The Beldegrün Family

One of the first people that Mr. Henryk Zdanowski told us about - remembering the Jewish residents of Mszana - was "Lusia from Beldegrün." Her father had a bakery on Pilsudski Street, which baked tasty, oblong bread. Not long before the outbreak of World War II, Henio saw a Jewish wedding at the Beldegrüns' house: with hupah, breaking of glasses and wishes of "Mazal tow! Beldegrüns." Mom often sent Henio to the Beldegrüns' bakery for baked goods, and Lusia was his schoolmate. After more than 70 years, he recounted in a trembling voice how she wonderfully recited at a school academy "I saw a butterfly fluttering.... on a leaf." He admitted that he had a crush on Lusia. When asked what happened to her later, he replied: "She died, like everyone else," but he witnessed neither her journey to death nor knew anything more about it. We looked for Lusia everywhere - we did not find her either in the school records (these, however, from the co-educational school, did not survive, only the part from the women's school survived), or on the list of those murdered on 19.08.1942. Nowhere was there a trace of the talented reciter. We wove Mr. Henio's story into the memoir program "That Mszana is no longer there...." by including in the song: "And Lusia from Beldegrün, lovely as she was, she spoke poems wonderfully, until Henio trembled...", thinking that this was the only trace of Lusia, fleeting as that butterfly trembling. Yes, we came across cards of people from this family, there were some on the lists of Victims, but none of them was named Lusia. The dates of birth could not be matched either, so that one of them could be a schoolmate of the person born in 1926. Henry. There is one Leonora on the list, daughter of Simon Beldegrün, could have been Lusia if not for the birth date: 1910, 16 years older to Hen, it can't be her. Unless there was an error in the recording of the date, this could also be the case, but we are unable to arrive at the truth. And yet, during another search of the Yad Vashem Institute's cards, we finally managed to come across an - admittedly incomplete, as it contains only her first name, last name and Mszana Dolna as the place where she lived - card. "Lucy Beldegrün. Country of birth: Poland. Place of residence and stay during World War II: Mszana Dolna. Status: single. Place of death: Poland." So even here Lusia and the memory of her is slipping away. And yet someone remembered her, someone knew of her existence in Mszana Dolna, someone wanted her death to be recorded, even though they did not know the circumstances. The record dates back to 2006. , witnessed by Holocaust survivor Emil Kalfus. So together with Emil we are trying to stop for a moment the butterfly in flight - Lusia, we remember!

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