Eight Goldsztern children lived to have families of their own, out of eleven born to Berko Goldsztern and Yachet Rozenzumen between 1870 and 1891. My grandfather Sol Goldstein gave me this information and I have been able to identify and locate nine of the eleven: three who immigrated to the US, three who stayed in Poland, three who died. If my grandfather’s story was accurate, there are two children yet to be found.
The three who died were:
- Chaije, died age 21,
- Shimel, likely died as an infant,
- Beyla, died at 11 months.
The three who immigrated were:
- Shimon, immigrated 1901,
- Meyer, immigrated ~1906,
- Sol/Szojel, immigrated 1913.
The three who stayed in Poland were:
- Tila Freida Goldsztern, married Abus Hirsch Brandt in 1891,
- Uszer Goldsztern, married 1) Brandla Cham in 1899 and 2) Dvorah Ruchleh Segal in 1903
- Yudel Moshe Goldsztern, married Soreh Elka Voiskovsky.
This post will focus on the families of Tila Freida and Yudel Moshe.
Tila Freida Goldsztern
Tila Freyda Goldsztern (aka Tyla; Freida Tila) was born on 02 Sep 1870 in Piszczac, Lubelskie, Poland as the first child of Berl Fayvel Goldsztern and Yocheved Rozenzumen. She married Abus Hershel Brandt, son of Mordka Brandt and Etka Dorfman, in Terespol, Biala, Siedlce, Russian Empire on 10 Jul 1891, when she was 20 years old.
Tila’s grand-niece Pnina (Perele) Goldsztern Shaufer of Kiryat Bialik, Israel, remembered the Brandt’s from her childhood in Poland. She said that the Brandt family operated a flour mill in Terespol and sold flour wholesale. She also remembered that Tillie always had her Shabbat preparations done by noon on Fridays and that the Brandt’s were “rich.”
Sol Goldstein said that Tila had six children; I found two, Yudel and Yankel. Pnina added Mottele’s name and the others are unknown to me as yet.
Yudel Brandt was born on 02 Jan 1896 in Terespol, Biala, Siedlce, Russian Empire. In 1941 he was listed in the Brest Ghetto Passport Archive (#3940). From YadVashem’s “List of Persecuted Persons” we learn that he was a cabinetmaker and lived in Brest prior to and during the war.
Yankel Brandt was born in 1901 in Terespol, Biala Podlaska, Lublin,* Poland; his occupation was hatter. His wife was Dina (nee?). Their daughters were Feyga, born in 1935 and Sima, born in 1940. That year the family lived at 75 Dolgaya Street, Brest (www.YadVashem.org, “List of the residents from Brest from Dolgaya Street, no. 75, prepared, 1940-1941”).
*The differences in the names of the district, province and country where the two brothers were born reflects the change in the names of districts and provinces in Poland since gaining independence after World War I. Yankel’s birth location is listed as it is called today, but it is the same birth location as Yudel’s and when Yankel was born, it was also known Terespol, Biala, Siedlce, Russian Empire.
Tila Freyda Goldsztern Family Tree
Yudel Moshe Goldsztern
Yudel Moshe was also known as Moshe Yiddel, Yudel and in Russian, Moisey. He was the second youngest of Berl Fayvel and Yocheved Goldsztern’s children, and was the closest in age to Szojel, my grandfather Sol. Yudel Moshe arrived in Brest from Terespol on May 30, 1908, apparently in the company of his brother Szojel (“1908 List of Out of Town Jewish Residents, which were Included into Petty Bourgeois Lists, Town Brest-Litovsk”, Grodno Archives).
Yudel married Sore Elka Voiskovsky (b. 1889). My grandfather Sol told me that they had four children, but the only name he remembered was yet another Sol (aka Shloima), who he said went to Palestine in 1936. That Sol survived the war and later he immigrated to the United States.
Cousins Lorraine Eisner Fitelson and Maxine Eisner Pollack have a memory of once meeting this Sol, who was an antique dealer. They had the impression that he did not live in the New York area. Pnina Goldsztern Shaufer remembers hearing about a relative who lived in the Denver area; perhaps it was Sol. I continue to try to learn more – or really, anything at all – about this man, one of the few to be alive after the war.
Researcher Yuri Dorn found two of Yudel Moshe’s children in the document, “1915 List of out of town residents of town Brest-Litovsk, which rent apartments and houses,” in the archives of the city of Grodno, Belarus:
Dolgaya Street, house of G. Maizel. Appt.#2. Landlord is Yudel son of Berka Goldshtern (head of the family) b.1887, petty bourgeois of city Terespol, Biyaly uezd of Sedletskaya guberniya. His wife is Sora-Elka daughter of Shlioma b.1889, petty bourgeois of shtetl Kamenets-Litovsk. Their children:
Shlioma b.1912
Sima b.1914
They lease one room; annual rent is 36 rubles.
One thing we learn from this document is that the entire family lived in one room! Although Yudel (Yudel Moshe) is called “landlord,” I think this is not correct, as the document lists those who “…rent apartments and houses…” and it says that they are leasing a room.
In 1999 I found Hirsch Goldsztern, (b. 1925), in the Brest Ghetto Passport Archive on JewishGen.com. In the Yad Vashem archives recently I found Hirsh again and Mariyam (b. 1922) in the “List of Murdered People from Brzesc Bugiem, 1941-1944” and the “Collection of Applications for ID Cards – Brest Litovsk ghetto 1941-1942” (aka the Brest Ghetto Passport Archive).
Thus, all four of Yudel Moshe’s children have been identified.
Like Yudel and Yaakov Brandt and their families, Yudel Moshe’s family is presumed to have either died in the Brest Ghetto or been murdered in the mass grave site at Bronaya Gora on October 15, 1942. Fifty thousand Jewish residents of the Brest Ghetto were murdered there on that single day. I do not know whether his sister Tila Freida and her husband Abus Hirsch Brandt were still alive then; I have not yet seen their names on any lists of residents of Brest, in the Ghetto or otherwise.
Yudel Mosheh Goldsztern Family Tree