My families from the East
​Family genealogy
Title 2
Ziggy Landschaft
We knew Ziggy well for 40 years, ever since he settled in Israel after his retirement. He lived in London with his family. We celebrated his birthday every year on August 1st. He didn't have to wait to celebrate his 100th birthday: he died three months before.
His story
2- In Uncle Moszek-Isser's family:
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of his first wife Lea-Ryfka, only one grandson, Ziggy Landschaft, remained.
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from his second wife, a son, Koppel Landschaftt
Ziggy's parents: Haim Landschaft and Liebe Stiel: he died in Ziggy's arms in 1944 at the Gross-Rosen camp; she was killed in 1942 in the Krakow ghetto.
His brother Majer died after the long march that led him to Matthausen in 1945, a few weeks before the liberation.
Ziggy's story during the Holocaust is dramatic.
As the Germans advanced, in 1939, his parents left their town of Chorzow to join family in Miechow, further from the border.
Ziggy, aged 14, his father Haim, his mother Liebe and his youngest brother Majer (12 years old) lived there first in the city, then later in the Ghetto until 1941.
Unable to go to school, he found work at a printer's.
A few months later, the family was transferred to the Krakow Ghetto. They lived there in one room.
Once again, Ziggy found a small job at a Jewish printer's.
His younger brother, a small blond boy, managed to sneak out of the ghetto and bring back enough to improve their daily lives.
One day, Ziggy's mother, who had gone to do some shopping in the ghetto, didn't come back. She had been shot!
It was in March 1943 that Chaim and his two sons were transferred to the Plaszow camp a few kilometers from the Ghetto.
They worked there like cattle for a year and a half, until October 1944 when they were transferred, in cattle cars, without food, drink, or seating, to the Gross-Rozen camp, 300 km further north.
Life there was physically very difficult.
Chaim, who had managed to hide a small amount of money and jewelry in the lining of a Majer's garment, was discovered and forced to perform inhumane earthworks.
Physically exhausted, he died of a stroke in Ziggy's arms in January 1945.
The Russian advance forced the Nazis to compel several thousand deportees to follow them to the Matthausen camp in Austria: a long death march of 500km, sometimes on foot, sometimes by train. Many had no shoes, and Ziggy would bear the marks and effects of frostbite on his feet for the rest of his life.
Mayer arrived in Ebensee, very ill, and died on arrival in March 1945.
Most of the camp guards left, and the camp was now only guarded by old soldiers. Ziggy was then taken in by a group of Czechs who shared their meager rations with him. They decided to flee into the nearby forest. But Ziggy was hit by a bullet and lay dead in the snow.
He woke up in a hospital bed under the care of the US Army and the Red Cross.
He was hospitalized for 3 months, weighing only 48kg. In 1945, UNRRA sent him to a "Displaced People" camp in Italy, at the very south of the boot in Santa Maria di Bagni, a camp run by the Americans.
He remained there until mid-1946: he had just learned that lists of survivors were circulating in Munich. He decided to go there by train. It was on this same train that he met his uncle Koppel.
Ziggy, in 1946, rebuilt himself in the American camp for DP in Santa Maria di Bagni, in the far south of Italy in the lower part of the boot.
He is in the company of a group of survivors.
Ziggy and his uncle Koppel returned to Chorszow, the town where his parents lived. They had the idea of selling Chaim's belongings. They obtained very little and returned to Munich, in 1947 I think.
Henri Landschaft, Ziggy Landschaft and my father in Paris, maybe in 1948/49.
They worked together.
My father was starting a small shoe business.
Henri was soliciting clients.
My father created the designs.
Ziggy helped him with the manufacturing.
What made my father laugh was that Ziggy wore white gloves so as not to damage his hands!
History
de Koppel
Koppel had to do his military service: he was about twenty years old.
I don't know where Koppel lived at the time of the declaration of war.
He was then working as a driver in the company of Chaîm, his half-brother.
Did he follow them to Miechow?
He too found himself in the Krakow Ghetto, and then some time later in the Plaszow camp.
In August 1944, he was registered in the Matthausen camp, within the "Steyr Munichholtz" Kommando, then in February 1945, within the "Gusern" Kommando.
I don't know how long he stayed in Plaszow, or if he was sent from there to Matthausen, nor how.
The camp was liberated by the American army on May 5, 1945.
Koppel was reported to be in Linz until December 1945, 25 km from Matthausen.
Then he arrived in Munich in February 1946.
In between, did he return to Poland?
I don't know how the surviving family ended up in Munich.
His address until December 1946 was: 7/11 Gelfarat Strasse
It was during this period that, in order to survive, like thousands of other displaced people, he engaged in the clandestine trade of cigarettes.
He would go down to American bases, buy cheap cigarettes (the free canteen for Americans) and resell them in Munich.
It was on his way back from southern Italy that he met his nephew Ziggy on the same train.
Until October 1947, he lived at: 38 Krimhilden Strasse.
He married a young cousin who had survived the Holocaust, Rosa/Rouja Wenchadlowski.
They emigrated by plane on May 29, 1949, to Israel, under the auspices of the Jewish Agency for Palestine.
You can contact me
I am still looking for additional information, testimonies and photos.