THE
WEISSBERGER
FAMILY

The Weissberger family can be traced back to Leib (Leba, c. 1790-1862) and Chaye (Hani) Weissberger (b. c. 1790), who were born in Ribynice (today Vyšná Rybnica, Slovakia). Leib and Chaye Weissberger lived in Ribynice and had seven children, five sons: Kalman, David, Hershel (Hersko, born 1826), Icik (Izsak, born 1839), and Moishe (Mózes, born 1827); and two daughters: Mindele (born 1830) and Hani (born 1832).

The Weissberger name derives from German, the meaning of which is "white mountain", perhaps refering to the Carpathian Mountains. There are variant spellings of the family surname: Veissberger, Weiszberger, Weissenberger, Weiss, Weisz, White, Fejer, Feyer.

David's history complicates the family tree to some degree since he married twice, first to Cheve Friedman and then to Gitl Judikovits. As it turns out, descendants of David and Cheve married descendants of David and his second wife, Gitl. Cheve Friedman was from the town of Remete, Hungary (currently Blatné Remety, Slovakia) which was about a mile from the other Weissberger ancestral village, Polyanka (Blatná Polianka, Slovakia).

After their marriage, David and Cheve moved to nearby Polyanka where they had the three children that we know of: Jakob (Avrom Yakov, born 1846), Berl (born 1849) and Pinchas (born 1852). Sometime after 1852, Cheve died.

Around 1858 David married Gitl Judikovits. The couple remained in Polyanka. David and Gitl Weissberger had ten children, with twenty-three years elapsing between the birth of their oldest, Moishe (or Moritz) in 1859, and their youngest, Martin, in 1882. Their sixth child was a boy, Mano (Menachem Leib), born in 1872. The five children born before Mano were Joseph, Rezsi, Sima, Moishe, and Hani.

David Weissberger died in Polyanka in 1910 at roughly 105 years of age. His second wife, Gitl, died in the town of Satoraljaujhely at the home of her youngest daughter Fani in 1928 when she was in her late 90s.

Jakob Weissberger (a son of David and Cheve) married Molly Klein; the couple had six children. Their third child, a girl born in 1879, was Gizella Weissberger. In 1895, at the age of 16, Gizella, married Mano Weissberger, the son of David and Gitl Weissberger. Gizella was the granddaughter of David Weissberger by his first wife Cheve. This made Gizella's husband her half-uncle. Gizella and Mano had seven children; however, only three survived to immigrate to the United States. Mindl, Linka, and Jolan all died in infancy, and Ilonka died at the age of five. The three surviving children were Max (Miksa, born 2 November, 1898), Edith (Ida, born 14 August, 1903), and George (Jeno, born 17 July 1905), all born in Polyanka, Hungary.

Jakob and Molly Weissberger eventually moved to the town of Galzsecs, Hungary where they lived for the rest of their lives. Their lives ended, however, tragically. Their deaths were described in the local paper and in the Sečovce Yizkor book. According to the evidence, Jakob and Molly were murdered in their home on the evening of November 22, 1926 by Djorbala (Pal) Havrilla, the boyfriend of the Weissberger’s maid, Veronika Hamar, due to a dispute over her relationship with Pal. The murder and trial shocked the Jewish community of Sečovce.

In the original trial, Pal was acquitted due to lack of evidence. Veronika was given an eight-year prison sentence. As it states in the Yizkor text of Sečovce, "It is hard to imagine that there wasn't an atmosphere of antisemitism influencing the court's deliberation. This atmosphere apparently also had an effect on the verdict, arousing bewilderment and suspicion of prejudice on the part of the court" (85). A later trial was ordered due to new evidence. It is not known the outcome of that trial. The home in which they were murdered, which was rented out by the Rabbi of Galszecs, Menachem Fried, was converted to a home for the needy after the murder. The "inn" was maintained by Rabbi Leizer (Eliezar) Baum, and possibly by Mor and Eva Groszman, until the Holocaust.

During World War I, there was forced conscription, and although Jews were historically reluctant to serve in the military, many were forced to fight anyway; some were killed and others were captured. Molly and Jakob's oldest daughter Eva married Mor Groszman; they had six children. Their second-oldest son, William (Zev) was conscripted into the Austro-Hungarian army, survived the war, after which he came to the United States. William, together with George White, wrote the Weissberger family history.

Moritz (Moishe), the fourth son of David and Gitl Weissberger, had a son, Herman, who became a high-ranking Hungarian Communist government official.

Another son of Moritz, Joseph White, married Reszi Weissberger in Galszecs in 1912. Rezsi was his half-cousin, as she was the daughter of Jakob and Molly Weissberger and granddaughter of David and Cheve Weissberger. Joe White's father Moritz was Weissberger's half-brother by David Weissberger's second marriage to Gitl. David and Gitl Weissberger were Joe White's grandparents. Joe and Rezsi White had two sons, Ted and Stanley.

For more information on the Weissberger family, contact Jonah Silverstein

David & Gitl Weissberger ca. late 1800s

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   Sources

1. The History of the Jewish Community in Secovce, Editor: Emanuel Frieder. Translated by Jonah Silverstein. Tel Aviv: The Sečovce Expatriate Committee in Israel, 1991
2. Wiatrak, Brian. Four Families, Two Worlds: The Weisseberger, Fischer, Joskowicz and Wiatrak Families in Eastern Europe and the United States. Self-published, Brian J. Wiatrak, 2011.