Memoirs:

This Pilzno Shtetlinks Page was written by Sharlene Kranz, whose grandfather Abraham Louis (Avram Leib) Kranz was born in Pilzno, Province of Galicia, in 1893.  He was the last of 24 children sired by his father; he was born six months after his father's death and was named for him.  Abraham Louis Kranz came to New York City in 1910 to join his brother George, a house painter.  George wrote these memories of their early life together to Sharlene's father. 

My father Avrum Leib Kranz, son of Eli Meilech Kranz of Notzgova, was born in Notzgova, Poland (near Sedziszow) and lived in Pilzno.  He was the cantor, the mohel, the dajan, the baal koreh, the register of births and deaths and the wedding performer, and teacher of Hebrew and Yiddish.   With his first wife Chana Zweifach, he had 14 children, of whom only two reached adulthood: Moishe Aaron Kranz (born 1869), and Ruchel Leah Kranz Bochner (born 1874).

After Chana's death, Avrum Leib married Chaya Bisgayer.  Chaya's mother's name was Rebecca; Rebecca's sisters were Bella and Raisel. Chaya and her mother were both born in Pilzno.

Our mother Chaya bore 10 children to our father.  The first 3 children died very young, I never saw them.  Then came sisters Yetta, Bella and Lena, then a sister named Yehudis, she died when she was about 8 or 9 years old.  After that, in Oct. 1889, I was born.  Two years later another son was born, Noah, I remember him very well, he died at about 8 or 9 years old.

In 1887 or so, our father went to America.  There was a Pilzno Society in New York, not the one that is existing today which my brother and I and Chaim Adler reorganized in 1912, but a more religious society which had their own school.  They imported your Zeida to daavin for them in their synagogue on the High Holidays, but he didn't stay that long, only about 3 or 4 months, because to quote his words 'America is not kosher, even the stones are trefe there.'  Another reason was that the Pilzno community in Pilzno also wanted him for the High Holidays.  So they brought him back, promising to settle all differences to his satisfaction. As a result, they bought for him a large 2 room house, in which we all lived comfortably and he also conducted his school in it.  At that time we were a very happy family, honored and respected by the whole city, until your Zeida took sick.  A few weeks later he died, on the 2nd day of Passover, 1893.  Your father was born six months later and was named for his father.  Our mother was left a widow with 7 children,  your dad was a nursing baby.  I remember reciting the Kadish a whole year, but could not say it by myself.  Your grandmother had a hard life. The only material thing she had left was the house to live in but no other means of support for her 7 children.   Mother took over the school, teaching the girls only. Parents wouldn't send their boys to a lady teacher.
 
By that time sister Yetta was about 12 years old, she already had 5 or 6 years of Public school education, she was the big girl, so her duty was to take care of the baby, your father, and to help mother in the teaching. Your father was a nice healthy looking baby and we all played with him and this made our mother very happy. Sister Bella, 10, and sister Lena, 8, their duty was to help in the house work and the cooking.  Teaching the girls did not bring in enough money, so mother had to do something to supplement her income. She got herself a stand from where she sold soap, spices, yeast, and different cereals in bulk.

When we grew up a little, your father and I worked as a team. The bazaar was only on Mondays, so every Monday morning we had to build up the stand and in the evening we had to dismantle it and bring home the unsold goods. The customers came from the surrounding country, some of them bought on credit. So mother had to go collecting. They paid with farm products such as chickens, eggs, grain, even potatoes and beans. These products had to be carried to the city, and what we didn't need for ourselves to eat had to be sold. Your father and I built a sleigh for the winter season and a wagon for the summer to cart the produce. It was not only labor, we had a lot of fun pulling each other on the way out and even with a full load, down the hills.

As your Aunties grew older, it was time to talk about a "Shydech", matrimonial talk, there were many nice boys who wanted to marry them because our sisters were beautiful, well mannered, and respected.  But without a dowry it was hard to find the right suitor.  So they decided to follow the crowd, to go to America. Yetta, being the oldest, went first, in 1900. One of Ruchel Leah Bochner's  relatives had a brother in NY, Joe Bochner.  He sent a ticket for Yetta. One year later Yetta sent a ticket for Bella, who didn't care to go so Lena went instead, she was about 18. Lena sent a ticket for me.  By this time Bella was married in Pilzno, to Moishe Milgrom, a carpenter, so her husband used my ticket and they went to New York. Bella had learned from a Bochner sister to make wigs for the Jewish married ladies, and they had saved up some money.

Now it was a little easier for our mother.  Once in awhile she received a letter and a few dollars from her married daughters in America and she had her two beloved sons near her, but she still kept up her school. During those years your father and I were great pals. In addition to public school, we went to Jewish School. Fanny Falek's father was our Yiddish teacher. At the age of 16 I had already finished my 3 years apprenticeship as a house painter. When your dad became Bar Mitzvah, at 13 he became apprentice to a baker.

In those years 1907 08 09 we joined a Zion Club in Pilzno,we played chess and checkers, we listened to lectures and took part in discussions, we got acquainted with Yiddish literature; our favorite author was Sholom Aleichem. In the winter months 1909-10 we began talking about going to America. Our mother didn't need us anymore, she married again. Also, I had reached military age and was about to be drafted into the Austrian army. Sister Yetta and Paul Hirschman sent me a ticket; receiving the ticket had to be kept secret from the Military Commission.  I arrived in New York May 1910.

Chaya had two more husbands: Hyman Fogel, and lastly Yosef S. Einspruch, a widower with one son, Abraham Einspruch.

Chaya died Dec. 29, 1933 in Pilzno, of natural causes.

 The Jews of Pilzno were rounded up by the Nazis July 21-25, l942 and taken to the nearby town of Debica, placed on trains and taken to the Belzec death camp.  During those four days 12,000 Jews from Pilzno and its surrounding towns were deported to Belzec.  All were gassed at Belzec. (In the death camp of Belzec, all but a handful of deportees were gassed shortly after their arrival.  From March to December 1942 between 550,000 and 580,000 Jews were gassed at Belzec.  See Belzec, Sobibor, Treblinka, by Yitzhak Arad, Indiana Univ. Press, l987.)

 Moishe Aaron and Gittel had eight children.  Six of Moishe Aaron's children perished in the holocaust.  Only Freidel in Uruguay and Wolf in America survived.

 Hannah, Max, and Freda came to America in the 1920's. Ruchel Leah survived the war by hiding in a bunker, buried with her sons Harry and Michael and her daughter Mindle.  Lazar and Pescl did not survive the war; their names are on the monument
in the Pilzno Jewish cemetery (see photo)..
 
 Ruchel Leah Bochner came to America in Feb. 1947 at age 73 on the SS Marine Perch and lived in Jersey City with her daughter Hannah at 272 Hutton St.  She died there March 31, 1954 of a heart attack.  Ruchel is buried in the Pilzno plot at New Montefiore Cemetery, Queens, NY.