Friday, August 12, 2022

My grandfather Salomon Gerstmann

Some years I have been researching my family's history. My father's ancestors came from Lemberg - Lwow - Lviv. As my father's maternal aunt Elka Flach survived the Holocaust I know more about my grandmother's family. About my paternal grandfather Salomon Gerstmann I had no information. Luckily, I could find his birth certificate and learned that he was born in a small village near Komarno and Rudki on September 10th 1894. His parents were Eisig Klinghofer and Ryfka Gerstmann. In the days of Austrian rule many Jewish couples didn't have a civil marriage at the local authorities, but only a religious one. Children born from such couples would have the mother's surname, so Salomon was a Gerstmann. His younger siblings Mariem and Sender Josef were already Klinghofers as the parents had a civil marriage before they were born. I was lucky enough to find details about him on a list of the Polish census of 1937 in Lwow. The Details were: Salomon Gerstman born in 1984, a merchant who lived on Bernadynsky 2, which was the family's address. The year 1984 was obviously a typo and should be 1894. The surname was written with one N at the end and not a double N like in the German spelling. The professional merchant was correct as my father told me that his father Salomon who was a medical doctor could not work as a MD and imported Kosher wine from Tokaj in Hungaria together with one of his cousins of the Czortkover family. He would travel to Hungary by train some 350 kilometers. In order to be able to eat according to the Kashrut (Kosher) rules he kept a silver spoon in his pocket and so he could eat a soft-boiled egg with a slice of bread. My father told me that his father Salomon was a senior medical officer in the Polish army, but sadly I didn't find documents about that. Last month I found a new document about Salomon, stating that he got wounded on May 25th 1916 in WWI, his rank was Gefreiter and he served in the Imperial and Royal Austro-Hungarian army. His unit was LSTIR 25 5th company K. Salomon was married to Paulina - Pnina my grandmother, they had 2 daughters and a son, my father. The whole family was killed during the Shoah and only my father survived. My grandfather got wounded during WW1 in May 1916 and I myself 51 years later under similar circumstances.