Sunday, March 17, 2013

Dr. Bronisław / Beril / Bruno Lieblein




This is a real true story of Dr. Bronisław / Beril / Bruno Lieblein 



“Mami, Who are those two beautiful children in the photo?” – asked a little girl, pointing at a big photo standing on the piano in the living room. In the photo a girl and a boy are standing and embracing a very big dog.

Her mother answered shortly: “They were your brother and sister who were taken by Hitler…” The little girl glanced again at the photo and continued helping her mother to prepare a family dinner.
Today this girl is 64 years old and has never stopped asking herself “why didn't I ask my parents more? It’s horrible that I got this answer as  a ‘normal’ answer...
------------------------------------------------------
After her father had died she discovered (slowly) more and more details of her father life story.

Her father was the youngest child of a wealthy Jewish family living in a village near Rohatyn. He was sent by his father to study medicine at the university of Vienna – the best Europe university  in those days.
When he had finished his studies he got his medical license in Lwów. When he was 29 years old (in 1926) he went with his young wife Zunya to Śniatyn. They lived in a nice house and he worked at the medical center of the town. He was famous as a very good doctor; most of the compliments he got was because he didn't take 
money when he saw the poor lives of the village families around Śniatyn.

The Polish Army recruited him (as a medicine colonel) in September 1939 when Germany and the Soviet Union attacked Poland. The army withdrawn east to Russia and from there the Polish doctors were forced to move to Siberia or to the Soviet territories in Asia.

In Siberia he received the tragic news: His wife was beaten to death in Śniatyn woods and his two children were taken to the train station and from there to Bełżec. He still believed that in those disordered days 
nobody could say anything for sure.

From Siberia he was transferred to a hospital in Samarkand (Uzbekistan), and there he helped a young Jewish woman, Mathilda Seiden, who was about to die of typhus.

The two lonely and weak fell in love. Dr. Lieblein said to his young woman that he will marry her only after he will get evidence about extermination of his family.

In 1945 they went as a refugees to Sweden.

The stories about Jewish people who tried  to come back to their homes and were killed by the local people prevented them to go to Sniatyn or to Poland. In Sweden his family's tragic end was confirmed. Then he married Mathilda. Within a year Mathilda was pregnant. Their relatives tried to bring them to the USA but doctors forbidden Mathilda to go by ship as she was pregnant. So they decided (in the end of 1947) to unite with Mathilda’s  family in the south-west Poland (in Bielawa, Silesia).

Their daughter, Helenka, was born, there, in the spring of 1948.

Once again he started his life as a local doctor. The family lived a peaceful life in Poland.


The tragic past taught them to be afraid anywhere. Dr. Lieblein wanted to come to Israel because he believed that in Israel all Jews can live safely. October 16, 1956 was the first wave of the Jewish immigration from Poland to Israel, so the family sold everything and came to Israel. In those days the "Sinai war" begun – but, nevertheless,  Dr. Leiblein and his wife were happy to come to Israel, with their little daughter who 
changed her name to Ilana.

Once again Dr. Lieblein lived a peaceful  life in a quiet neighborhood, working as  a radiologist in Haifa and 
in the Poriya hospital in Tverya.

Dr. Lieblein died in 1981 at the age of 86. 

On his grave there are written names of Mathilda (his second wife and Ilana's mother) and his two children:  Blanka Lieblein (born in 1928), and Klimek (Kalman – Klement) Lieblein (born in 1930).

“Man makes plans and God laughs up there in the sky...”


In 2010 Ilana took a trip to Ukraine. She went with her husband to to Chernovitz to seek for his family roots. A Ukraine guide mentioned Śniatyn as a town in the Chernovitz region. She said that her father lived 
there. So we decided to go to Śniatyn, without having any details about his life there. 




The guide was reading about Śniatyn from a Ukraine book and suddenly we heard her father's name .

We came to the town hall but nobody there could help us. 





We didn't know what to do. We stood near the statue of the town, thinking about leaving the place


Suddenly a nice and gentle lady came to us and told us that she is working in the local museum. She took down some details and told us to return two hours later


We came to the local museum and the manager of the museum read us the history of the town. Then my wife heard again about the important work that her father did in Śniatyn.


But the real miracle came after. The lady who run this museum told us that the museum house was Dr. 
Lieblein’s home before the war...

Here is the moment Ilana heard the news...



And then she cried saying: “My father had been walking here for 15 years”


This is the garden, today, where Blanka and Klimak, Ilana's half-sister and half-brother stood with their 
beloved dog – in the only one photo Ilana has.


And again:

“We are making plans and God is laughing...”




Sunday, January 20, 2013

Burmistrz m. Śniatyna

Julian Kosiński, Stefania Kosińska née Myślik with Mieczysław (Mietek) and Marian (Janek)

<<Bürgermeister, the mayor—Kosiński. And he had two children—one of them was my age and the other one was older. And we used to go every winter with the… he had two horses—ski. Ski and kulig! Pani wie co to jest kulig? Mizchelet…>>


<<Julian Kosiński, the son of Alexander, was born November 2, 1873 in Głuszków near Horodenka, into a large peasant family. After graduating from schools in Horodenka and the Pedagogical High School in Stanisławów, he became a teacher in the public school in Śniatyn. In 1921 he married Stefania Myślik, also a teacher. He was working as a teacher, and since 1935 as a headmaster of a new school in Bałki, the suburbs of Śniatyn, until his retirement. He was active in the Gymnastic Society "Sokół" [falcon] and the Dom Ludowy association since 1895. Because of his openness and warm-hearted attitude towards all inhabitants of Śniatyn, regardless of their nationality, political views or religion, as well as his community involvement in the town, he was liked and respected. In 1937 Kosiński was elected Śniatyn mayor by the city council. He was the acting mayor until the Soviet army entered Śniatyn in September 1939. Ill and deeply distressed by the course of events, he died January 18, 1942. He is buried in the Śniatyn cemetery, in the first alley, behind a chapel.>>
Biographical note by Mieczysław Kosiński



<<Julian Kosiński, the last mayor of Śniatyn in the independent Poland. A man with a great sense of responsibility and social justice. In the nationalistic bulletin "Samoobrona" a caricature depicting him appearedwith a portrait of Stalin in the background, holding a Jew wearing sidelocks and a Ukrainian with a knife between his teeth, and a caption saying 'Our Mayor, the Jewish father and the Ukrainian brother'.>>
Stanisława Rabij-Zawadzka, "Śniatyn: Rys historyczny. Aby nie uległo zapomnieniu", 1984.

Śniatyn, July 16 1939. Photograph by Ignacy Schmitzler

<<Very fine family, I remember them so good. He was a wonderful man. He organized people round the town to bring milk to Śniatyn. He organized them as a cooperative; and he did butter, and cheese, and what remains after cheese... Serwatka, o! You know how many years I didn't hear itserwatka! Ha-ha-ha!


<<He gave us a small house in his area... to stay there. And we always had problems because between us [there were] porzeczki. Kosiński was very angry of that but we told him—'what can we do? We will pay you.' And he said to us: 'Do I need your money?' [laughs]>>


Pictures from the collection of Mieczysław Kosiński

Monday, December 3, 2012

Ku pamięci!


Jeżeli chcesz mieć taki klucz,
Co szczęście Ci otworzy,
To książkę bierz i ucz się
Od zorzy aż do zorzy

wpisała M. Hołubowicz
Śniatyn, 26. X. 1933






Żyj tu, Manuś lata mnogie.
Mniej szczęśliwe zawsze chwile,
Nie znaj, co są czasy wrogie,
Nie miej bólu ani troski,
Niech twe życie będzie rajem;
Bądź kochana pośród ludu.

wpisał się życzliwy;--
Stanek Halkiew
Śniatyn dnia 21/XII 33 r.




Maria Kostyniuk's album. From the collection of Danuta Banaś. 

Friday, July 20, 2012

Bird's eye view





  1. Gymnasium
  2. The Hambergers’
  3. The Birnbaum’s house
  4. The Birnbaum’s house
  5. The house of Witeszczak
  6. The house of Myślik
  7. The Masler’s house
  8. Post office
  9. Boarding school (bursa)
  10. Greek Catholic church with the bell tower
  11. The Hoffers’
  12. The Unknown Soldier monument
  13. Sokół (Falcon) building
  14. County (powiat) municipality
  15. Felician Sisters (Felicjanki) church
  16. Old people’s home
  17. Felician Sisters monastery
  18. Boarding school
  19. The Zaliwskis’ with the outbuilding
  20. The Dąbrowskis’
  21. The Bieńkowskis’
  22. The house of Kuśnierczyk, then the Wasilewskis’
  23. The Różankowskis’
  24. The house of Bajorek
  25. The house of Pocztar
  26. The Bajorkowa’s house (Prof. Liegman)
  27. County court house
  28. The house of Goldstaub
  29. The Jakubiszynowa’s house
  30. Saving and loan bank (The Szymberskis’)
  31. The dentist’s house
  32. The house of Matusz (café)
  33. The Treister’s house (fabrics)
  34. The Pohorilles’ house (stationery store and printing house)
  35. The Krämers’ 
From the collection of Maria Molicka (Hamberger family). 

Monday, July 16, 2012

Apteki (pharmacies): Łazarkiewicz R. –– Niemczewski M.*

From the collection of Danuta Banaś.

From the collection of Katarzyna Drzewiecka.

From the collection of Danuta Banaś.

* Księga adresowa Polski (wraz z Wolnym Miastem Gdańskiem) dla handlu, przemysłu, rzemiosł, rolnictwa, Bydgoszcz 1929 [The 1929 Polish Business Directory].

Saturday, July 7, 2012

Radio Feature

<<Operacja Śniatyn>>, a radio feature by Magda Skawińska, on air on Sunday, 6.10 pm, Polish Radio Program I. Available online from Monday, July 9.