Searching for Family Roots/Stories, The Spiegelman's of Nasielsk*, Poland

When I was young, I'd been curious about family stories, family roots, but nobody ever really talked to me about them. My father's father had passed away before I was born, and in the 1950's it seemed that everyone had their eyes on the future, rather than the past. On my mother's side she had no aunts, uncles or cousins. My father had been involved with many of his cousins, and the David Spiegelman Family Circle got together periodically. We even had picnics in Kissena Park, Queens throughout the 1950s, which I always enjoyed attending.

The other day I got an email from second, or whatever distance, cousin with photos of our mutual great-grandparents' gravestones.

A careful reading of the gravestones gave me a bit of "surprising" information.

Years ago I had been told, or given the impression, that my paternal Grandfather, Harry Tzvi Hersh Spiegelman had been named for his grandfather Tzvi Hersh, and that name had been given to male family members for a long time. So, as far as I knew, my late brother was:

Tzvi Hersh ben (son of) Alexander Ziskind ben Tzvi Hersh ben David Yosef ben Tzvi Hersh Spiegelman

To strengthen this story is an additional one about a cousin of my grandfather, who had been given the same name, but changed his last name to "Spears," possibly with different spelling. This Harry Tzvi Hersh Spears had been a movie producer in the early days of Hollywood, according to family legend.

My great-grandfather's grave David Yosef ben Alexander Ziskind

However the truth is engraved in stone, at the grave of my great-grandfather. It's written here that he had been:

David Yosef ben Alexander Ziskind

That means that the Tzvi Hersh ancestor was further back, maybe Alexander Ziskind's father. My father's Hebrew (Jewish) name was Alexander Ziskind, who had been his great-grandfather, and my brother's real name was probably:

Tzvi Hersh ben (son of) Alexander Ziskind ben Tzvi Hersh ben David Yosef ben Alexander Ziskind ben Tzvi Hersh Spiegelman

Not all of my Spiegelman cousins are involved in this effort to research our family, but enough of us to make it very exciting.

*My branch of the Spiegelman clan seems to have left Nasielsk, Poland in the very early 20th century, well before the Nazis invaded. My great-grandparents both died in New York. From what we know now, not even cousins remained in Nasielsk, and Glenn Kurtz who has taken on the project of researching, repairing and conserving the history of Jewish Life in Nasielsk has found no record of donations from my family after World War Two.

Re: My Father's Father's Family "Three Minutes in Poland"

While I was sitting shiva for my father on the Eve of Passover, my friend dropped a bag next to my chair:

"There's a book and coffee."

Later that day, during a lull in the shiva, when nobody was there to comfort, I opened the bag and found  "Three Minutes in Poland." Now that I'm "up from shiva" I'm reading it. It's the amazing saga of Glenn Kurtz, who tells how he discovered and researched the short film his grandfather took in pre-World War Two Poland.

I plan on reviewing it after I finish reading it.

Now why is it so exciting and so fitting as reading material during the mourning period for my father? It was even one of the props/tools/visual aids I had at my service when sitting shiva along with pictures.

So many of my neighbors are immigrants or children of immigrants, including Holocaust survivors, so a common and favorite question one asks a person sitting shiva for a parent is about the family background:

From where was your father/mother or his/her parents?

When someone is a good few generations in Israel it's rare. With the help of this book I was able to talk about my father's father's family, their European background and their way of thinking. "Three Minutes in Poland" is about the Jewish community of Nasielsk, where my paternal grandfather's family had lived until well before the Holocaust.  Unlike many Jewish families from Europe, it seems that the Spiegelman clan, my father's father's family, were not optimistic about life in Europe. They were ambitious businessman and decided that their futures would be better in America.

Not just my grandfather and some of his siblings left Nasielsk, but his parents, aunts, uncles and cousins were also in the states. Most arrived before or after World War One. My father was raised in a large clan including both sets of grandparents, because even my grandmother's parents and most of her siblings had left Rogotshov, Belarus prior to World War Two. Not that long ago I was contacted by descendants of cousins of my father's mother, and we are now in touch pretty much daily on facebook.

All of this is rather amazing, as far as I'm concerned. I'm very glad to have an amazingly suitable book to read after sitting shiva. Here's a video about Nasielsk, Poland, 1938, and the author of the book: