16.01.2022 | Redaktor

Kling family

The Ghetto Fighters House Archive in Israel https://www.gfh.org.il/eng/Archive has got 4 photos of Lea Kling, a Holocaust survivor from Brzesko, who was in a DP camp in Italy after the war.

Lea (Lieba) Kling (on the left) together with the nurse in the Santa Maria di Leuca DP camp, Italy, March 27, 1946. Photo from the Ghetto Fighters House Archive, Israel.
Lea Kling and Dov Sergee-Weber, a young couple among the Holocaust survivor community in postwar Europe. Photographed in Italy in 1946. Dov Sergee was a soldier in the Anders’ Army. The couple later married. Photo from the Ghetto Fighters House Archive, Israel.
Lea Kling (stands the second from the right) underwent surgery and was hospitalized in the Santa Maria di Leuca DP camp, where the photo was taken in March 1946. Photo from the Ghetto Fighters House Archive, Israel.
A group of Holocaust survivors who lived in the Santa Maria al Bagno DP camp. Photographed on 31 May 1946. Lea Kling sits in the center wearing a polka dot swim suit. Photo from the Ghetto Fighters House Archive, Israel.

Several hours of searching in various archives resulted in finding many materials about this family, including several photos.
Ruchel Rozenzweig, born in Brzesko in 1879, daughter of Jozef Springer and Sara Rozenzweig, married in 1901 Samuel Minz, son of Jozef Minz and Lipka Korngold. They had two children, Scheindel (1901) and Marjem (1902). But in 1903, 26 year-old Samuel Minz died of typhoid fever leaving a pregnant wife. Chaim Szmuel was born 4 months after his father’s death.

In 1906, the widow of Samuel Minz married Abraham Leib Kling, a Radłów-born butcher. The spouses had 8 children, including Lea Kling from photos kept in the Israeli archives.

Abraham Leib Kling, 1932

The fate of this large family was as tragic as that of most Polish Jews. Of the 11 children born to Ruchel nee Rozenzweig, two daughters died in their infancy, five children were murdered in the Holocaust. I don’t know anything about the fate of one son, and three children managed to survive the war. Here’s what I could find:

Children of Ruchel nee Rozenzwejg from her first marriage to Samuel Minz:
• Scheindel, 1901 – died in 1902.
• Marjem, 1902 – in 1923 married Efroim Pancer from Brzesko; she was murdered together with her husband and two children: Sabina (Sarah, 1924) and Samuel (1931).

Marjem Pancer nee Minz, sister of Lea. Photo from Yad Vashem archive.
Efroim Pancer, husband of Marjem nee Minz. Photo from Yad Vashem archive.
Efroim and Marjem Pancer with daughter Sabina (Sara). All murdered. Photo from Yad Vashem archive.
Sabina Panzer in 1940. Photo from https://cbj.jhi.pl/documents/891664/0/

• Chaim Szmuel, 1904.

Children of Ruchel nee Rozenzweig from the second marriage to Abraham Leib Kling:

• Chana, 1907 – in 1930 married Markus Simche Regent from Kraków; murdered in the Krakow ghetto together with her daughter Sarah.

Chana Regent nee Kling, sister of Lea. Photo from Yad Vashem archive.

• Syma Lieba, 1909 – in 1932 she married Chaim Mingelgrin/Zollfrist from Brzesko. In 1935, the spouses emigrated to Palestine together with their daughter Malka; due to that that escaped the Holocaust.
• Sara, 1910 – died in 1912.
• Jentel Pessel, 1912 – in 1940 she lived together with parents and sister Ryfka in Kraków at Przemyska, 4. In August 1940 all of them were ordered to leave Kraków for Brzesko. In August 1941, already in Brzesko she married Chaim Joel Schmerz from Podgórze; they were together in the Bresko ghetto, both murdered.

Jentel Pessel Schmerz nee Kling, 1940. Photo from
https://cbj.jhi.pl/documents/878044/0/.

• Chaja, 1913 – married an Hebrew teacher Isaak Majer Kapler from Brzesko; both were murdered.

Chaja Kapler nee Kling, sister of Lea. Photo from Yad Vashem archive.
Majer Kapler, husband of Chajia nee Kling. Photo from Yad Vashem archive.

• Jakob Moses, 1915. In 1942, when in Brzesko ghetto, he married Sussel Basler; survived the war.
• Laje (Lea), 1918 – survived the Holocaust, married Dov Sergee-Weber; for several years after the war she was in DP camps in Europe; later she emigrated to Israel.
• Ryfka, 1920 – seamstress, married Hirsch Gelberger/ Ausenberg in Brzesko on November 10, 1942, already after the liquidation of the Brzesko ghetto, when about 200 Jews were left in the city to clean the area of the ghetto. It was the last Jewish marriage in Brzesko during the war. The fiancés were married by Chaskel Blonder “in place of Rabbi Chaim Teitelbaum”, who had already been murdered. Most likely they were transported in December 1942 to Tarnów, and from there to Auschwitz. Ryfka was murdered, her husband survived the war.

Rifka Kling and Hirsch Gelberger opn the day of their wedding, 1942. Photo from the family archive of Rachel Kling
Rachel Kling nee Rosenzweig/Springer surrounded by her children,1930ies. In the center of the photo we see Rachel; sitting next to her are: on the left – daughter Syma Lieba, on the right – daughter Chana. Standing, from left to right: son Jakob, daughter Lea (it’s her daughter that provided this photo), daughter Ryfka, Chaim Mingelgrin (husband of Syma Lieba), daughter Chaja, daughter Jentel Pessel. Photo from the family archive of Rachel Kling
Rachel Kling, 1940. Photo from https://cbj.jhi.pl/documents/878038/0/

Ruchel Kling died in the Brzesko ghetto on April 17, 1941; her husband Abraham Leib perished in 1942. Matzevot of both spouses have survived at the Brzesko Jewish cemetery. The daughter of Lea Kling, Mrs Rachel Kigel who now lives in Israel, told me that the tombstone on the grave of Abraham Leib was erected after the war by his only surviving son Jakob.

Matzeva of Rachel Kling at the Brzesko Jewish cemetery, 2023

Here lies
Mrs Rachel Kling
Daughter of our teacher Yossef
Died on the seventh (day)
of Pesach, the year 5701 [ April 17, 1941]
An important, modest woman
Her hands she spread out to the poor and she raised
Her sons in the honest way
May her soul be bound in the bundle of life
Wife of Mr Leibush Kling
(translation from Hebrew by Yossi Elran)

Tombstone of Abraham Leib Kling at the Brzesko Jewish cemetery in 1945. Photo from the family archive of Rachel Kling
Tombstone of Abraham Leib Kling, 2023

Here lies

Arie Leib Kling

Son of Mr Mordechai of blessed memory

Died in the year 1942

May his soul be bound in the bundle of life

” I keep seeing their faces …”
May the memory of all Holocaust victims be an eternal blessing.

© Anna Brzyska, 2022, 2023.