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Rēzekne Families Stories and Pictures

List of families

The links below contian the family stories and pictures that have beem contributed to this site. If you have materials you would like to contribute as well please contact either Esther or Dave, see our contact information at the bottom of this page.

ARYEV The Aryev family moved to Rezekne from Ludza. Genealogical information is given for 17 members of the family with links.

BLACKMAN and GILENSON Bruce R. Gilson's father was born in Rezekne. He tells about the derivation of the family name and gives gamily information for several generations. There is a downloadable PDF version of this history.

BROZGEL Judy Simon's maternal grandparents were from Rezekne. The surnames of her Rezekne ancestors include BROZGOL, KAPELUSHNIK, SKUTELSK, MIRANSKY, BAILENSON, PASSMAN, RAPPORT. Vist this page to see what other interesting facts Judy has discovered about her Rezekne relatives.

CILEVICS Jeanne Wax has put together a 150 page book of the family of her mother-in-law. She has extracted much of the information. She has also put together a wonderful discussion of the town history which is included on our Town History page.

FONEROFF Bruce Fonoroff reveals what he has discovered about the derivation of the family name among other things.

FRIEDMAN Roger Feischman talks about his paternal grandmother and talks about her coming to America in 1903.

GORDIN Tela Zasloff has written a wonderful 95 page book coverning the life of her grandmother, Tsiveh Gordin (Sylvia Berman when married and living in America). It includes many photos and historical information. This article is featured with its own link in our navigation bar. To download a PDF version of the entire book click on the following link: Download Gordin Family Book

GRODZINSKI Ludmila Zapletnyuk lives in Riga. Her father was from Rezekne He was a doctor and public figure from 1906 to 1934. She has prepared a family tree with photos of her family.

HORWITZ This a family tree for this very large Rezekne family. It goes back to Henoch Horwitz born in 1745 through the migration of the family to the United States over 100 years ago. The family history covers 7 generations with links to even more. This is Dave Howard's (nee Horwitz) family. Listen to audio clips of Dave's great-aunt Bessie talking about life in Rezekne.

KOGEN-ZAK Eli Valk shares the story of his father and mother who were both born in the greater Rezekne area. The family was prominent. They moved to Riga when they married. He tells of their survival from the war and Aliyah to Israel.

LAPIDUS Anne Brest now living in South Africa after leaving Dublin, Ireland talks about her family members who came from Latvia with the family name of Lapidus.

LEVINE Contribution from E. Randol Schoenberg talking about his wife's great- grandfather, Pillip Pesch Levine who was from Rezekne.

LEVIN-MEIROV The story of this family appeared in an article in Hebrew in the Israeli Newspaper "Yediot Hakibbutz". It showed the connection between Rezekne and Ein-Gev, a kibbutz in Israel. (The article was translated and summarized by Esther Rechtschafner.)

LIVSHITS Information provided by Ruthie Livshits who had married into a family from Rezekne. She tells how the children survived the Holocaust in Rezekne.

LOTZ Herb Rosin shares a sad tale.

MEDNIKOV Amalia Zela (nee Mednikov) provided this information. Her father was born in Rezekne and lived thre until he was twelve. She has his personal story about Rezekne including some wonderful photographs. There are some wonderful first hand accounts about life in Rezekne, the shools, the languages they spoke, dealing with the Gentiles, and stories about the Bund and Zionism.

MALTINSKY This is a family tree of the Maltinsky Family in Rezekne based on the 1897 Russian Census. This chart was prepared by Maria Torres.

MALTINSKY-LUBAN This is a massive submission by David Michaelson. He tell how he became interested in his family's history and what it means to him and his family. He speaks of his identity of being Jewish. He visited Rezekne and it had a profound effect on him. He was moved by the only significant remnent of a once large Jewish community being a delapidated Green Synagogue. -- He is the moving force behind the restauration of the Green Synagogue. This wonderful article is long and is presented in three segments. Narrative, | Genealogy, | Graphics.

This article includes a significant amount of genealogical information. It has David's frank and interesting personal thoughts. He tells how he got the restauration going. Plus there are many wonderful photographs.

PASS In this article Esther (Herschman) Rechtschafner tell the story of her own great-grandparents who were both from Rezekne and how they decided to leave. It has some wonderful photographs to go along with the story.

PLINER Frank Ploener shares a photograph from 1904 of his family and tells of the family migration to the USA in 1905-06. Nice photographs (says Dave Howaard).

PAIKEN Art Paiken shares his story of his relatives from Rezekne who include the surnames of Paikin, Gurvich and Greenstone (Greenstein). His great-grandmother was Elke Rose Gurvivich (see Horwitz).

SILNA Alice Lebowitz tells about her great-grandmother, Freida Silna from Rezekne and how her family found its way to New Jersey.

SOROKIN Vladimir Sorokin tells of his family in Rezekne. His grandfather was a Rabbi. Some of the family lived in Ludza. He tells where they all wound up. There is a great photo of Simcha and his wife Bluma.

SEREBO Joan Queit of Australia shares information about her Rezekne family.

TULBOWITZ Dan Ruby shares the story of his great-grandmother Rose Tulbowitz who was from Rezekne. It is an exciting tale of romance and intreague that get her married and living in Albany, N.Y. RATNER is another family name in the article.

TSMACH This illustrated story written by Israel (Lyola) Tsmach and published in a book, The Travels of Israel a very interesting adventurer. His parents were originally from a city named Pedruisk but moved to Rezekne. Esther (Herschman) Rechtschafner has translated from the Hebrew a chapter of the book, "My Father's House". It is an excellent personal history and there are many wonderful photographs. This is one not to miss. (Says Dave Howard)

WERSCHOK Yuri Cooper tells of his mother who comes from the Wershok family of Rezekne and tells about those who were murdered in the Holocaust and the others who survived.

ZIVIAN Mark Schneider introduces material from Zivka. It deals with his grandmother BROSGOL whose mother's family ZIVIAN were from Rezekne and Preili. The story tells of marriage, survival, and relocation of some of the family to the USA, others who perished in the Holocaust and his mother moving to Israel in 1934.