Born in Łukanowice on May 14, 1885, Schaje Nisan Berkelhamer was the son of Aron Eilband and Gale Sussel Berkelhamer. Since the parents had only a religious marriage, which was not recognized by the state, their children were considered illegitimate and were supposed to have their mother’s last name. Schaje Nisan became a tinsmith. In 1909, he married Freidel Wasserberger/Weiss from Okocim, born on March 2, 1889, the daughter of tailor Salamon Leiser Weiss and Chana Wasserberger. Like other Jewish children, Freidel attended public school; there have survived her school records from the primary school in Okocim for the years 1895-1901.
The Berkelhamers settled in Brzesko, although Schaja Nisan later went to work in Switzerland, where he opened a hardware store. The family joined him, but after a few years the Berkelhamers returned to Brzesko, and in the late 1930s they moved to Mościce.
The Berkelhamers had 8 children, six sons and two daughters: Aron (1910), Tobias (1912), Soscha (1914), Moritz (1916), Marjem (1918), Herman (1921), Norbert (1925) and Abusch (1928); all of them attended primary schools in Brzesko and their school records are still kept in the archive of the Brzesko primary school #1.
The testimony of one of the children of Schaje Nisan and Freidel, Herman Berkelhamer, has been recorded at the USC Shoah Foundation, which is why I know what happened to the Berkelhamer siblings during the war years.
Mr. Berkelhamer recalls that their family was not particularly religious, but they all attended the synagogue on Saturdays and holidays and kept kosher. Herman Berkelhamer had his Bar Mitzvah in one of the Brzesko synagogues. He prepared for it under the guidance of the rabbi in the cheder, which he attended in the afternoons, after classes at primary school. After reading a fragment of the Torah, he was given a piece of cake and some candy; the event was not celebrated in any special way.
Herman attended a public school in Brzesko and recalled that he often got into fights with other boys, especially Catholic peers. When the war broke out, Herman fled east with his older brother Aron, while other family members hoped to survive the war at home. In Lviv, Herman and Aron met their brother Tobias, who was in the Polish army at the time, but after the Soviet army occupied Lviv, he joined his brothers. Only the three of them managed to survive the war, working in a mine in Donbas, then in a camp in Siberia and Uzbekistan. In 1945, they returned to Poland, but shortly after that went to Germany. After several years in transit camps, they emigrated further west.
Herman Berkelhamer eventually settled in Toronto; that’s where his descendants live.
Members of the Berkelhamer family murdered in the Holocaust:
parents Schaja Nisan Berkelhamer and Freidel née Wasserberger/Weiss;
daughter Soscha, student of the Brzesko primary school in 1920-1930;
son Moritz (Mosze), student of the Brzesko primary school in 1924-1931;
daughter Marjem, student of the Brzesko primary school in 1925-1933;
son Norbert, student of the Brzesko primary school in 1932-1935;
son Abusch, student of the Brzesko primary school in 1935/36 (later the family moved to Mościce).
May the memory of all Holocaust victims be an eternal blessing
© Anna Brzyska, 2025