property in Lyakhovichi between 1874 and 1911. Many times we were able to ascertain relationships between grantors and grantees and to learn about owners who even predated the records. But as late as November 2008, there is still little info on the records kept under the Polish government. The materials from 1920-1939 related to property transfer of real estate, or related to property transferred in testate or intestate proceedings or related to special documentation of movable property. We know that a "newspaper of record" for legal notices that included testate proceedings, court records, et al for Poland, nationwide in this period, was the Polski Monitor. But reference to the place index so far created by the hardworking team of JRI-Poland, seems to indicate that Novogrodek woiwode was not being recorded there. Do you have a source to suggest? Are there any indications that any records from our part of Novogrodek woiwode are in existence? Was there a different publication that was its "newspaper of record?" Was there another source of information on court proceedings for lawyers? Was there something equivalent to what in the United States would be title insurance firms that recorded transfers of property, the parties, and the consideration? Do you know a good source of information on Polish legal records in this time period?

Baranowicze powiat government officials (high-resolution version)

This was part of a series of birthday greetings to the US on its one hundred and fiftieth anniversary in 1926. In this time period, Lyakhovichi had a Jewish mayor, so it is possible that there were a few Jews on this page.

Polish Aliyah Passports
100+ Visas received for Applicants Living in Lyakhovichi
and surrounding Communities

The webmaster has extracted the names and third party info for 100 people who gave a residence of "Lachowicze" or "Baranowicze" with more who cited nearby communities like Hantsewicze, Lipsk, Gorodeij, and others that are counted among Lyakhovichi and Baranovichi dependent towns. It is not always certain that these are our towns in Novogrodek woiwode, as there are other towns by all of these names in Poland in this period. The extraction and indexing is complete, but it seems that the final table will not be included in this update, please check back again. We will also put the notice of the new material, on the homepage of our website, so you will be reminded.

The following list is only of the people who were born in Lachowicze in the district of Baranowicze, Novogrodek powiat of Poland. We will be adding those resident there as well as those residing in Baranovichi, Medvedichi, Gantsevichi, and other nearby communities, in the Fall/Winter 2009/2010 update. The notation of current residence may give clues to other records. As you find the documents related to your relatives in these files, please share copies with us. They will both document your kinsmen and inspire other researchers to uncover more relevant files.

SurnameNameBirth TownYear BornResidence
ARONCZYKEfroimLachowicze1890Wilno
BIRGERLejbaLachowicze1914Baranowicze
BRYNBERGBerkoLachowicze1905Krzywoszyn
GAWZEFajwelLachowicze1910Warszawa
GAWZELipaLachowicze1917Kleck
KAMILSosieLachowce1891Haifa
KARELICSzlomaWilno1910Lachowicze
LACHOWICKIIzaakBaranowicze1919Baranowicze
RABINOWICZIckoLachowicze1912Lachowicze
REINHARZGicieLachowicze1913Haifa
SYGALOWICZBencjanLachowicze1877Baranowicze
TUKACZYNSKIZalmanLachowicze1908Lachowicze
WOLOCHWIANSKASoraLachowicze1910Lachowicze
WOLOCHWIANSKIWolfLachowicze1909Lachowicze

The Polish government maintained other lists of visas confirmed. In a time when 100,000 Jews exited Europe to go to the tiny Dominican Republic in the Caribbean, when tens of thousands got visas to Latin American nations, and when even getting a rejection for a visa was a paper-trail creating process, there are many more to be investigated. And herein lies our dilemma. We have to concentrate our efforts on records specifying Lyakhovichi. If you are aware of a database creation project, perhaps by a university or by an archives or research group, that would create access to a large group of these records, we would like to be informed so that we can get volunteers to search them for our people. Will you help us search for more records to search? Contact us to send us information and remember to put Lyakhovichi in the subject of the email.

A Register at the Polish Consulate in Shanghai

This register dated 1934-1941 is 200 pages long. Permanent addresses in Poland, date, profession, religion, and other details, are available on each person. 60 percent of those registered are Jews. This is indexed on the Library of Congress webpage.

Jews from Lachowicze, Poland, are beginning to be uncovered in its pages.

  • TUKACZYNSKI, Szewel and Dwejra, who later reached the US under the names Saul and Deborah Tuchachinski have a marriage certificate in this register in Sept 1939. Lachowicze is cited as his birthplace in the record.

  • MALACHOWSKI, Hirsz of Lachowicze appeared in the book just a few days before Pearl Harbor in December 1941.

  • BREVDA, Nevach of Lachowicze made his mark on the record book just two weeks after that.