Lipsman Family

Four generations of Lipsmans:
Izzy; his son, Irving (my father);
his son, me; and my son, Kenny.
1968

In 1895 a marriage in the small town of Piotrkow, which is about 40 km south of Lodz, was registered. According to the document, which was located for me when I visited the Ronald S. Lauder Foundation at the Jewish Historical Institute of Warsaw, in the Brzeziny records (Brzeziny is another small town in the Lodz province), the groom was Lajbus Koza and the bride was Fajga Liba Libsman.

Three things must be noted:

  1. The bride's name is likely misspelled as any other name search of Polish records locates a fair number of Lipsmans, but no Libsman.
  2. The actual marriage probably took place several years earlier as it was common to register marriages and births some years after they actually took place.
  3. This record establishes once and for all that the fable repeated many times over the decades in our family, asserting that the offspring of this marriage eventually took their mother's maiden name as their surname, is in fact TRUE.

Based on the names of several of Lajbus' grandchildren, his Jewish name was probably Leibl. His wife's Jewish name, Feige, was much closer to its Polish counterpart. It is known that Leibl and Feige had 5 children—although their exact names are uncertain without a birth record. The eldest three eventually came to America where they were known as Izzy (my father's father), Dora and Morris Lipsman. The youngest two, who remained in Poland, were Beila and Tsarel (Tsora). They perished in the Holocaust.

Since the Polish archives that I had engaged to search for Lipsman birth or census records were searching Lodz records, and since the records may have been under Koza (or Kozza or Kuzza), it is not so surprising that they did not find anything. It may be that some or all of the children were born in Piotrkow before the family relocated to Lodz. However, one of the clerks I spoke to during my day in Lodz claimed he saw an indication of a birth of an Itschl Lipsman in 1894 and a Moische Lipsman in 1899 where the mother was listed as Feige, but the father was listed as "Jankiel." This may be Izzy and Morris, but it also may not be, since it suggests the adoption of the mother's name much earlier than it was likely to have occurred. In any event he insisted that any actual records were likely to be found in the Piotrkow files, and he didn't have them.

Ron and Teresa Skobel on Piotrkowska Street.

The fact that the father's name does not match is actually reflective of the numerous contradictions, discrepancies, misleading entries and outright lies that I uncovered during my examination of various Lipsman historical documents before I left for Poland. I found and examined:

I am grateful to the National Archives, the Bronx County Clerk, Ellis Island, the Social Security Administration and Cedar Park-Beth El cemetary (in New Jersey) for help in obtaining these documents.

The inconsistencies in the information supplied in these documents are incredible. Here are only a few of them:

Returning to Lodz, sad to say, as of this moment, I have not located an address at which I could say that my grandfather or one of his siblings lived. But armed with the latest knowledge, my Polish guides filed a request for information on the Lipsman/Koza family. The authorities said they would check with both Lodz and Piotrkow. If I get anything concrete in the future, I will update this web site.

Ron, with Lidia and Andrzej on the streets of Lodz.

However, I did have one address connected with the Lipsman family that I did visit. Recently Heshey Lipsman, Morris' youngest son, found a group of letters written in the early 1930s from Lodz. They were addressed to Morris in the Bronx, but I suspect they were intended for his wife Frieda (born Frieda Fliegel), who was also from Lodz. They were written in Yiddish by several different people. With Hershey's permission I donated them to the Holocaust Museum, where they are being translated. I received a preliminary translation that reinforces my suspicion that they came from the Fliegel, not Lipsman family. The return address on the envelope was 90 Poludniowa. That street has had its name changed to Rewolucji 1905, but the house is still there. It is an apartment building, like those on Piotrkowska, in so-so shape.
Number 90, Poludniowa

I headed for one other port of call in Lodz—the one supposedly still functioning synagogue. It was in a wretched neighborhood and it was locked. I located the key in a nearby building, but the key guardian (who was clearly not Jewish) refused to cough it up. When my machatain flashed his badge, the keeper of the key was clearly nonplussed but he held his ground. The picture here actually masks what is clearly the deplorable shape of the building. There may still be Jews in Poland, but Jewish life as it existed in the past is stone cold dead.

The sole functioning synagogue in Lodz—not in very good shape.

There is one more story to tell. According to Ruth Lempert, Dora's daughter, the two sisters who remained in Poland were married and had children: Tsora had four and Beila one. Beila's husband's name was Mutka Skurka. Unfortunately, none of my searches of the Lodz ghetto database or any other database at Yad Vashem or the Holocaust Museum turned up names and ages that would match. However, in a striking irony, there was a confectionary shop next to the house where Izzy's wife Lily lived (see the Goldberg history) that had the name Skorka on it. My Polish guides, leaving no stone unturned, inquired as to the heritage of the owner. He disavowed any Jewish lineage.

My Polish guides also suggested that there was something mysterious in the family history—maybe even some hanky-panky. Why the discrepancy in the father's name? Why the surname switch? Why all the lies and misrepresentations—even years later in America? Clearly the Lipsman/Koza children had a deep mistrust and suspicion of any figure of authority—even a ship purser or a US clerk. Were they just trying to stay one step ahead of the Czar's Army or was there something more unusual going on?

The above graphic is the logo that was used for the 1997 Lipsman Family Reunion, which brought together descendants of Izzy Lipsman and his brother Morris. Here is the web site for the reunion. It contains lots of interesting historical family photos. Here is one of them of Izzy, Morris and Dora.

Here's what I believe. The family was very, very poor—certainly poorer than the Goldbergs. They migrated to Lodz, like most other shtetl Jews, to work in the textile industry (all three siblings listed their profession as "tailor" on their ship manifests). When the boys were in their late teens, they stood to be drafted. The mother's maiden name trick only fooled the Czar's registrars for so long. So they emigrated to America—Izzy, then Dora, then Morris. I believe Leibl died well before this, maybe prior to 1910. Eventually Feige came to America too. It is known she was a typhoid carrier and was sent back to Europe. She lived with one of her daughters (probably Beila), but returned to the States, roughly in the mid 1920s, and died shortly thereafter. Why the other sisters remained in Poland will never be known. It was a mistake that cost them their lives.

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