The Hirsch Migration To America

In July 1909, the eldest of the brothers, Isaac ("Eisik Girsch"), age 30, followed his brothers to the US leaving behind his wife, Sure (Kypher later Cooopersmith) and four children who wouldn't join him until 1912. In December 1909, five months after Isaac arrived, the Hirsch brothers were finally joined by their parents, Ephraim, age 48 at the time and Gitel, age 47, and their two youngest siblings: Abe (Lewis), age 11, and "Yeute" (Jennie), age 10. Ephraim and Gitel were traveling together with another young woman from Mlynov, Mollie ("Mali") Shargel, who was the eldest daughter of the Shargel Family from Mlynov and the first of her immediate family to immigrate.

With the arrival of Ephraim and Gitel and their two youngest children in New York, all of their immediate family had made their way to the US with the exception of one daughter, Ruchel Leah, who had married Jacob Gurtin by 1904, when they had their first child, Saul Gurtin (1904–1986). Four other Gurtin children followed: Beatrice (1907– ~1926), Miriam Fidel (1908–2002), Edna Aronson (1912–1995), and Milton (1915–1977). The Gurtin family remained in Europe until after WWI when they finally were able to immigrate and join the family in Jersey City in 1922.

The Hirsch brothers initially lived in the Lower East Side of Manhattan at 86 Lewis St. and stayed with a friend or cousin whose name was something like "A. Waitzer" or "Weizer", but who has not yet been identified. They remained in the Lower East Side until shortly before their parents arrived in 1909 when they moved uptown to 116th in East Harlem. They were not there long and by 1911 moved across from Manhattan to the up-and-coming Jersey City where they acquired an existing laundry business. There they capitalized on the shift emerging in the industry from "steam" laundry to what was called "wet wash." The laundry business now picked up dirty clothes and linens from a family's home, washed them, and then delivered them back to the family still wet, for the wife of the house to hang dry. The innovation in practice significantly dropped the cost of the laundry and made it available to a far great number of families. Advertisements at the time touted the cost-effective, labor saving new approach that improved the lives of housewives, and also leveraged a cleaner more sanitary process. Wet wash laundry took the industry by storm.

Article about the up-and-coming area of Jersey City across from Manhattan. The New-York Tribune, Mar. 8, 1908, p. 12.

The first "Standard Wet Wash Laundry" ad. The Jersey Journal May 13, 1911, p. 17. The ad ran multiple times that month.

By 1930, "Standard Wet Wash Laundry," as the family called it, had grown from the old Sherwood firehouse with two horse-drawn wagons into a modern plant with a fleet of cars and over three hundred workers. During this time, the business supported all of the Hirsch brothers' families, plus a number of cousins such as Aleph Katz, who worked there. By the late 1920s, A. D. Hirsch and his brothers were the largest financial contributors in Jersey City to the new Jewish Community Center, the auditorium of which they named after their mother, Gertrude (Gitel) Hirsch, who had passed away in about 1915.

The Hirsch brothers gave more than half the pledges for the new auditorium, which they dedidcated to their mother, Gertrude Hersch. The Jersey Journal, August 7, 1930, p. 3.

A. D. Hirsch also got involved in the development of a new synagogue in Jersey City that was "rooted in historic traditions of their fathers" but would also "modernize the services." The Jersey Journal Nov. 17, 1928, p. 10.

The Arrival of Ephraim's sisters

With Ephraim's family settling into Jersey City around 1911, his sisters and their children began arriving in the US, to rejoin their husbands/fathers who had already arrived several years earlier. Ephraim's sister, Clara Newman, arrived in 1911 with her children and headed to Providence to join her husband Jacob who had arrived in 1907.

Two of Ephraim's other sisters arrived in 1913. His sister, Zelda Berger, now widowed, arrived in May 30, 1913 with two of her daughters, Sheindel (Sara) Berger and Eva Neistein, with Eva's two eldest children. They headed to Chicago to join Zelda's son, Nathan Berger, and son-in-law, Paul (Pinchus) Neistein, who had arrived there earlier. The Bergers were accompanied by other Mlynov travelers, Jacob Wallace, and Ruchel Steinberg; the latter would soon marry Zelda's son, Nathan. The Berger family saga is told in more detail earlier. Arriving six months later was another of Ephraim's sisters, Henie (Anna) Katz, age 38, with her three younger children, Samuel 19, Aleph ("Moische"), 16, and Helen (Chane), 9. They too were finally reunited with her husband, Chaim Yerukim and eldest daughter Sophie (Shifre), who had arrived in 1907.

The Gurtin Family Before Migration. (from left:) Edna, Jacob, Saul, Miriam, Ruchel, Beatrice and Milton. Courtesy of Andrea Carter.

The Newman Family in Providence circa 1912. Standing center: Clara (Hirsch) Newman and husband Jacob Newman and children.^[1] Courtesy of Caryle (Newman) Katz.

The Last Wave of Migration

During WWI, immigration was no longer possible. Once the war ended, Mlynov became part of the newly recreated Poland and immigration to the US opened up once again. Ephraim and Gitel's daughter, Ruchel Leah Gurtin, and her family made their way to the US arriving in September 1922. At the time of arrival, Ruchel Leah is 40, her husband Jacob is 45, their son Szowel (Saul), 18, Basia (Beatrice) 15, Malka (Miriam) 13, Enia (Edna) 10, and Michel (Milton), 7. Milton who was the youngest of the Gurtins later recalled what it was like getting ready to leave for America for a young boy. He writes:

The preparing for the journey was in itself an adventure. The taking of passport pictures, the selling of the house and of its contents, the hurrying and scurrying about, excited us. Preparations were high for our trip to America. The day before we left will always be fixed in my mind. My friends gathered in a group and we were discussing my prospective journey. One boy predicted that the boat would sink and we would all drown. He exerted all his imagination to paint this scene and by the time he was finished I was terribly frightened.

The others came to the rescue by saying they heard that the streets are paved with gold and silver in America. They ended up in wishing me Bon Voyage and asking me to spare a few gold coins for them. I remember the trip vaguely, - the getting on and off trains, the surge of the crowds around the stations, the hustle and bustle of the larger cities. The journey across the ocean is hazy. A few times I had to take a cold shower of salty water and then was inspected. I dreaded this procedure because the brine would splash into my mouth and eyes leaving a stinging and thirsty feeling. The third class passengers enjoyed their journey better than the first or second. The many songs and dances that filled the air showed their enthusiasm and happiness in the thought of beginning a new life in a new country with every chance of success. At the sight of the Statue of Liberty everyone began to sing, shout, dance, and even to cry for sheer happiness.

The Ghost's Son Arrives

There was one additional Hirsch family member who arrived in the 1920s. His name was Morko Daniel Hirsz (soon to be Daniel Hirsch) and he arrived on November 10, 1926 with his wife Rachel (Losak) and daughter, Dolli. He appears to be the son of the Daniel Hirsch who was murdered and became a ghost in Mlynov.

The family somehow made it to the US just in the nick of time before immigration completely shut down. Their immigration in 1926 is the last direct legal immigration of a Mlynov born individual found to date. In fact, the Immigration Act of 1924 substantially curtained immigration from Eastern and Southern Europe by setting quotas based on national origins and limiting the number of new immigrants to two percent of each nationality in the US as of the 1890 national census. Because of these quotas, a number of young men from Mlynov could only get to the US circuitously via Buenos Aires and Mexico between 1923–1926.

Daniel Hirsz was born on July 10, 1886 in Mlynov, which is how we know the likely date his father was murdered. You'll recall the wife of Daniel Hirsch was pregnant at the time. She gave birth to a son and named him after his father. This younger Daniel Hirsch met Rachel Loshak in Rovno (Rivne) where they got married on March 2, 1920 shortly after the end of the War. It seems likely that the dislocation of the War years brought them together at some point in Rovno. Their daughter Dolly (also spelled Dolli) was born there on Oct 22, 1922. They arrived in New York in November 1926 and were headed to the home of their "cousin Isaac Hirsz at 121 Wegman St." in Jersey City.

Hirsch Brothers^[2] at Edward Hirsch’s bar mitzvah, circa 1947. Courtesy of Deborah Dickmann and Jenny Silverman.

Depiction of Standard Laundry in The Record, June 19, 1930, in a story A. D. Hirsch published about the business.

Back in Mlynov: Lipa Halperin and Luba (Goldenberg) Kravitz

While Ephraim and three of his sisters and their families immigrated to the US, there were still two siblings of Ephraim (Pessia Halperin and Moishe Hirsch) who had remained back in Mlynov. Almost all of of their descendants that we know about were killed in the liquidation of the Mlynov ghetto in 1942. We know the most about Pessia's descendants.

Pessia had married Lipa Halperin before 1882 when they started having their six children: Israel Halperin (1882-1942), Avraham Halperin (1924-1942), Sarah Halperin (?-1942), Yosel (Joseph) Halperin (?-1942), Faiga Halperin (?-1942), and Chaike Halperin (?-1942). These six children in turn produced at least twelve grandchildren whose names have been preserved in family trees. Moishe Hirsch, for his part, married a woman named Bluma and had at least one daughter, Ester. It is not known if they had other children.

Of those thirteen grandchildren, four lived beyond 1942. Two of them (Luba Goldenberg and Lipa Halperin) made aliyah in the 1930s to Palestine. A third, Benjamin, joined or was recruited to the Red Army and married and settled in Russia, and a fourth, Saul "Shaul" Halpern, survived the liquidation of Mlynov. Their names are highlighted in bold in the family tree below and what we know of their stories follows.

We don't have much information about Luba Goldenberg's story. According to the memory of her son, Raffi, Luba and her husband, Dov from Kremenets, arrived in Palestine around 1934. Soon after they arrived one or both of them was wounded by Arabs while in a bus from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. After recovering, they went back to Kremenets to be with family. There Luba gave birth to Rafi's brother, Ari, in 1938. Just before WWII, they went back to Palestine because they British certificates permitting immigration. At some point, Luba became a tax collector in Eilat. She also divorced and married Shmida Kravitz and had another son, Ron.

Lupa Kravitz and family in 1949. Ruth Hirsch in the back visiting from the US. Courtesy of Jenny Silverman.

Lipa Halperin in Mlynov just before his aliyah. Courtesy of Miriam Aharoni.

We know quite a bit more about her cousin Lipa Halperin from his daughter, Miriam Aharoni and from the essays he contributed to the Mlynov Memorial Book. Lipa was born in Mlynov in 1907 and named for his grandfather. He was the oldest son of his parents, Israel Halperin and Rivkah-Rachel (from the Shrentzil line). Both of his parents were born in Mlynov.

Lipa had three sisters and a brother. The family made a living in Mlynov from a small haberdashery which can be seen in the photo below and in the 1935 home movie that the Hirsch family took during that visit back to Mlynov in 1935.

Lipa's home was Zionist, all the sons and daughter spoke and wrote Hebrew. Lipa was himself involved in the Mlynov Zionist youth movement, Hashomer Hatzair, and had many friends in the movement. In Mlynov, there was a preparatory kibbutz (hachsharah) for the youth movement and they engaged the young people in activities which excited them.

When he was 26, in 1933, Lipa left Mlynov and joined a preparatory kibbutz (hachsharah) in Golina. He was older than most of the members by a number of years and promptly became one who had to care for all of them, seeking sources of financial support and advice in moments of crisis. After a year and a half, he was called to work in the center of "General Zionist Pioneer" (Hechalutz) in Warsaw, even though he was not a charismatic or organized man. The movement was seeking a man who could in fact strengthen the spirit of the members in the preparatory kibbutzim, which were beginning to disintegrate as the British government began halting aliyah. Lipa's friends so appreciated his understated and consistent activities on the ground, that they refused, time after time, to guarantee him a certificate for aliyah at the end of his year of work. Finally, he was able to make aliyah to the Land of Israel (still Palestine) in 1937.

Photos of Lipa (seated center) with his mother Rivka Rachel Halperin (née Shrentzil) seated right. Her sister Sorke/Sarah Gertnich (née Shrentzil) (seated left), with small baby Faiga (front). Standing (l to r) Lipa's sister Elka, a Gertnich cousin, sister Batya, brother Abraham, unidentified, sister Chaika.

Photos of Lipa (standing left) next to his cousin Yosef Ganon (called Kufta Gertnich in Mlynov) with the family of his aunt Sorke Gertnich (nee Shrentzil).^[3] Courtesy of Miriam Aharoni.

Lipa in Jewish Settlement Police, 1938–39 (left) and holding handle of plow (right) in preparatory Kibbutz in Golina. Courtesy of Miriam Aharoni.

The Halperin Haberdashery in Mlynov with Lipa's parents and siblings. US visitors, "A. D." Hirsch stands in the back center with arm on his wife, Ellen, during 1935 visit. Courtesy of Miriam Aharoni.

Lipa's parents and siblings were tragically killed in the Shoah. He only became aware of the circumstances of their death from a letter from his first cousin, Shaul Halpern, who managed to survive the mass killing. Shaul was then in a displaced person camp in Germany, and later he migrated to Canada. Miriam tells me that "the murder of her father's family and the community did not give her father rest until his last day."

Shaul was born on May 15, 1912 in Mlynov to Joseph (Yosef) Halperin and Cipa Rywiec (possibly a variation of Rivitz). They had six children: Ada (1903), Roza (1905), [another] Lipa (1906), Aron (1908), Saul (1912), and Benjamin (1914). All of Saul's siblings and his mother perished in the Shoah, except for Benjamin who left for Russia in 1939, as a bookkeeper, and never left Russia. Benjamin is the very tall man in the Hirsch home movie taken in Mlynov in 1935. Benjamin married but had no children. He died in Leningrad in September 1986.

I learn from Saul's daughter, Arlene, that the iron curtain was lifted too late for the brothers to ever meet again face to face but they did reconnect and exchange letters. She continues:

Saul was a member of a Zionist youth group in Mlynov. In this photo below, he is in the back row third from the left. His house was on a street called Rynkowa, which was the Main Street in town. It was a large house with a store front where his family conducted business."

Saul and his siblings stayed in Mlynov to support their mother who was a widow but in 1943 Saul ran away. He hid on the farm of a gentile school friend's parents in a hole buried in their barn. He hid until 1944 when the Russians freed the town. The Russians conscripted him into their army where he remained until the end of the war. He did return to Mlynov after the war. From there he was sent by Betar to a DP camp in Pocking, Germany as an administrator to head the education department. In Pocking he met, Leah Fijalkow, who was from Pinsk. They married in 1946 and had a daughter, Arlene (Halpern) Leder. In 1949, the family immigrated to Toronto, where Saul was offered a position as a Hebrew teacher at the Associated Hebrew Day School in Toronto.

1927 Zionist Youth Group, Hashomer Hatzair, in Mlynov. Saul is back row # 7. Courtesy of Dani Tracz.

Saul Halpern, wife Lila, daughter Chasia (Arlene), Passenger List of Displaced Persons, Departure Date, Jan 25, 1949.