 |
| Four generations of Goldbergs: |
| Boruch; his daughter, Lily (my grandmother); |
| her son, Irving (my father); and me. |
| circa 1950 |
| |
| Four generations of Goldbergs: |
| Boruch; his daughter, Lily (my grandmother); |
| her son, Irving (my father); and me. |
| circa 1950 |
Boruch Goldberg was born February 8, 1873 in a small town called
Leczycy (pronounced Wenchisha). His father's name was Szmul
(Schmuel). He married a woman named Tema Chelminski, who was also born
in Leczycy, albeit in 1869. The marriage probably occurred sometime in
the years 1893-1895, after which the couple relocated to Lodz, where
Boruch's occupation was "deliverer of milk." Between 1896 and 1916
they produced 10 children. There may have been other miscarriages
and/or infants who did not survive. On three separate occasions (in
1912, 1913 and 1916), Boruch came to a city office in Lodz and
registered the births of his children (the first eight on the first
occasion, and the remaining two on each of the latter occasions). I
have photocopies of the transcripts of these sessions, written out in
a beautiful longhand Russian script. My intention is to have these
fully translated, but the Polish clerk who found these
descriptions—in amazingly well-preserved record books from those
years—was able to translate the names and dates of birth for me. He
said there were other details (like time of birth and other
incidentals), but those will have to wait for a full translation. Russian Transcript
Posted Dec. 25, 2005: I now have the
English translations and some other information.
Here is a roster of the children, their names and dates of birth, and the names by which they were known in the US:
I spoke to the offspring of many of the ten children. No one had the order of birth correct. Many reported a birthday of January 1 or July 4 for their parent. Those were clearly bogus (except, perhaps, for Sylvia). But even the dates Boruch reported are not above suspicion—note the duplication of Lily and Esther, and of Minnie and Herman. Moreover, the birth dates are cast into further suspicion by another very interesting document—a census form that counted the Goldberg family in 1918. That form confirms the place of birth of Boruch and Tema, and the order of birth of the children—but the ages listed do not conform exactly to the birth dates registered four years earlier in a few cases.
The latter census record is the one I sought most avidly in my correspondence with various Polish offices and officials during the months preceding my trip. The reason: it gives the address where the Goldberg family lived. Prior to seeing that census record in Lodz, I had accumulated one and two half clues. Only two of the people I spoke to in the US remembered their parent mentioning an address in Lodz where the family supposedly lived—Sol's two daughters. Ruth thought she remembered 29 Piotrkowska, Gloria's recollection was 14 Piotrkowska. Both butchered the street name, but it wasn't hard to decipher once I had a decent street map of Lodz. The full clue was a ship manifest from Ellis Island of a ship called the Polonia that arrived from Danzig on October 1, 1923 carrying Boruch, Tema, and the five youngest children. On the manifest, Boruch states that his last address in Lodz was 54 Zachodnia Street, where a certain Jankiel Goldberg still lived. Several of the people to whom I spoke thought that Jankiel was Boruch's brother, and that he too eventually came to the US. In any event, the census form says that in the previous year the family moved from 33 Piotrkowska to 54 Zachodnia. I was elated—I now had two valid addresses where the Goldbergs had lived.
 |
I took pictures of the buildings at the three addresses on
Piotrkowska—all apartment buildings constructed in the latter part
of the nineteenth century. #14 had been "refurbished" during the
Communist era and looked much worse than #29, which still had some old
style elegance. Sad to report—#33, where they really lived, was a
dump. I explored the building. It had 8 flats—all probably large as
each door had 2 or 3 family names on it. Thus it is not hard to
imagine the 12 Goldbergs living in one of them. The apartment doors
were OK, but the hallway floors and the courtyard looked like
something from a Dickens novel. It was a tenement building—in some
ways, not unlike the tenement buildings in which Lily and her siblings
wound up living in the Bronx. I tried to imagine Lily running up and
down the staircase, but my powers of imagination failed me. I have
several books with pictures of Piotrkowska Street in the early years
of the twentieth century (it was and is the main street in Lodz). It
is clearly recognizable today. But no one named Goldberg lives there
anymore. I am very happy that Lily found her way to America.
Piotrkowska Street
Number 33, Piotrkowska Street
 |
Oh, what about 54 Zachodnia? Well, it had the misfortune to be next to
56 Zachodnia, which was a synagogue. The Nazis redecorated synagogues
with dynamite and TNT. In their zealous "renovation" of #56, the
monsters also destroyed #54. With the help of current and old
maps of Lodz (supplied by Teresa), I located the spot on Zachodnia
where the building at
#54 probably stood. I derived little inspiration from standing
there. Zachodnia Street
 |
Lily came to America in 1915. The next four children came between 1918 and 1923. None of the five came through Ellis Island. I labored in the National Archives to find a port of entry (the rumor is that some came through Canada), but Goldberg is too common a name and I did not succeed. I did succeed with Lily's husband, Izzy, who also did not come through Ellis Island—see the Lipsman page for that story.
 |
Ninety years ago Jewish life was rich and vibrant in Lodz. Why did this large family pull up roots and come to America? We can only speculate. It is clear that once here, few words were spoken about their former lives in Poland. Virtually everyone I spoke to said that their parent rarely if ever mentioned their life in Lodz. Were they fleeing religious persecution? Or were they fleeing from Orthodox Judaism? Were the boys trying to avoid conscription in the Czar's army? Were they merely seeking a better material life? Who knows? From the location of their flat, and from the neighborhood, the natural conclusion is that they were not dirt poor. The fact that they paid for 12 passages to America confirms that. Nevertheless, come they did. And by doing so, they escaped certain death at the hands of the murderous German invaders, who would arrive on Piotrkowska Street (renamed by them Adolf-Hitler-strasse) a mere 16 years after the last of Boruch Goldberg's immediate family left Poland.
