Family genealogy
The Czalczynski ancestors
Olszowka today
Research on the Czalczynski family
The CZALCZYNSKI lineage
Our family name has to do with a small hamlet, Czalczyn, located not far from Lopuszno (4 km), the town of birth of my father and Olszowka, that of Kasriel, his father.
When you look on Genetika, a Polish genealogy site, you find non-Jews "bearing" this name as early as the 17th century.
Why do we have this surname?
Was there a Jew who came from this remote place? That remains a mystery.
My research led me to find the ancestors of the paternal line and to locate them across two centuries.
This map, published around 1850, shows the family triangle.
Lopuszno-
Czalczyn and
Olszowka
which constitutes the cradle of our family.
1- My GGGG Grandfather. Leyba (circa 1750) married to Frayda? Surname unknown. (G for Great)
This first Czalczynski did not yet have a surname, since they appeared in Russified Poland only between 1820 and 1840.
He is mentioned as Iczek's father.
His place of residence is not specified.
But he had at least two sons listed: Jakob and Iczek.
Their civil status records are in two different cities: Checiny for the first and Malogoszcz for the second.
This does not necessarily mean that Leyba changed her place of residence, but that the cities where Jews had to register were no longer the same between the two births.
At the time these two sons were born, Poland existed as part of the Republic of Two Kingdoms (Poland and Lithuania).
In the 16th century, it was the largest state in Europe.
It was highly coveted: for three centuries, and had to resist the assaults of the Teutonic Order, Russia, the Ottoman Empire and Sweden... wars, pillaging, terrors.
It was in this mixture of openness and peril, of fragile protections and recurring violence, that my ancestors lived: Leyba and Frayda. Jakob and Iczek and their families.
My ancestors lived in this region of Kielce for at least two centuries. Some of them, near Krakow, were under Austro-Hungarian rule until the end of the First World War.
The Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth surrounded by Sweden (blue), the Austrian Empire (yellow), the Ottoman Empire (brown) and Russia (green)
The most problematic period was that of 1646, during the Cossack uprising in the Southeast of the Republic, plunging the region into bloody chaos.
It would later be referred to as the "flood": tens of thousands of Jews and Poles massacred, others enslaved by the Ottomans, and still others forced into exile.
In ten years, the Jewish population decreased by nearly 200,000 souls (500,000 Jews in 1646).
The three partitions of Poland between Austria, Prussia, and Russia took place between 1772 and 1795, the year in which Poland was erased from the map for 125 years.
2 – My GGG-grandfather. Iczek ( 1778-1843) was married to Fajgla-Gitla Wolfow, and it is stated that he lived in Olszowka.
In his life, he experienced, in his youth, the Republic of the Two Nations.
In 1795, it became Austrian, since the Kielce region was awarded to Austria.
Then he experienced the Napoleonic conquests and the short-lived Duchy of Warsaw.
But the failure of Napoleon's conquests resulted in the Russification of the region around 1815.
In twenty years, Iczek has experienced many political upheavals.
What I don't know is: how was his life and work impacted?
During the course of this Republic, Jewish communities organized and structured themselves, gaining a certain autonomy at all levels, thanks to the establishment of "Kehila" (community in Hebrew), allowing them to protect themselves from external chaos.
The most problematic period was that of 1646, during the Cossack uprising in the southeast of the Republic, plunging the region into bloody chaos. It would later be referred to as the "deluge": tens of thousands of Jews and Poles massacred, others enslaved by the Ottomans, and still others forced into exile.
In ten years, the Jewish population decreased by nearly 200,000 souls (500,000 Jews in 1646).
With the Russian annexation, my ancestors thus became subjects of the Tsar, like hundreds of thousands of Jews in this immense territory stretching from the Baltic to the Black Sea (the Pale of Settlement) where, from the beginning of the 1800s, nearly one and a half million Jews were confined. In 1885, about 4 millions!
The Kielce region is near the Austro-Hungarian border.
The Czalczynski and Landschaft families lived in this region, not far from the Austro-Hungarian and Prussian empires.
Iczek had 4 recorded children: Jankiel-Leybus, Izrael, Kasriel and Zendel.
Jankiel's three brothers are listed in the civil records:
- Kasriel (1825-?) married to Hana Birnbaum,
- Izrael (between 1826/30-?) married to Hana Gruska and
- Zendel (1833- ?)...
I have found several descendants of the Kasriel branch in Israel.: Erez Gotlib et Shirley Czalczynski. See mes familles retrouvées
His brother Jakob ( 1767-1833) married Chaia Wolfow, presumably the sister of his brother's wife.
They had a daughter listed in the records: Judes (1816-1891) married to Mosk Zelazo.
3 – My GG-Grandfather. Jankiel-Leybus (1822-1895)
He married Sara-Etla Strawczynski; he was therefore a Russian subject from birth.
He was also born in Olszowka , as were his six listed children :
Marya (1843),
Iczik (1845-1850),
Berek (1849),
Fajgla (1853),
Ruchla (1857) and
Malka (1863
Marya Czalczynski married Uryn-Aron Czerchowski in Malogoszcz in 1864.
They remained to live in the region and had ten children:
Rajzla-Fajgla (1865), Gitla (1867), Yitzack (1867), Malka (1870), Bayla (1872), Szmul-Max (1875-1949 in Chicago) , Izrael (1878-1954 in Buenos Aires ), Rosa (1884-1968 in Buenos Aires ), Sara (1885-1968 in Buenos Aires ) and Isaac-Eisig (1887-1960 in Los Angeles ).
That's ten children in 22 years.
Half of his children left Poland between 1905 and 1920 for the USA or Argentina!
* The only branch with a survivor among those who remained in Poland was that of Yitzack . He married Gitla Konatkowicz.
Their daughter Sara Czerchowski married Nuchem Wilczkowski.
They had a son, Jacob-Aro , who married Hela Krakow .
They survived the Lodz Ghetto and were among those liberated by the "white buses" of the Swedish Red Cross.
They settled in Uppsala, Sweden , and had a son , Simon Wilczkowski.
* Fajgla married Koppel Zelazo . I haven't been able to find any records of her descendants. She must have perished in the Holocaust.
* Ruchla married Abram Gerzonowicz .
One son , Leyb-Arié Léon ( 1878-1942), is listed. He married Bajla-Etla Garnek in 1906 and had five children: Avraham , Bilu, Moscek, Ruchla , and Sarah. Some of them live in Israel? I don't yet know their story.
* Malka married Aron Maslowski in 1882: one daughter listed as Sura-Jetla ( 1886-?).
4– My Great-Grandfather. Berek (1849–1890) was married to Ryfka-Fajgla Maslowska in 1869 in Sobkow.
He too was born in Olszowka.
They will have 5 registered children:
-
Gitla ( 1872-?), Gitla married in 1901 to Dawid Wikinski : disappeared in the Shoah.
-
Iczik (1874-?),
-
Etla (1878- ),
-
Kasriel (1883-1942), my grandfather.
-
Pinkus or Haim (1888-1942) married to Frymet, whose birth surname is unknown. They had children, and he was a butcher in Jedrzejow. They perished in the Holocaust.
We have found descendants of Etla, in Israel.
Etla married Mickael Dembowski.
They had four children:
-
Meir Dembowski (1907-1942) married in 1937 in Wloszczowa.
Magnele-Myriem Dembowski (1911-1978) married Pinkas Zouzowski (1903-1971). They lived in Krakow, spent the war in Siberia, and had five children, two of whom died in infancy.
- then Roman ( 1940-?) married Avital and had 3 children,
- Tsyppi (1943) married Shlomo Bobbe (3 children) and
- Dov-Béni-Ziv (1946) married to Rachel Schwartz (4 children).
They returned to live in Wrochlaw (Breslau) until 1957, from where they emigrated to Israel.
Leah Dembowski (1915-1987) married Heinrich Pitchenik (1906-1977). They had two children: Fryda Pitchenik, married to Itzack Chalev (3 children), and Myriam Pitchenik, married to Yosef Goren (2 children).
Sara-Hana Dembowski (1913-)
5- My Grandfather. Kasriel (1883–1942)
He married Perele Landschaft (1893-1919), he manufactured ropes.
He was born in Olszowka .
They had three children:
Mayer-Ber (1911-1942) who was married to Ida Bergier in 1938 and had two children: all perished at Treblinka;
My father Szmul (1915-2007) and
Moshe (1918-1942).
After his wife died, he remarried Fajgla Mordkowicz and they settled in Wloszczowa .
They had a fourth child together:
Itzack (1926-2013) married to Anita Kouklinski: one son, our cousin Kevin-Rafael Cutler.
6- My father, Szmul (1915–2007), had two brothers, Maier-Ber (1911–1942) and Moshé (1978–1942), and a half-brother, Itzack (1926–2013). He married Suzanne Leizerson (1926–2007) in Paris in 1950. He had three children: Danielle (1951), Catherine (1953), and Didier-Camille, born in 1955 and who died six weeks later.
- Contact me
If you have any additional information, photos, archives, etc., please contact me.