The Weissberger family

The Weissberger family moved to Mszana from the nearby Niedźwiedź at the turn of the 19^th and 20^th centuries. They owned a large building at Piłsudskiego Street, where they lived and ran a large ironmongery.

Moshe Shmul (Samuel) Weissberger was born in Niedźwiedź on 8 July 1886 as a son of Malka and Yehuda. His wife, Hana neé Abush, was born in Krzyżówka three years later. Her parents were Rachel and Shaja. Samuel, the head of Weissberger family, was an educated, well-read man, an accomplished chess player, and closely followed the political and economic events. This portrayal is backed up by testimonies of both Aleksander Kalczyński and Henryk Zdanowski. H. Zdanowski has also remarked that Weissberger was a kind and generous person. When Zdanowski, in his teens at the time, returned home after his Saturday shift at Weissberger’s shop, the owner always made sure the boy had been given some Shabbat cake and additional food for Zdanowski’s large and not very wealthy family (Zdanowski, interview from 20 December 2019).

Weissberger was friends with Władysław Orkan (the penname of Franciszek Smreczyński), a local writer and activist who also originated from the vicinity of Niedźwiedź. Orkan’s wife helped Weissberger obtain a concession for selling tobacco products. The tobacco concession terms and conditions demanded that the shop be open also on Saturdays and for this reason Catholic boys, including Zdanowski were employed to take care of the place during the Shabbat. Samuel, who was a wealthy person, was eager to support various local initiatives by granting low-interest loans. Judge Kisiel was one of the many beneficiaries of these loans, which enabled him to build his villa, known as Kisielówka (i.e., “Kisiel’s Place”). Many years later, the same Kisiel would be overseeing the erection of the monument commemorating the murder of his benefactor and his daughters, as well as all the Jews of Mszana Dolna.

Samuel Moshe and Hana Weissberger had four children: Jakub, Leopold (Yehuda), Eleonora (Leah), nicknamed Lola, and Salomea (Sarah), nicknamed Lusia. Hana Weissberger came from a Mszana Dolna-based Abusch family. The Weisssbergers were strongly involved in the life of the local community, and their engagement stood the direst of tests: that of the War and the occupation. Samuel became the chairperson of the Jewish Mutual Aid Society and, alongside other noble Jewish citizens, would come to great lengths to improve the living conditions of the poorest. He himself lost his shop, the source of his family’s income. Lola ran a daycentre for children. The dreadful war conditions did not stop her from trying to provide her pupils with basic education, upbringing, physical exercise, and food to counter the increasing undernourishment. There are dramatic reports stating that in autumn and winter children did not come to the daycentre because they lacked shoes and warm clothes, and providing minimal food rations to the poorest verged on the impossible.

Lopek (as the other Weissbergers nicknamed Leopold) held Zionist views and left for Mandatory Palestine to build the Jewish state already before WW2. Kuba (Jakub) Weissberger, like many young people, was able to run away to the East, where he survived the Nazi occupation. Detailed information about his escape and survival is lacking, but it is known that he spent the war in one of the Soviet republics (Hanna, Kuba’s daughter, reports it was Belarus).

His parents and sisters remained in Mszana Dolna. Hana Weissberger was “lucky” enough to die in Nowy Sącz after a failed gallbladder surgery and was buried there, one year before the mass murder of the Jews of Mszana Dolna during which her relatives would perish. Samuel fell ill during the occupation, and was treated by Dr Rudolf Bednarczyk, who was Emil Rosenstock’s stepson. On the day of the mass murder he was too debilitated and enfeebled to walk to the site of the murder on his own. He was only 56 when he died, however, the testimony of Henryk Zdanowski who saw him being driven on a horse-cart to the place of execution portrays him as an aged man, barely alive already.

On the other hand, Samuel’s daughters, Lola and Lusia (30 and 21 years old respectively at the time of the murder) were among those who put up stiff resistance to the executioners. According to eye-witnesses, they were seen “scratching a Gestapo mug.”  Still, they eventually shared the fate of the rest of the Jewish community. The executioners' helpers—alas, some young Polish men—dragged them to the pits where they were shot.

When their brother, Kuba, returned to Mszana after the war, all he could do for them was to dignify his family’s resting place. He sold the family estate to buy the plot of land including the mass graves, and then designed and funded a monument to stand there. The side of its pedestal includes a tiny plate stating, “Designed by Kuba, son of Samuel, brother to Lusia and Lola, all buried here.” Kuba had 7 birches planted around the grave “for eternal grief.”

After the war, upon hearing of the pogroms in Kraków and Kielce, Kuba decided to leave for Israel. Still, he kept in touch with the friends he had made in Mszana Dolna when he had been young—Aleksander Kalczyński, Nusia Rosenstock, and Anna Kadłubek—throughout his life. In letters to them, he reminisces about his youth and his love for the mountains, hiking along the trails in the Gorce Mountains, and his native land. He mentions that he chose to live in Haifa because the mountainous landscape reminded him of Mszana. Kuba visited the town of his birth and youth with his Hanna (Kuba’s both children were named after his parents), probably in 1993.

But what exactly happened to him after living Mszana Dolna? After the war, he met Haja Perl Diamant neé Leser, another survivor. Their daughter, Hanna, shares her memories of her parents in the following words:

Kuba and Perla (Ya’akov and Penina) met in Krakow after the war. My mother came back from a concentration camp and my father from one of the southern Soviet republics. My mother had a cousin, also named Perla; she married my father’s uncle, who was about my father’s age, Arek. My parents met in 1945, and married on 18 October 1946. They stayed in a displaced persons camp in Austria, and then moved to Italy. They lived with a Zionist youth group somewhere near Turin and intended to move to Israel.

The State of Israel was established on 5 May 1948. At that time, my mother was pregnant with me and the birth was pending, so my parents had to wait while the War of Independence was taking place. I was born on 2 July 1948. My parents came to Israel in October 1948 to attend the wedding of my uncle Yehuda (Lopek). We lived in Haifa, in a small flat. The place was a modest one, but my parents had artistic souls and conjured a cosy, colourful nest out of it. I had friends, toys, and ice cream.

When I was 4 years and 6 months old, my father was diagnosed with tuberculosis. He underwent a removal of a lung lobe, a very risky surgical procedure at the time. He spent many months in a rehab centre. At that time, my mother was pregnant with my brother, Samuel. He was born while my father was absent. Yehuda came by very often and helped us a lot. My father returned and was a great dad until the very moment he died. He was dedicated, loving, kind, tender, wise, and patient. I couldn’t ask for a better father.

Later, we moved to a bigger appartment with a bathroom. I went to primary school, and my brother to a kindergarten. My mom also went to school to become a lab technician. She would later work in a public health laboratory. My father worked in the municipality of Haifa. My brother and I graduated from privately-run high schools, because the level of the the state schools was low and our parents wanted us to be well-educated. I was drafted to the army when I was 18, and when I was 20, I enrolled at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. I have obtained an MD in parasitology. I emigrated to the US in 1979 to study there and stayed. My brother studied at Technion in Haifa and got his master’s and doctoral degrees there. He is married to Tammi and has two children. His daughter, Inbal, is married, and his son, Elad, studied physical therapy.

When she was 55, my mother was diagnosed with ovarian cancer. She underwent a major surgery to remove her ovaries and uterus. She went through radiation therapy as well. She died at the age of 64 due to metastases, after a great deal of suffering. It was simply terrible. This happened on 3 November 1983. My father died on 27 February 2007, when he was almost 90 (having been born on 16 June 1927).

My mother, Kuba’s wife, grew up in the Jewish quarter of Kraków, at No. 10 Plac Wolnica. Her maiden name was Diamant. She had a brother, who studied medicine in Italy, but when things got hairy, he unfortunately came back and lived in the Kraków ghetto. He was murdered alongside his grandmother by the Nazis, 10 days after the liquidation of the ghetto. It was very tragic: after the liquidation ohis grandma and he hid in a bunker, hoping to sllip out and save their lives. Someone, however, turned them in and they were shot.

My mother was wonderful and belonged to a communist Zionist youth group Hashomer Hatzair. She attended the Hebrew Gymnasium where she met her beloved. They got married in the ghetto. His name was Hannan Teichler, he was an extremely talented graphic artist and during the war he counterfeited documents. That got him caught and killed. Thus my mom lost her first husband. She was transferred to Płaszów, then to Auchwitz, and finally to a smaller labour camp in Germany. I do not remember the name, it was not one of those well-known ones. Her father was sent to the gas chamber in Auschwitz.

After the war, my mother did not really want to live, she lost everything. But she met my dad who loved her ever so much and treated her like a princess. Mom was bright, talented, warm, ambitious, intelligent, and beautiful. She also had a complicated personaliy, the war left a tragic mark on her. I think I inherited a little bit of that mark myself. Today, when I know more of how much she lost and I am an adult, I think it was a miracle that she was able to be as good a person as she was. We had a slightly complicated relationship but we loved each otrher a lot and were very close together. When she was dying in the hospital, people would mistake me for her and the other way round.

My uncle Leibish (Yehuda) moved to Israel before the war. He studied chemistry at the Hebrew University, but I think he did not graduate. He joined the British forces and fought in battles, but I don’t know where and how her survived.

My parents moved to Israel in October 1948, when I was 3 months old. Yehuda married Lea from Łódź. She also survived the war and had her sister Hannah with her. My father and Yehuda were very close to each other, very loving and tender. They often spent time together reminiscing about their family and Poland. Yehuda had health problems and died during a surgical procedure in 1980. This was extremely difficult for my father and Lea, Yehuda’s wife.

My mother's first husband also came from Krakow. They met at the Hebrew Gymnasium. His name was Henek (Hannan) Teichler. His younger sister, Etka, was smuggled to Sweden in a children’s transport (Kindertransport). She married a Swedish goy and had a daughter, Anna, who is about my age. She wasn’t raised the Jewish way, but she knew of the uncle and the Holocaust history. She married a Spaniard and moved to Spain.

Etka got divorced from her husband. Parents kept in touch with her by mail. I got a great doll from her, I named her Sarah’le [“Little Sarah” or “Litlle Princess”] and I had her for many, many years. As a child, I did not know about my mother’s first husband, and simply called Etka my aunt. I learned of Henek by accident when I was 14. Etka came to visit us right before the Six-Day War (5–10 June 1967), it was a very emotional visit. My mom was so nervous that only my dad and I went to the airport to pick up Etka. But Etka warmed up to my father on the way home already, and the tension was gone.

In 1983, when my dad retired, my parents went on a trip to Scandinavia. It was their first time abroud since coming to Israel. They were to meet Etka but, unfortunately, my mother started to have serious problems with her circulation. My parents were in Finland, but didn’t want to stay there, even though the healthcare was free. They wanted to go home. They did so and my mom went straight to the hospital on 10 July 1983. She died on 3 November the same year. Dad still kept in touch with Etka. He told me that Anna sent him a letter about her mother’s death. I started to exchange letters with Anna. She had a son, Erik, and a daughter, Sarah. Erik left for the Columbia University in New York to get an MA in journalism. I went to his graduation and we all met. We felt like a family. Anna was very sweet, tender, and warm. The meeting coincided with the anniversary of Henek’s death. We also discovered that Erik, Anna, and me all are allergic to kiwi (an uncommon thing), and so we decided that we definitely are a family. Soon after that Anna and her husband returned to Spain and she was diagnosed with breast cancer. Unfortunately, she died two years later. I still keep in touch with Eric. Sarah lives in London.