[Page 349]

Photographs, Family Descriptions,
Incomplete List by Name

I was born in Krzepice, but I was married in Klobuck to Zalman Weichman. We had six children. Three were already married (at the outbreak of the war). We were a family of twelve members until 1941. We lived with the hope that our family could hold on until the end of the war, but our bitter fate was different. When the Germans took all of the young people (Jews) from Klobuck and sent them to Germany, my son and my son-in-law were among them. Thereafter, my husband received an order to go to work every day. Afterwards, the Zagorz camp was established.

In July, 1942 during the Klobuck “Ausiedlung” (deportation), many people fled to Czestochowa, and I did also. We did not know where to go. Everybody fought against death. Those days and nights are profoundly kept in my memory. Whole families were torn apart.

Three months later, on Yom Kippur, (the deportation) started in Czestochowa. My daughter Rachel was deported. I returned and went back through the “border” to my husband and (remaining) children, who were in the Zagorz camp. Going through the border was really a death march; many were caught and were immediately shot.

I successfully got through the border without incident, and arrived in the Zagorz camp. We were 600 men and women working in Zagorz. We worked very hard. Then the Jewish cemetery was destroyed; the tombstones were removed and it was smoothed over with soil. I remember very well that day. My heart ached and I suffocated from tears, while the tombstones were removed and the earth was leveled, where our dear Klobucker Jews were resting “in peace.”

In July, 1943, when the camp was liquidated, we were put in closed and locked (train) carriages and sent away. My husband told our children that he said goodbye to Klobuck where he, his parents and grandparents were born.

In the locked carriages we were sent to the Blechammer

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work camp. A selection was made: young and healthy men were sent to work; children, ten to twelve's years old, also wanted to work, but their requests and tears did not help. The German murderer, the lame Ludwig^[1], with his big evil dog, dragged all of the children and old ones, who did not pass the SS selection, to a cell and from there they were sent to Auschwitz forever. Although I was more than fifty years old, I looked younger, and I was allowed to go to work in an ammunition factory in Ludwigsdorf, not far away from Breslau (Wroclaw).

My husband, Zalman, worked in a concentration camp until 1944, when he died from hunger. My two sons and a son-in-law were killed a few hours before our liberation. I stayed alive because our camp was not liquidated, although we starved, but we survived until the Russian army came in on May 8^th 1945 and set us free.

Today I am in Sweden with my children.

Translator's Footnote:

On each occasion that our family members met, we discussed the origins of our family name, but we never discovered the source of this bizarre name, (Unglick means unhappy).

I will start the description of our family with our old grandmother, Aidel, and our old grandfather, Leibush.

They had six sons: Moshe, Kopel, Meshulam (Shilem), Shimshon, Itzik and David. Over time, the family grew. After the passing of our grandmother and grandfather, the names Aidel and Leibush were carried on in several (family) households. Thus, with time we could no longer refer to Leibush Unglick, because it became impossible to identify the specified person. We had to say Leibush Unglick from the Krzepice road, or give some other identifying details. And since many of our family members

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Reb Kopel Unglick and wife

I will remember here my close family member, my grandfather, Kopel Unglick, who lived until after WWI. He had his daughters marry men who were Torah learned. The eldest son-in-law, Yidel Dawidowicz, was born in Panstow, and later moved to London. The second son-in-law, Yossel Markowicz, was born in Dzialoszyn (about 25 kilometers north of Klobuck), was a good Torah student and an Alexander chassid. He was well known in Klobuck, being a Baal Tefilah (prayer leader), a Mohel (who performs ritual circumcision), and was always was involved in various institutions and societies that served the community.

Yossel Markowicz was a founder of the society “Bikur

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Yehuda Dawidowicz and wife

Our grandmother Leah, before passing away, gathered her children and grandchildren and, before departing from them, her last words were: I am leaving from such a beautiful generation.

My parents, Meshulam and Frimet Sheindel, were shot by the Germans in Klobuck. They hid in an attic for a long period. Finally, when they were starving, they surrendered to the Germans and they were shot. Those who survived: Abraham (lives in Israel) and the writer of these remembrances.

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Meshulam Unglick and family Survived: Abraham, second in the left in the upper row, and Yankel Moshe, third from the lower row on the left, who was then a child.

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I am a grandson of Reb Yeshaya Hartzke and Freidel Guterman. They conducted a fine trade, and (maintained) a Chasidic house with tradition, Torah and mitzvot (commandments). They arranged honorable marriages for their children. For their daughters they looked for Chasidic sons–in–law, and for their sons they looked for good daughters–in–law. Both the grandfather and the grandmother passed away during the same week in Hechvan Tav Resh Peh Gimmel (Nov. 1923), and they were survived by nine children.

In Klobuck lived: Chana and her husband, Yehoshua Yissachar Rosencweig, with their four children. Yehoshua Yissachar was a Radomsker Chasid. They all perished together.

Tova and her husband, Shlomo, and their two children died together with the other Jews from Klobuck. Yaacov Feivel and his family lived in Lodz. When the war broke out they left and went somewhere. A few days later Yaacov Feivel was found hanged on a tree, close to Lodz, not far from village Yezew. His wife, Chaya, and their two children went to Czestochowa and they died there. Avraham Yechiel died in Lodz.

My parents lived in Klobuck until 1933. My father, Hersh Guterman, a Gerer Chassid, was involved in all of the Tzedakah (charity) institutions and in “Hevrat Bikur Cholim” (Society to visit the sick people). Later we moved to Lodz. We were seven children: Gitel, Arye, Baila, Chana, Kreindel, Mendel and Freidel.

The Germans deported my parents and several children to Czestochowa and from there to Treblinka, where they were killed. Their yahrzeit (anniversary of death) falls on Bet Chol Hamoe'd Sukkot (Second day of Chol Hamoe'd Sukkot).

The family survivors, who now live in Israel, are my aunt Chaya, with her husband Benzion Greenfeld, the writer of these lines, with his wife Feigel and a son.

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My old grandfather, Moshe Feige, lived in Klobuck. He had several sons and daughters, who held prominent positions in the Jewish life (of Klobuck). His eldest son, Shimon, was the landlord of the candle factory and was a representative in the Czestochowa city council. The second son, Avraham, lived in Klobuck, where he was the community representative and gabai (secretary) of the “Hevra Kadisha” (Jewish funeral society) for a substantial period of time. The third son, Shmuel Leib, my grandfather, was a grain merchant, and his wife, my grandmother Libe, sold milk. She wrote her accounts on the wall with a piece of chalk, and thereby recorded her debts. Both passed away at an advanced age with great honors. They were survived by several sons and one daughter. Of all of them, only my father died in his bed; the others perished in the Hitler's hell.

My father Daniel was an observant Jew, and on Shabbat and Chagim (Holidays) he wore a silk overcoat with a velvet hat. After WWI my father often repeated: “God should protect us from another war, because a war is a misfortune for Jews. The first victim is always the Jew.” My father was a wood merchant. He was a partner in the sawmill of Itzik Chade.

Once, when he was visiting his sister in Wielun he became sick. He was immediately brought back to Klobuck, and a doctor from Czestochowa was called. His condition worsened. On the Friday evening before his passing away, the Rabbi came with several Chasidim to visit the sick man. On Shabbat before dawn, Shevat 17, he returned his soul to the Creator.

My mother, Feigel, passed away in Czestochowa.

My husband, Yossel Mendelewicz, was a confectioner. We had a confectionery store and made a good living. We had four children. All of them were good students. My husband helped many people. Whenever the peddlers couldn't sell their goods of butter, cheese, eggs, they brought their products to us. We

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Yossel Mendelewicz

When the dreadful war broke out, we went through the seven levels of hell. My husband fell ill in the Zagorz camp. My brother, Moshe, brought him to the Krzepice hospital. Later when the Krzepice camp was liquidated, my husband was sent together with all the Jews in the Direnport camp in Upper Silesia. He passed away there.

When the Klobucker Jews were deported to Blechammer, my brother looked after my two sons, who were with him in the same train carriage. When they got off the train, everybody walked in a single row. My eldest son, Levi, and my brother

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were sent to Aneiwer. My youngest son, Yechezekel, had to stay in Blechammer where he died.

My eldest son, Levi, was later sent to Kletendorf. I saw him there. I heard that he was killed just before the liberation. He was in a train that was bombarded by the Americans.

I live now in Canada with my two daughters, who survived.

Levi Mendelewicz

Yechezekel Mendelewicz died in Auschwitz being 6 years old

Feivel Feige with her grandchildren

Kreidel Ring, Hinde Feige

Chaim Feige

Sarah Rachel daughter of Fishel Feige and Tovia Berkowicz

Daniel Reich, grandson of Daniel Feige

My father Moshe Szmulewicz, born in Wielun, came from a family of Chasidic rabbis. My mother Ruchla née Zyscholc (Zissholtz) was born in Bor Zapilski. They lived in Klobuck for a long time. My father was a long standing spokesman (leader) of the Jewish community, and always worked for the interest of the community.

After the First World War, when Poland became an independent state, my father was elected to the city council (ratman), and to be a lay judge (lawnik) in the court. He spoke four languages fluently and was the comptroller (bookkeeper) for the Jewish community (kehilah).

We were a family of eight brothers and four sisters. My father passed away in 1936, when he was 74 old. My mother always helped poor people. She was active in the “Chevrat Beit Lechem” and in the “Chevrat Kadisha” for women. In 1942 when she was 75 years old, she was deported to Auschwitz by the Germans. She did not survive the deportation.

My sister Chaya-Sarah was killed in Maidanek along with her husband Getsil Fuchs and three of their children. Their eldest son, Gavriel, came to Israel in 1934.

My sister, Baila, married Genoch Rogowski. They had seven children. She perished along with her husband and six children in the concentration camps. Her eldest son, Avram, was also deported to German concentration camps, but he survived.

My brother, Avrum Asher, a former Beit Midrash student, married Chava Ring. He was a bookkeeper for a small commercial bank and for the Jewish community. When the Germans occupied Klobuck, they summoned the president of the community, Baruch Szperling, and my brother, Avrum Asher. They received severe cuts from bayonets; their hair was cut off; and they were forced to eat their own hair.

Later Avrum Asher and his son Shmulik were sent to the German deportation camps where they died. His wife and daughter were killed in Auschwitz.

My brother, Berl, was a communist, one of the founders of the Peretz library and of the society “Bildung” (Culture). He was married to Chana Szperling. They were killed together with their daughter, Tseshe.

The same fate befell my sister, Hinde, her husband, Mordechai Szperling, and their four children. They were all killed.

My brother, Leib, a former member of the Klobuck dramatic club, was married to Chana Sarah Granek from Krzepice. They had two children. In 1939 my brother was sent to Nuremberg by the Germans and later deported to Treblinka. During the revolt of Treblinka, he succeeded in escaping with other prisoners. He went into the underground. He fell during an attack in the Ukrainian forest. His wife and children succumbed in Auschwitz.

My sister, Macha, married Yechezkel Rosen. They had one daughter. Yechezkel Rosen was killed in the German concentration camps, and my sister and her daughter perished in Auschwitz.

My brother, Aaron, who before World War II was an active society member and a good speaker, was deported to Treblinka and perished there. My brothers, Shaya Itzik and Groynem, died from typhus after the First World War.

From the entire family only the two youngest brothers remained alive, myself and my brother, Yossel, who spent most of World War II with me in German concentration camps.

Szmulewicz family

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