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Józef Topolski was born in Jadowniki in 1913. The Topolski family had a large farm. Because of untimely death of Stanisław Topolski, young Józef had to take care of the farm. In 1942, Józef Topolski joined the Peasant Battalions – the underground resistance movement which was active in rural areas. Together with several colleagues – […]
Wincenty Cebula was born on September 28, 1922 in the village of Jadowniki as the son of Franciszek and Maria née Tyka. During World War II, he joined the structures of the Peasant Battalions – the folk conspiracy operating near Brzesko. He was involved in the activities of the group led by Józef Topolski “Szpak”, […]
In the beginning of September we hosted in Brzesko an exceptionally large group of descendants of Brzesko Jews who came to the hometown of their ancestors so that to take part in the Shabbaton – to celebrate Jewish life in Brzesko and join the March of Remembrance on the anniversary of the liquidation of the […]
Research conducted in several archives allowed to establish that 62 former Jewish students of the Brzesko gymnasium were murdered in the Holocaust 1. Nela Beidner Born in Jadowniki on May 16, 1906, daughter of merchant Beidner/Bruh and Sara nee Brandstatter. Attended gymnasium in 1917-1923; back then she lived together with her family at the Market […]
Jewish boys from religious families usually started their education at the age of three. At that time, their parents enrolled them in cheders, i.e. elementary religious schools, where the boys mastered the art of reading and writing for the first two years and later began learning Chumash (the Pentateuch, the five books of Moses). The […]
By Henry Benjamin Winkler The English writer, L.P. Hartley, begins his novel, The Go-Between, with the oft-quoted sentence: The past is a foreign country, they do things differently there. For many Jews of my family and my generation, our past is, literally, in a foreign country. And, our previous generations did things quite differently. […]
While searching the archives of the Jewish Historical Institute, I found the testimony of Leon (Leib) Epstein, the uncle of the still living Polaniecki brothers. (Polaniecki family, parents and four sons, fled from Brzesko to the Soviet Union at the beginning of the war, thanks to which they managed to survive. After the war, the […]
In 2002-2004, stidents from the Public Secondary School in Uszew, under the supervision of their teacher, Mrs Teresa Czesak, carried out an educational project entitled “Memory Saves Nations”. Within this project, the students researched the story of Uszew resident Wojciech Kotfis and the Jewish Goldberger family who were shot in May 1944. The pupils then […]
Oskar Haber was born on March8, 1910 in Brzeźnica near Dębica. His parents were orthodox Jews; Oskar had 9 siblings. The family had a farm – horses, cows and a piece of land. They were the only Jewish family in the village. Oskar was a Polish patriot and was happy to serve in the army […]
Gizela Levy née Epstein was born in Tarnów in 1935. Her parents Sara and Moshe and her younger sister Sabina were murdered by the Germans during the war – the family of the survivor is still trying to establish the circumstances of their death. For some time Gizela was hiding with her aunt Blanka in […]