Gershon Schuchman and his wife Sheindel Bluma are the earliest Schuchmans remembered by descendants. They and eldest daughter, Eta Leah, are listed in the Mlynov 1858 census under the family name Hehman (family #9), which evolved apparently into the name Schuchman. Gershon, called "Chaim Gershon" (and Chaim Zus) is age 32, head of household, with an implied birth year of 1826. His wife "Scheindel-Blum" is age 28, and their daughter "Itta-Leia" is a year and a half.

In the earlier 1850 census, Gershon (listed as "Chaim Zus") is listed with his father, Yos-Bir, whose whereabouts are listed as "unknown," but whose personal details indicate he was born in about 1802 and already in Mlynov by the 1834 census. Between the 1850 and 1858 census, Gershon and Sheindel Bluma apparently got married and had their daughter, Eta Leah.

After Eta Leah, they had four other children: Joseph (1874-1958), Noach-Moshe, Hana and Dansia. Quite a bit is known about descendants of the siblings Eta Leah and Joseph. A bit is known about Noach-Moshe's and Hana's and almost nothing about Dansia.

Eta Leah married Labish Gelberg and a number of their children came to the US as discussed in the Gelberg family story above. A great deal is also known about Joseph Schuchman who came to the US in 1913 and was joined by the rest of his family in 1921 as discussed in what follows below. The brother, Noach-Moshe, stayed in Mlynov and was killed in the Shoah and is memorialized in the Mlynov Memorial Book, p. 229. Only one of his sons, Shlomo, survived and eventually came to the US as the "Schechman" family.

Very little information is remembered about the two other sisters, Dansia and Chana. Chana Schuchman married a man with the surname Golisuk and they had a number of children. Most of this family was killed in the Shoah. One of their daughters named Etel married Moshe Sherman and two of their sons, Yechiel and Ezra, survived the Shoah. Yechiel briefly memorialized his family in the Mlynov Memorial Book and his experience leaving home when the Germans attacked. His brother, Ezra, recounts his family memories and harrowing survival ordeal in an oral interview.

Etl (Golisuk) Sherman (right) was the daughter of Chana Schuchman, Joseph Schuchman's sister. She is here with her husband Moshe Sherman. Their sons, Yehiel and Ezra Sherman, survived the Shoah.
Original Mlynov Memorial Book, p. 462.

Shlomo Schechman (top right) survived the Holocaust. Here with friends in Mlynov (from right to left), Yidl Lieberman (standing), Chuna Goldseker (seated), Avraham Goldseker (standing), Pinchas Klapper (seated) and Pesach Mendelkorn (seated). Original Mlynov Memorial Book, p. 461.

Joseph Schuchman

As noted above, we know quite a bit about Mlynov born, Joseph Schuchman, and his family. Sometime before 1902 when their oldest son, Samuel, was born, Joseph (1874–1958) married Chusia or Chissa Klepatch (later known as Jessie in America) (1876–1947). Jessie was born in the nearby town of Smordva. Her brother, Moshe, a wagoneer, also raised a large families in Mlynov which later perished, told in the heart-breaking story about his daughter, Chana Klepatch in the Mlynov Memorial book.

Joseph and Jessie had four children in Mlynov: Samuel (1902–1984), Ida (Chaya) Greenberg Cohen (1907–1986), Anna ("Enia") Yoffee (1909–2000), and Rose ("Rejzia") Klavan (1912–2002). The entire family ended up in Baltimore by 1921. According Joseph's granddaughter, Joyce Jandorf,

"My grandfather, Joseph, was 13 when he was married to Chusia; she was 19. He was 6 ft, very tall and very mature looking in those days. They would draft you into the Russian army if one looked big enough. So they were married off to avoid conscription."

Joseph, like a number of Mlynov husbands, went on ahead of his family to the US before WWI. He arrived in North America on August 24, 1913 as "Josel Schuchman" at the port of Quebec, having sailed from Antwerp via the SS Montreal. "Josel" was 40 years old when he arrived and his youngest daughter Rose was just a year old.

Joseph "Yossel" Schuchman (right), his wife, Chusia (Klepatch) (center), and relative Moshe/ Morris Gelberg/Goldberg (left). Mlynov Memorial Book, p. 502.

Chana (Schuchman) Golisuk and son Shmuel, and daughter Tzviya. Mlynov Memorial Book, p. 462.

Joseph was not the first Mlynov immigrant to come via Canada. In November 1911, Israel Herman also from Mlynov landed in Halifax, Canada and made his way by railroad to Toronto where he took a ferry to Buffalo, NY. Joseph, for his part, took a ship to Quebec and then crossed into the US via the railroad at Alburg, VT. His passenger manifest indicates he was headed to Baltimore to a nephew M Weinstein at 152 E. Lombard, whom I am told was Morris Weinstein, a relative of the Schuchmans. Morris was from Mervits and landed in Baltimore in 1907 according to his naturalization papers.

We do know something about the address at 1152 E. Lombard Street, which was the home of several other Mlynov immigrants at various points. In 1912 when she arrived, Sarah (Fishman) Schwartz was headed to 1152 E. Lombard, which was the address at the time of her husband Israel Schwartz.

Joseph's wife, Chusia, and his children were back in Mlynov when Joseph first arrived in the US and he became one of the several Mlynov husbands separated from his family when WWI broke out in 1914. He wouldn't see his family again until 1921.

By the time, Joseph signed his WWI draft registration card in 1918 as Joseph "Schugman," he was living at 205 Albemarle St., an address he was still using in 1920 when he filled out his Declaration of Intention to naturalize. A significant change took place between his 1918 and 1920 papers. In his 1918 draft registration card, he signed his name with the Hebrew alphabet, apparently not yet knowing how to represent his name in the Roman alphabet. Two years later he signed his name in English rather than Hebrew letters. In his 1918 record he identified himself as a presser at a pants house called Morganstern and Rieser, and by his 1920 records he was identifying himself as a tailor. He would be a grocer soon thereafter as he and others abandoned the challenging garment industry which was also suffering after WWI.

According to family accounts, Joseph's brother-in-law, the husband of his sister Chana Golisuk, came to Baltimore about the same time and worked in the sweat shops with Joseph. But he didn't like Baltimore and eventually went back to Mlynov. There his family would perish.

The address of 205 Albemarle Street where Joseph had moved was a landing spot for Mlynov immigrants and even a bachelor pad of sorts for husbands whose wives were still back in Russia. It was close to 104 Albemarle, the home of Mlynov born Mollie (Demb) Roskes and her husband Samuel, an address where many of the Mlynov immigrants stayed when they initially arrived. As that address overflowed with Mlynov immigrants, reaching about 14 by 1914, a number of the Mlynov immigrants moved into 205 Albemarle Street. Morris Schwartz, for example, was already there in 1915 with his wife and son and still there in the 1920 census. Nathan Gruber, whose family was also still back in Mlynov, was at that address in 1915, and his brother Sam Gruber and wife Bessie were there in 1917 along with Morris Fishman and his wife that same year. As noted elsewhere, these streets of Baltimore had become a little Mlynov.

In what appears to be his 1920 census, Joseph is still living at 205 Albemarle and boarding with Morris Schwartz and family, another Mlynov immigrant family. The record, however, is misleading, saying Joseph had arrived in 1914, and that his and the Schwartz's last birthplace had been what looks like Kovno. The date could have been an error of memory, since he arrived in 1913, but it is unclear why Joseph, (and the Schwartzes) all listed Kovno as their birthplace. It was not long after the 1920 census that Joseph's family finally arrived in Baltimore.

Joseph's wife, "Chasia Szuchman" and their children, Shaie (Samuel, age 21), Chaja (Ida, age 17), Enia (Anna, age 11), and Rejzia (Rose, age 9) arrived in New York on Nov. 5, 1921 traveling from Belgium on the SS Gothland. "Chasia" noted that her brother "M. Klepacz" was still back in Mlynov at the time and that she was headed to her husband who was living at 205 Albemarle St.

That address must have been crowded. By 1923, the family had moved to 603 Charles St. and Joseph is now listed as a grocer, though in 1924 he is listed again as a presser at the same address. By 1930, the family had suficiently improved its situation and has move Northeast and is living together at 106 Old Pimlico Road.

Joseph and Chusia's children married and had families in Baltimore. Samuel married Sadie Lichter (1917–2006) who was quite a bit younger, and they had three children: Sidney Morris, Jacob Gutman Schuchman, and Mordecai Aaron Schuchman. Ida Schuchman (1907–1986) married twice, first Barney Cohen, who passed away in 1960, and then Max Greenberg, but had no children of her own. Anna (1909–2000) married Rueben Yoffee and they had four children: Diane Hawk, Leon B. Yoffee, Bluma S. Lewin, and Benyoman Yoffee. Rose (1912–2002) married Morris Klavan and had three children: Joyce Jandorf, Irving Klavan and Eileen Reiss.

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Schwartz Brothers from Mlynov. (left to right): Chaim, Morris, and Israel Schwartz. Photos courtesy of Howard Schwartz, Audrey Goldseker Polt, and Irene Siegel

Chaim and Yetta Schwartz with sons: Norton (left), Paul (seated), Benjamin (left) and Ben's wife Anna Fishman (center), circa 1914 Baltimore.
Photo courtesy of Howard Schwartz

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Yetta Breindl's mother (remembered as "Baba" by descendants) was a sister of the famous Solomon Mandelkern from Mlynov. There is a humorous story in the Mlynov Memorial Book (p. 32 in original), that one Sabbath eve Solomon was passing by Mlynov on his way from Vienna. When he stopped in his sister's store, she didn't recognize him due to his top hat and changed appearance, the result of his embracing haskalah and European mores.

One of Yetta's grandsons, Colonel Bernard Feingold [son of Mollie (Shargel)], was inspired by the story of Solomon Mandelkern's life and later wrote one of the best biographical sketches of him available in English:^[13]

Even as a child, I remember having a flame burning in my mind, heart and soul about my famous uncle, Rabbi Doctor Solomon Mandelkern. This flame was kept alive by the stories told to me by my mother, Mollie (Shargel) Feingold; my grandfather, Joseph Shargel; and, above all, my Uncle Israel Mandelkern as I affectionately called him. Israel was Solomon Mandelkern's only child.

Joseph and Yetta had eight children. They and five of their children migrated to the US and ended up living in Baltimore. Two of the children came in the second wave of Mlynov migration (1910–1914) and the others in the third wave of Mlynov migration (1920–1929) after WWI. The story of the family's migration, recounted below, spanned twenty years and must have caused some serious angst in the family during the various separations that both occurred and were embraced out of necessity.

Joseph and Yenta Breindl Shargel. Mlynov Memorial Book, p. 507.

In April 1925, Joseph and Yenta Shargel made their passage to the US (see lines 27 and 28), to join their daugther and son in Baltimore, leaving behind children in Mlynov with hopes to be reunited in the US.

The Shargel children who migrated were Mollie (Shargel) Feingold (1891–1976), Julius Shargel (1897–1947), Bernard Shargel (1906-1979), Amelia (Shargel) Meren (1910–2005), and Earl (also "Israel" and "Ezra") Shargel (1912–1981). As we shall see, a few of the children made it to the US via Mexico during the late 1920s when US quotas had limited immgration, and one of them, Yitzhak ("Itzhik"), married and settled in Mexico and changed his family name to Rom. After he died, his wife and children made their way to the US, according to Shargel descendants. Two of Joseph and Yetta's children, Shmuel and Elka (Shargel) Yakobovitz, stayed and died in Europe at unknown dates.

The Shargel Family Migration

Mollie Shargel ("Male") (1891–1976) was the first of the Shargel family to arrive in the US. She arrived Dec. 14, 1909 at the age of 19, traveling from Antwerp to New York on the SS Finland. She was traveling with the Mlynov family of Efraim and Gitel Hirsch and their two youngest children. She was headed to one of her uncles with the last name of Weiner in New York, likely a brother of her mother. [There is an immigration record of a "Morris Weiner" from Mervits traveling to the US with Mlynov immigrants, though it is not clear if he was related to Yetta Breindl Weiner.]

By May 25, 1913, Mollie had married Abraham "Abe" Feingold (variants Fingold and Finegold), a cabinet maker, who had arrived in the US by 1906. In about 1914, they had a daughter in New York by the name of Beatrice Shargel (later married name Kraft). By 1917, the couple moved to Baltimore apparently to join the other Mlynov immigrants there. "Abe" filled out his WWI draft card after their arrival and reported they were living at 115 Harrison Street at the time. Mollie and Abe's son, Bernard (1922–1999), was the "Colonel Bernard Shargel" who was later inspired to write the essay about his great uncle Solomon Mandelkern.

Mollie's younger brother Julius ("Itzik") Shargel (1897–1947) arrived in New York soon after Mollie in 1911, and following in his older sister's footsteps, headed to their uncle with the family name of Weiner, just as his sister had. According to his obituary, Julius was 14 when he arrived. He filled out his 1918 draft card while living and working in Greensburg, PA. But he too made his way to Baltimore and was there by at least 1921 when he was engaged to Rebecca Edlavitch, whose family had arrived in Baltimore in the 1890s from Russia. Rebecca's father, Meyer, had just died in 1920 and the juxtaposition of his death to the engagement suggests that the loss in the family may have made the marriage welcome economically at that moment in time. By 1924, Joseph and Rebecca purchased a property in Northeast Baltimore at 2518 Druid Park Drive, in a nicer area of the city to which Baltimore Jews had been migrating. They probably were getting ready to receive Julius's parents, Joseph and Yetta, who would immigrate shortly from Mlynov to Baltimore.

On April 15, 1925, Joseph ("Josel Szargel") and Yetta arrived in New York traveling first to Warsaw for their visas, then to Southhampton, England and on to New York on the SS Olympic. They were headed to their son, "Yodal" Shargel at 2518 Druid Park in Baltimore. Joseph's brother Mendel Shargel is listed on the manifest as still back in Mlynov at the time.

After arriving in Baltimore, descendants indicate that Joseph Shargel became the "shammash" (sexton) and sofer (scribe) of the Shomrei Mishmeres HaKodesh Congregation which had purchased the Lloyd Street Synagogue building in 1905, the oldest synagogue building erected in Maryland and the third oldest standing synagoguge in the United States. A number of other Mlynov immigrants belonged to Shomrei Mishmeres congregation, such as Getzel Fax, the pioneer from Mlynov to Baltimore , who was president of the congregation in about 1909.

Because quotas were imposed in the United States in the 1920s, not all immigrants could come directly to the US. Joseph and Yetta made what must have been a difficult decision to leave behind several of their children in Mlynov with the hopes of bringing them to the US. Other Mlynov families also split up during this same period in their migrations to the US as well.

Oral traditions and photo postcards preserved by descendants of Sam David Goldseker indicate that Joseph and Yenta's children, Amelia and Earl, rented a room in the home of Shimon Goldseker after his son Sam David emigrated from Mlynov in 1924. Sam headed to the US via a lengthy stay in Buenos Aires, in a story recounted elsewhere. His daughter, Audrey Goldseker Polt, recounts the story told to her:

In 1925, at the age of 14, Amelia Shargel and her younger brother, Earl, moved into a rented room in Shimon Goldseker's house in Mlynov. Their parents immigrated to America in hopes of bringing the children later. In December 1926, they left Mlynov and joined their two older brothers in Mexico, Yizkah (Isaac) and Bernard. Amelia, Earl and Bernard joined their parents in America in 1929.

While in Argentina, Sam Goldseker received a New Year's picture postcard showing his sister Charna Goldseker with her friend Amelia Shargel. A second postcard, written in Spanish by Bernard Shargel, who was in Mexico at the time, was sent to his close "amigo," Sam Goldseker, in Buenos Aires. The postcard written from Chihuahua, Mexico, captures this moment in time, as these two young Mlynov boys waited in Spanish speaking countries to try to get into the US and rejoin family there.

Amelia Shargel (left) and Charna Goldseker (right), 1925. Courtesy of Audrey Goldseker Polt.

In 1926, Bernard Shargel sent postcards in Spanish from Mexico to his good friend Sam David Goldseker who was in Buenos Aires at the time. Both Mlynov boys were waiting to get into the US. Courtesy of Audrey Goldseker Polt.

According to US records, the three Shargel children did in fact make it into the US in 1929 via El Paso, Texas. Bernard (appears as "Bertha" in the record) arrived in Jan. 24, 1929. Amelia arrived in the US on Feb. 5, 1929 at El Paso Texas, from Chihuahua, Mexico, via the C.P.E. (Central Pacific Railroad). Earl's record indicates he arrived in the US the same month and may have been traveling with his sister. The 1930 census shows that the three children (whose names appear in the record as Burnett, Milka and Isak) were now reunited with their parents, Joseph and Yetta, and living together in Baltimore on 618 Aisquith St. Another brother Isaac married and settled down in Mexico.

Bernard Shargel married Sarah Monarch before 1934 and they had their first son, Norton, in 1933 and a second son, Emanuel, in about 1937. Amelia Shargel, for her part, went to Palestine in 1939 to marry Baruch (also "Boruch") Meren, also from Mlynov, and managed to bring him to the US one year later. Boruch later was a major contributor to the Mlynov Memorial book. The story of how Boruch ended up in Palestine is recounted elsewhere. Boruch and Amelia had their first child, Allen, in 1943.

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Moshe and Etel Sherman, Mlynov Memorial Book, p. 462

Maternal grandmother, Hannah Golisuk (nee Schuchman), with son Shmuel and daughter Tzviya. Mlynov Memorial Book, p. 462

This Sherman family from Mervits was likely the descendants of the Sherman family listed in two households in the 1850 and 1858 revision lists of Mervits. Read more about this Sherman family and the amazing stories of Ezra and Yechiel's survival.

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No one knows why Tsodik Shulman (1863–1947) (also "Zadok," "Codyk" and "Tsodick" Szulman) ended up in Mlynov. Recollections from the family memoir of his niece, Clara Fram, indicate he was from Lithuania originally and spoke Yiddish with a Lithuanian accent, though the family's passenger manifest says he and the rest of the family were born in Rowno [Rivne], which apparently was where they moved sometime after WWI.

Tsodik's 1926 Petition for Naturalization^[14] says they were all born in Mlynov, Poland, which was true of his wife Pearl Malka Demb and the children. The later identification of Tsodik's birth location in Mlynov was probably to simplify his naturalization process and reduce any discrepancies in his immigration papers. The family in fact already fudged many of their relationships on their 1921 manifest to the US and Tsodik may not have wanted to expose even more inconsistencies by listing his original birthplace.

DNA matches in recent years led to the discovery that Tsodik had a sister in Mlynov too, as documented in an essay on this site. Her name was Sarah Hannah Shulman and she married Abraham Steinberg and they had four children according to handwritten family trees documented in the family. Sarah Hannah's manifest from 1926 lists Mlynov as her birthplace. "Sura Sztejnberg" came to the US as a widow in Feb. 1926 and headed to Chicago to join her daughter Rose (married name Berger) who traveled to the US in 1913 with several members of the Mlynov Berger family. Rose soon married Nathan Berger in Chicago. Sarah Hannah's son David Steinberg apparently arrived in Chicago in 1911.

It is surprising that Tsodik and his sister ended up in the small town of Mlynov. They were descended from a well-known family. Their uncle, Kalman Schulman (1819–1899), was a well-known Jewish enlightenment (maskil) figure and Hebrew writer known for popularizing Jewish history and literature and "whose work was significant in the development of modern Hebrew literature." Kalman Schulman (and Tsodik's father) was born to a Hasidic family in Stary Bykhov, in the Mogilev district of Belorussia. Kalman studied at the Volozhin yeshiva for about six years, subsequently learning German and developing an interest in Haskalah literature. He went on to be a tireless popularizer of more than 30 books on Jewish history and literature and was eventually able to support himself as a writer in Vilna.^[15]

The Shulman family circa 1915 in Mlynov or Rovno. The photo includes four generations.^[16] Courtesy of Howard Schwartz

The Shulman 1921 Passenger Manifest in which the family identifies their birthplace as Rowno.

Tsodik's father (and Kalman's brother), Naftali Hertz Schulman, was named for Tsodik's great-great grandfather of the same name. Scholars identify the earlier Naftali Hertz Schulman (1770–30) as a significant figure in the early Eastern European Jewry Enlightenment (haskalah)and modernization, who was among a group who first "challenged traditional beliefs and values, and called for the reform and renewal of Jewish culture."^[17]

Tsodik thus came with an well-educated enlightenment perspective to Mlynov. Clara Fram (his niece) remembers her grandfather, Israel Jacob Demb, and his son-in-law, Tsodik sitting and talking about the work of his famous uncle Kalman Shulman. She writes about her recollections of him in Mlynov.

Frequently, our cousin Hertz Shulman, a youth of about seventeen, a student in that school, would stop in our house to study, memorizing his work, while walking back and forth in the room with his book. We knew he was the son of my Aunt Pearl [Pearl Malka (Demb) Shulman] and her distinguished husband [Tsodik Shulman] whom my grandfather [Israel Jacob Demb] was delighted to have marry his second daughter. This man had arrived in Mlynow from Lithuania, well educated, rolling his R's when he spoke Yiddish; an emancipated, proud Jew, resembling one's image of Tolstoi, and possessing books in Hebrew and Russian, as well as Yiddish translations of French novels. He also subscribed to a Yiddish newspaper, and would talk to my grandfather about his uncle, the famous Hebrew writer, Kalman Shulman.

Tsodik and Pearl Malka (Demb) Shulman before 1919. Courtesy of Howard Schwartz

Sarah, Clara and Pepe Shulman in Mlynov circa 1910. Courtesy of Karen Passero

Whatever the reasons Tsodik ended up in Mlynov, by 1887 he had married Pearl Malka Demb (1867–33), the second oldest daughter of Israel Jacob and Rivkah (Gruber) Demb. Tsodik and Pearl went on to have five daughters and two sons, all but two of whom ended up in Baltimore with their families by 1922. They were Nachuma (Shulman) Meiler (1887–1944), Liza (Shulman) Koszhushner (1889–?), Simon Judah Shulman (1890–1970), Ertz (Harry) Shulman 1894–1964, Sarah Shulman (1898–88), Clara (Shulman) Fishman (1904–1990), Pauline "Pepe" (Shulman) Schwartz 1905–1985.

According to family traditions, Tsodik had a prestigious livelihood overseeing the forest for the Count who owned the village and the areas surrounding it. We are not sure what this meant exactly, but we can guess that it involved overseeing the use of the forest and its harvesting. Tsodik was not the only Mlynov resident to work for the Count and the Count's presence hovered over the life of the town as evident in other accounts in the Mlynov-Muravica Memorial book.^[18]

Chodkiewicz Palace in Mlyniv by Napoleon Orda (around 1870).^[19]

Caption reads: Winter: the Count's garden in the background, Memorial Book, p. 186

Family speculate that because of his strong education, Tsodik was able to secure this position and perform these duties for the Count. Clara Fram in her memoire recalls her delight in visiting the forest and her cousins the Shulmans. "A visit with my Shulman cousins in their forest home was always exciting. Their father was the important manager of the entire forest. My recollection of their beautiful mother, my mother's sister, was that she wore a sweeping "pin-yar" (peignoir) and was generally reading books." ^[20]

It is possible that when the Count lost his property in the Bolshevik takeover, that Tsodik also lost his livelihood and this may be one reason the family decided at that point to emigrate and leave two of their daughters behind, a fateful decision for one of those families that stayed.

In 1921, Tsodik and his wife Pearl Malka, three daughters (Sarah, Clara and Pepe) and a son Ertz Shulman (named for Naftali Hertz) headed to the US with the help of a nephew. The family fudged their relationships. Ertz's new wife, Eta Perelson, and his friend Pesach (Paul) Settleman pretended to be Shulman children and joined them on their passage. The older Shulman son, Simon, was studying to be a pharmacist in Berditchev near the end of WWI and didn't know the Shulmans had migrated until he returned to Mlynov in 1922 with his wife Edith (Fixman), whom he met in pharmacy school. In 1922, Simon and Edith made their way to Baltimore, as well.

Arriving in Baltimore, Pearl Malka was reunited with her three sisters, Bessie Hurwitz, Mollie Roskes, and Yetta Schwartz, who had all arrived there before the war. There her youngest daughter, Pepe Shulman, fell in love with and married her first cousin, Paul Schwartz , son of Yetta. Sara Shulman married Paul Settleman who had traveled with them and pretended to be a Shulman son on the passage to America. In the US, he retained the family name "Shulman" to remain consistent with his passenger manifest. Clara Shulman married Ben Fishman who had left for America the year before.

Two of the Shulman daughters, Nechama and Liza, remained behind when Tsodik and Pearl left Mlynov probably became they had already gotten married and had children. How hard it must have been for their parents to take leave and split the family across the ocean. The oldest daughter, Nechama (Shulman) had married Saul Meiler and they had their first daughter, Tamara, in about 1914. You can see the baby Tamara in the photo of the four generations of the Shulmans above. Mlynov descendants speculate that Saul Meiler may have been from the "Malar" family which is mentioned in the Mlynov-Muravica memorial book.^[21]

Also staying behind in Mlynov was the second oldest Shulman daughter, Liza. Liza had married Shia Koszhushner and they had three children. In 1942 when the Nazis invaded, the Koszhushners headed east and made it to Kiev, where they survived the war. They had waited as long as they could for the Meilers to join them at a set rendevous point, but the Meilers had never showed up and the Koszhushners could wait no longer and had to go on East without them. The Meilers did not survive. The Koszhushners, for their part, remained in Russia under Communist rule. The Shulmans in Baltimore eventually learned they were alive after WWII and first cousins eventually got to visit them in Russia in the 1990s.

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Asher Anshel Steinberg was head of the Steinberg family from Mervits. This family was still in Mervits in 1942 and several of the adult children survived to tell their story.

Abraham Steinberg was head of the Mlynov Steinberg family. His wife and three of his children migrated to Chicago. One of his daughters perished in the ghetto liquidation in 1942. These are their stories.

The Mervits Steinberg Family

Asher Anshel Steinberg (1881–1921) from Mervits married Chaya Malka Lerner (1881–1942) sometime before 1907 when Getzel, their eldest of seven children, was born. What we know of this family comes from three of the seven children who survived the Shoah and whose story is documented in a powerful and moving book length narrative by one of the survivors' children.

The three siblings who survived were: Getzel Steinberg (1907–2003), who later became George Steinberg in America, Menachem Mendel Steinberg (1909–1998), and Bunia Steinberg (married name Upstein) (1913–1995).

Read more about the Steinberg family from Mervits and their survival story.

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It is not known whether the Steinberg family from Mlynov was related to the Steinberg family from nearby Mervits. They surely knew of each other. What is clear, however, is that the Mlynov Steinberg family and the Mlynov Berger family were thoroughly intertwined.

Two of the daughters in this Steinberg family married men from the Berger line of Mlynov. One daughter (Ruchel/Rose Steinberg) married Nathan (Nuchim) Berger in Chicago. Nathan migrated to Chicago in 1911 and Rose immigrated with Nathan's mother and sisters in 1913 as they migrated to Chicago to join him. Shortly after arriving in the US, Rose Steinberg married Nathan Berger.

The other Steinberg daughter, Matil, (possibly an elder sister) married Feivel Berger and stayed in Mlynov. Feivel was an uncle of Nathan Berger. Thus, two Steinberg sisters, Matil and Ruchel, were married to an uncle and his nephew in the Berger family.

Not much is known about the earlier years of this Steinberg family before their arrival in the US. The father of this Mlynov Steinberg family was Abraham Tzvi Steinberg, his name known from the manifest of his daughter and the tombstone of his son David. The birth surname of Abraham's wife, Sarah Hannah (Shulman), was recovered from a DNA match and a handwritten family tree circulating in the Shulman family, as we shall see.

Read about this Mlynov Steinberg family and those who immigrated to Chicago.

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These two couples and a number of their children and siblings managed to escape the Mlynov ghetto, in essays told by the couples in the Mlynov Memorial book and in a first hand account by Nahum and Rachel’s son, Asher Teitelman.

Read more about this Teitelman family and their survival experiences.

THE WURTZEL FAMILY

The Wurtzels were a large family from the small town of Mervits (also known as Muravica and Muravitz) which was about a mile north of Mlynov (today Mlyniv in Western Ukraine).

The patriarch and matriarch of the Wurtzel family were the couple remembered as “Doovid and Meerel Wurtzel.” Much of what we know about this couple and the descendants of their daughter, Ronya Leah, comes principally from a short narrative called “A Very Brief History of the Wurtzel Dynasty” written by a granddaughter, Merle (Katz) Gould based on what she learned from her cousin, another granddaughter, Mary “Meril” Gordon. This narrative is referred to in what follows as the “Very Brief History." Merle and Mary are just two of several women in this family tree named “Meril” after the matriarch of the family. As Merle wrote:

Meerel Wurtzel was the matriarch of the clan and decreed that all her grandsons or perhaps it was all of her grandchildren, should name their first-born daughter after her. That explains why there are so many "Meerels" in the family; there is Meerel (Mary Gordon), Meerel (Minnie Katz Schell), Meerel (Merle Katz Gould), Meerel (Myra Snider Bass) of blessed memory, and Meerel Flaisher.

We shall learn a bit about each of these Meerels and others in the Wurtzel family as we proceed.

Merle's daughters, Anita and Diane, show me the Wurtzel Family Tree.

According to the “Very Brief History,” the Wurtzel family owned and operated a linseed mill in Mervits and were considered well-to-do, relatively speaking. Doovid and Meerel had three children: Ronya Leah Wurtzel (1857–?), Zailek (or Zelig) Wurtzel (?-?) and Soorkeh (or “Sura”) Wurtzel (~1882–1947). The spread of 25 years between the birthdates of Ronya Leah and Soorkeh is not unheard of in this period when women started having children in their late teens and continued into their 40s. The fact that there were only three children born in this twenty-five-year period suggests that Doovid and Meerel either were unable to have children during this time and/or that there were other children whose names and fates are not remembered.

There are three major themes in the Wurtzel family story.

One theme revolves around the migration to the Canadian Prairies and involves descendants (from Ronya Leah's line). They and their families ran general stores in small rural farming hamlets and villages in Canada along the Canadian Pacific Railway (the "CPR") between larger cities. As one of their grandsons (Jack Kates) explains in a book he wrote about his life in a Jewish family on the prairie, most of the Eastern European Jewish immigrants settled in the larger cities.

But for many of them [the immigrants] who were unable to earn a livelihood in the city, there was one possible solution: Move to the 'country' and open up a general store. With a few hundred dollars and with the help of wholesalers who extended them credit, they were in business…and nobody was more crucial to the development of the community than was the storekeeper (see Jack Kates, Don't You Know It's 40 Below? 2002).

A second theme is the migration to the large US cities of Philadelphia (Soorkeh [Wurtzel] and her husband Isaac Fleischer and family) and Boston (Bella [Wurtzel] Cohen, one of Ronya Leah's daughters, with her husband and family).

The third theme involves the fate of those who stayed behind and for the most part perished in the Shoah. Only one of Zailek's seven children (Pessia [Wurtzel] Steinberg) survived the Nazi occupation with her husband and child.

The following more detailed account draws on the "Very Brief History" of Merle (Katz) Gould supplemented by a family tree (developed by Merle’s daughter Anita Shaw), US and Russian records where available, relevant oral traditions and records shared by descendants in these three Wurtzel lines as well as the Mlynov-Muravica Memorial Book.

Read more about the Wurtzel family.

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Themes

Imagining Life in Mlynov and Mervits

Because of the paucity of data contemporaneous with the lives of those living in Mlynov, we have to exercise other ways to imagine what life may have been like when our ancestors lived there. The best available contemporaneous information about these communities are the 1850 and 1858 Russian revision lists which enumerate the households in Mlynov and Mervits in those years and their composition. All of the first hand accounts of life in Mlynov or Mervits, including those in the memorial book, come from memoirs of people thirty to fifty years after they lived there. And while they are invaluable recollections of the place and life there, they are after the fact and are recollections tinged by the challenging history that happened afterwards.

One of the best ways to reimagine life in Mlynov and Mervits, therefore, is to grasp what we do know about the families who lived there and left there once upon a time. When doing so, what is striking is the robust interconnectedness of all the families. Every family it seemed had married every other one. When you realize that these townlets were smaller than typical American high schools today, it makes perfect sense that this deep intermingling occurred. Whom else would they marry? I have found three first cousin marriages among the families I have researched as well as marriages between an uncle and a niece, a child and her uncle's brother, a boy and his aunt's niece, and so on. The interconnectedness across families was deep and pervasive.

Mobility in Mlynov and Mervits

Not only were Mlynov and Mervits small, but there was much less general mobility than today. In the 19th century, trains were starting to connect the nearby cities of Dubno and Rivne which Mlynov residents visited occassionally to purchase nice goods for the Jewish holidays, or to catch a train to a port when visiting or emigrating to the US. The reliance on horse and wagon and walking made such trips infrequent, except for those engaged in commerce. Reflections in the Memorial book refer to coachmen who used to transport grain from Mlynov's mill to Dubno and other neighboring towns and bring groceries from surrounding towns back to Mlynov.

Market days may also have been a source of local mobility. "They occurred once a week and hundreds of people, mostly farmers from the area and Jewish businessmen would come to the market square. A large variety of items were sold, such as tools, supplies, food and drinks. Some Jewish families made their weekly earnings from this one single day at the market."^[22]

It is not surprising, giving the small nature of the towns, and the limits on mobility, that so many of the marriages of young men and women took place with others they knew from Mlynov and Mervits. The young people from the town of Mervits socialized with their counterparts in Mlynov leading eventually to marriages like that of Ben Fishman from Mervits, who married Clara Shulman, from Mlynov. Subsequent DNA tests seem to bear out the interrelatedness of many Mlynov descendants who don't otherwise appear in the same family trees. A funny story in the Memorial book recalls that at the wedding of Sonia and Mendel Teitelman the local rabbi had a difficult time finding witnesses who were not related to the bride and groom.

Still, we do find some marriages between Mlynov born individuals and those in other towns and villages and we do see some mobility of families from these towns. Moshe Gruber, for example, left Mlynov and travelled to yeshivot (centers of learning) in Ludmir (Volodymyr-Volynskyi) to find a learned scholar to marry his daughter Rivkah. Pearl Malka Demb married Tsodik Shulman from Lithuania who, the family suspects, may have been passing through Mlynov when serving in the Russian army. Pearl's younger sister, Mollie Demb, married Samuel Roskes who came from the town of Lutsk and Ida Rivitz married Getzel Fax from Demydivka.

In the next generation, we find what appears to be increased mobility. By 1902, David and Bessie Rivitz's oldest daughter, Gulza, for example, had moved with her husband Leizor Mazuryk (Louis Mazer) to Berestechko for commerce opportunities closer to the Austria-Hungary border. Simha Gruber, with his two sons, Samuel and Nathan, were in Novohrad-Volyns'kyi presumably for business around 1912, and Simha's brother, Motel Demb, apparently settled there and married a local girl. For his part, Simha, apparently was in Berdichev (today Berdychiv, Ukraine) in 1912, but back in Mlynov by 1913. This mobility likely exposed Mlynov Jews to a variety of the impulses shaping Jewry during the period of the Tsarist regime. For example, by 1897, Berdichev, which Simha visited in 1913, already had a population of 53,728, and 41,617 (about 80%) were Jewish. To a Mlynov born son, this must have felt like going to London or New York. Berdichev thus crystalized some of the key conflicts in the Jewish community of the time being the center of conflict between Hasidic and enlightenment-oriented Mitnagdim (Oppposers).^[23]

Traditional religious education was also a source of mobility during the period. For example, Mendel Teitelman from Mervits describes studying in the yeshiva in Baranovitch (today Baranavichy, Belarus) during WWI when the Germans occupied the city during an offensive on the Eastern Front. Mendl was moved, along with his friend Simha Zutelman, to army barracks near Ostrov where they were assigned to heavy labor parties supporting local noblemen for the duration of the War. Before the War, he recalls, having studied in a yeshiva in Rovno and Stolpts as well.^[24] One can get a sense of mobility at this time, from the distances of the various towns that people from Mlynov and Mervits mention and visited.

Known Mobility of Mlynov / Mervits residents

We can assume that mobility was motivated by a variety of factors: commerce opportunities elsewhere that drew young families away, traditional education in the yeshivas, WWI which led to an evacuation of Mlynov at one point, and probably by the internal turmoil in Russia during its first revolution which reached as far as Mlynov. Russia also pursued a policy of "selective integration" and Jews who pursued higher education were able to move beyond the pale to large cities such as St. Petersburg.^[25] For the most part, the impact of these larger macro trends in Russian history on the residents of Mlynov and Mervits has to be inferred and imagined since so little is left of contemporaneous accounts or records.

For this reason, one important window into life in Mlynov before WWI and WWII is by understanding who married whom, who stayed and who left, and when. Many were lucky enough to leave when they did in the first European Jewish migration from Russia to the United States, between 1890 and 1914. Another wave followed after WWI between 1920–1929. The migration to Palestine appears to have picked up speed in the 1920s due in part to dislocation and violence from WWI experiences, the growing popularity of Zionism, and the quotas imposed on immigration to the United States, which drastically reduced immigration from Eastern Europe!

Ben Fishman from Mervits hanging with Shulman sisters from Mlynov along Ikva River, before 1920. Photo courtesy of Karen Passero.

Four Generations in Demb / Shulman Family circa 1917. Courtesy of Neena Schwartz, Pam Leaderman, Ted Fishman and Karen Passero.

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[1] The Family of Shimon and Anna (Fishman) Goldseker, 1906. Back row ( left to right): Eta, Ida, mother Anna, Cousin Gittel, Pearl. Front row (left to right): Bayla, Charna, Sonny (David). The youngest son, Chuna, is not yet born. ↩

[2] Four Generations of the Shulman family: Middle row (left to right): Pearl Malka Shulman, her mother, Rivka (Gruber) Demb, her father Israel Jacob Demb, her husband Tsodik Shulman, her son-in-law, Saul Meiler. Back row (left to right) Pearl's son, Simon Shulman, son-in-law Shia Koszhushner, daughter Liza Koszhushner, son Ertz Shulman and daughter Nachuma Meiler. Front row (left to right), daughter Clara Shulman, granddaughter Tamara Meiler, daughter Pauline Shulman, daughter Sarah Shulman. ↩

[3] Clara Fram was the youngest daughter of Pesse Demb (later Bessie Hurwitz), Israel Jacob and Rivkah's, oldest daughter. Clara immigrated to Baltimore with her mother and two sisters in 1909 to rejoin her father. In 1982, as part of a continuing education seminar, she wrote her memoire. "This is My Story: I Write and Speak of Myself." I am quoting from the memoire with permission of her descendant Mia (Fram) Davidson. ↩

[4] See Balfouria. According to a census conducted in 1922 by the British Mandate authorities, Balfouria had a population of 18 Jews. According to a Jewish National Fund publication of 1949, Balfouria was the first village to be founded in Palestine after the Balfour Declaration. ↩

[5] I want to thank the Schuchman family for hosting me and especially Schuchman descendant, Joyce Jandorf, who has spent quite a bit of time educating me about the Goldbergs. ↩

[6] I learned this fact from a family narrative written by Edith (Spector) Geller. I want to thank Edith and her nephew Harold for all their insights on the Goldberg clan from Mlynov. ↩

[7] Since Mlynov was a small town, residents often did not use formal surnames. There are many examples in the Mlynov Memorial book where an individual is referred to instead in Yiddish with a possessive form of the father, mother, or father-in-law. Yiddish creates the possessive by adding an "s" sound, like the English "apostrophe s." For example, the children of Aaron Hirsch are referred to as belonging to the "Ahrelas" family, meaning son or daughter of Aharon. Similarly "Gitlas" is used to mean "daughter of Gitla," and "Tobishe" is used use to designate "son of Toba." It seems possible that Leib's orphan son became known as "Leibishe."

This Gelbarg household went through a major transformation from 1850 to 1858. In 1850, Haim-Leib is 42 and head of the family. He is married to a woman named Khina and they have three daughters (Etya, age 15, Eidlya, age 12, and Tsivya age 7). The 1850 census also indicates that Haim-Leib's brother recently died and that his brother's son, Mordko, age 10, is living in the household.

Everything changed by 1858. As that census makes evident, Haim-Leib passed away in 1855 at the age of 49. When he died, he left behind a young son named Freidel who was born in 1850 and was 5-years old when his father died. Haim-Leib's wife, Khina, and his three daughters, who were in the household in the 1850 census are no longer listed. We don't know what became of them. Perhaps after Haim-Leib's death, Khina returned to her family with her daughters or married someone else. In any case, in 1858 the son Freidel is living in the household as an orphan along with his first cousin, Mordko, who is now 25 years old. It is this orphan son, Freidel, who perhaps was known as "Leibishe" son of Leib. ↩

[8] Here is the third cousin relationship between the Shermans and Goldbergs: Ezra Sherman->Etel (Golisuk) Sherman, his mother-> Hannah (Schuchman) Golisuk, her mother->Eta Leah (Schuchman) Gelberg, her sister-> descendants of Labish and Eta (Schuchman) Gelberg. ↩

[9] According to Herman family traditions, Moshe was born in 1850. However, according to his passenger manifest to the US, he was born in 1865 which seems more likely given the birth of his oldest son Israel in 1881. I want to acknowledge the help of descendants from the Herman family: Lynne Sandler, Miriam Berkowitz, and Debra Weinberg in understanding the Herman family history. ↩

[10] Clockwise from the bottom right: Sonia (or Sophie) Herman, Moshe and Chava Golda Herman, Bessie Herman (seated left), Hershon (Isaac?) Herman (standing left), Israel Herman (standing center), Shmuel [(Herman?) or husband of Sonia]. Notes from the family are not clear on identity of each person in the photo. ↩

[11] I'd like to thank Marla Nudler, Olivia and Emily Gampel, for their research and narrative on Morris's story, and to Barry Stadd who helped me understand the Polishuk story. Finally to Helen (Nudler) Fixler, who was willing to speak with me and allow me to interview her. ↩

[12] Sarah's passenger manifest shows she is going to this address in 1913. Israel Schwartz's Petittion from 1920 shows he is still at this same address. ↩

[13] An essay on Solomon Mandelkern by his great, great nephew, Col. Bernard Feingold, "Solomon Mandelkern" In Generations. Jewish Historical Society of Maryland. Vol. II:2. 1981, 10-19. ↩

[14] Shulman signed his Petition For Naturalization on July 6th 1928 ↩.

[15] On Kalman Schulman (aslo Shulman), see "Kalman Schulman" in the YIVO Encyclopedia. An excellent essay on Schulman, "Kalman Schulman: The First Professional Populizer," appears in a chapter called "Reaching the Masses" in Shmuel Feiner, Haskalah and History: The Emergence of a Modern Jewish Historical Consciousness, 247-273. Trans. Chaya Naor and Sondra Silverton. Oxford and Portland, Oregon, 2002. ↩

[16] Four generations in Mlynov of Demb/Shulmans. Second row seated (right to left): Pearl (Demb) Shulman, Pearl's parents, Israel Jacob and Rivkah (Gruber) Demb, Pearl's husband, Tsodik Shulman, their son-in-law, Saul Meiler.
Back row (left to right): Tsodik and Pearl's daughter, Nachuma (Shulman) Meiler, son "Ertz" (Harry) Shulman, daughter Liza (Shulman) Koszhusner, Liza's husband Shia Koszhusner, Tsodik and Pearl's son Simon Shulman. Front row (left to right): daughters Sarah Shulman, Pepe Shulman, Clara Shulman and baby, granddaughter, Tamara Meiler. ↩

[17] On Nafatli Herz Schulman, see "Ideological and Literary Ferment," in David E. Fishman, Russia's First Modern Jews: the Jews of Shklov. New York: New York University, 1995. ↩

[18] There are a number of references to the Count in the Memorial book. Joseph Litvak from Jerusalem ("The Town of Mlynov," Mlynov-Muravica Memorial Book, 53-59; Sokolsky translation, p. 15) recalls that:

Across the river in a vary large park, surrounded by a fence, was the Count's palace. Only very few Jews ever were able to enter the palace because the Count's family was extremely anti-Semitic.Whenever the Count had business dealings with Jews, he never dealt with them directly, using intermediaries instead. Also Jews were afraid to walk around the park because the Polish workers and servants employed by the Count would often release their dogs upon the Jews, or they would throw rocks at the Jews. Finally, in September 1939, after the Soviets took over the area, neighboring farmers ransacked and robbed the palace. For a few days afterwards, the Soviet government opened the palace to crowds of people who wished to see how the Count once lived.

And Baruch Meren from Baltimore recalls ("An Adventure in the Shtetel," Mlynov-Muravica Memorial Book, p. 188-194, Sokolsky translation, p. 43) recalls that

The main attraction of the town was the Count's mansion. No one was allowed to enter the estate except for my grandfather, Hersh (also Hirsch) Goldseker. He was a 'useful Jew' and worked for the Count. When a Jew needed a favor from the Count, Hersh Goldseker was the intermediary. He was the one in town who had favor in the eyes of the Count. My grandfather used to tell us wonderful stories about the lives of the Count and his family. ↩

[19] This digital image is in the public domain. ↩

[20] Quoting from Clara Fram, "This Is My Life," Part I, p. 6. ↩

[21] The interesting possibility that what the Shulmans remember as "Meiler" may have been also Malar was suggested to me by Joyce Jandorf, a descendant of the Schuchman family from Mlynov. ↩

[22] Quoted in essay "The Town of Mlynov," by Joseph Litvak of Jerusalem. In Mlynov-Muravica Memorial Book, 52-53. ↩

[23] On the coachmen, see Sonia and Mendel Teitleman, "People in a Shtetl," Mlynov-Muravica Memorial Book, 90-93. The coachmen are again mentioned by name in "Poor Lives," by Sonia and Mendl Teitleman, Memorial Book, 229-240. The presence of the Gruber men in 1912 and 1913 is captured in the passenger manifests of Simha's sons, Nathan and Samule Gruber, in their immigration to Baltimore. On the size and history of Berdichev, see Wikipedia. ↩

[24] From Sonia and Mendl Teitelman, "People in a Shtetl," in Mlynov-Muravica Memorial Book 90-102. ↩

[25] See Benjamin Nathans, Beyond the Pale, for the term "selective integration" and an account of the various ways that Jews sought integration (not assimilation) in the Tsarist empire with a focus on St. Petersburg. Nathans contests the views that tend to overemphasize the pogroms as the key events shaping Jewish efforts and identity in the period. ↩

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Updated: July 2024
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