WARSZAWSKI

Jona Warszawski

Przetłumaczono z ZW Yizkor Book

Ben Kotek  strony 57-61

Gdy pod koniec lat 1890-tych, bogaty Jona Warszawski zamieszkał w Zduńskiej Woli Wola, kupił duży plac na peryferiach miasta. Znany był z tego, że przyczynił się do rozwoju miasta.

Stworzył atmosferę pozytywnej energii w miasteczku, a wokół niego powstał pewien rodzaj mitu.

Był szczodrym człowiekiem, darczyńcą i filantropem, który wszystkim pomagał: osobom prywatnym i społeczności. Wspierał osoby sekularne i religijne. Był człowiekiem wielce szanowanym. 

W każdy szabat i Yom Tov przyjmował u siebie w domu gości i sieroty. Nawet osoby biedne, które nocowały w mieście miały się gdzie zatrzymać.

Produkował wodę sodową i ocet, był właścicielem tartaku zatrudniającego kilkaset osób. Tartak pracował całą dobę i zatrudniał Żydów i nie-Żydów. Miał swój własny Beit Hamidrash. Po przejściu na emeryturę stał się uczonym i filantropem. 

W pogrzebie uczestniczyło 1000 osób, które szły w procesji. Trumna była otwarta i uczczono go za dobre uczynki dla społeczeństwa, które wybudowało mu mauzoleum nazwane jego nazwiskiem, a które potem dbało.

Reb Avrahamysze Warszawski – syn Jony

Był dobrze wychowany i władał perfekcyjnym językiem rosyjskim polskim i niemieckim. Był bardzo szanowany a obywatele Zduńskiej Woli tak mu ufali, że wybrany był radnym miasta.

Pomiędzy 1907- 1914 chasydzi Gerer i Aleksandra byli ze sobą skłóceni. Sekularyzm panował już w mieście, ale on utrzymywał stare tradycje i pomagał wszystkim, tak jak jego ojciec przed nim. Zginął z rąk Nazistów w ostatniej aktion przeciwko Żydom ze Zduńskiej Woli w sierpniu 1942 r.

Lewi Warszawski syn of Reb Avrahamysze Warszawskiego

Pod koniec I Wojny Światowej, Lewi miał tendencję do asymilacji i wspierał syjonizm. Założono Hashomer Hazair, jak również inne grupy, w tym pionierów. Należał do ruchu syjonistycznego Hashomer Hazair,

W 1922 r. wyjechał do Palestyny i pracował na Moshav. Mieszkał w małym Moszav w Galil, gdzie uznano go za prawdziwego przyjaciela. Nauczył się hebrajskiego wieczorowo. Został zastrzelony i zmarł w 1925 r.

  JOCHEVET KOTEK (Nee Warszawski)  1914-1974

We are indeed  curious creatures who would love to resurrect relics of the past, and be able to re-encounter a myriad of memories that were not necessarily ours, but belonged to those departed loved ones .

My mother, Yocheved Warszawski- Kotek, was born on Rosh Hashanah 1914 in Zdunska Wola, predominantly a weaving town like the neighbouring town of Pabianice, where my father came from. They were both satellites of Lodz, which along with Manchester were the world weaving capital cities.

Yitzchak Meir and Esther had nine children. There were eight sisters, Chana, Freyda, Sura, Frimet, Rachel, and two others whose names I don’t know, as well as a brother Menachem.

My grandfather was a Gerer Chasid. His business was based in Warsaw where he, together with his son, operated a large trucking and transport business. He would train to Warsaw, and come home for Shabos. He was not only very wealthy, but tall and very charismatic. I was told that people would naturally turn to observe him as he walked. (thanks, Mr.&Mrs. Blicblau). My mother was so proud of him and said that he sat at the right hand of the Rebbe at his “Tish”, there was no greater honour, and it gave me enormous bragging rights. He and his son smuggled the Gerer Rebbe out of Poland when the war was commencing. I always asked why, and was told that he knew the impending fate. I asked,” If my grandfather knew, then why did he return?” The answer was,”It was God’s will.”

My parents met in Zdunska Wola. My father would often visit Rayla, a cousin who was an adopted sister, who married a man from Zduska Wola. My mother was a good friend of Rayla’s sister-in-law, who lived with her. Dad would meet mum there. He was interested in my mother, but feared her father, as dad was in a different social class and was not a chasid, but a member of Hashomer Hadati (Mizrachi). Mum also told him that her father would not allow them to marry.

My father’s brother-in-law was a successful leather merchant, whose big customer was the mayor of Zdunska Wola, so dad would go there every week or two on business, and see my mother.

On army leave Dad met my mother’s mother and my mother’s sisters. Shortly after, my mother told her parents that she wanted to marry him.

It was very hard to travel at this time, Jews weren’t allowed to travel on trains, but the ghetto wasn’t formed as yet. The wedding was held in Lodz, because mum’s parents couldn’t risk coming to Pabianice, because my grandfather still had a beard and payes. if  they caught him they would have cut off his beard and probably killed him. My parents then stayed in Warsaw for two to three months with my mother’s brother, before smuggling their way back to Pabianice on foot, dodging the SS.

When dad was taken to the concentration camps he didn’t see my mother again until about six months after liberation. She had been in the Lodz Ghetto, Warsaw Ghetto, Ravensbrook, and Auschwitz.

She was a charismatic survivor, the dowager of the family, who tragically died in 1974.

ADDENDA

-When we were in Jerusalem in 1998, there was a painting in an art gallery on George Hamelech. It was on a page of a Warsaw newspaper. Dad showed us that the address was the same as where my grandfather had his business. I regret not WRITING IT DOWN.

-I regret not writing down the names of my mother’s siblings.

– I regret that I didn’t ask Z_W survivors questions.

-My mother’s sister Freyda survived the war and married a Mr. Gershon. She died in Brooklyn approx. 1962.

– Freyda’s son Mendel, told me :

Mendel was a Bobover Chasid in Brooklyn, the girl he married, Brindl, her father was a Gerer Chasid who went to visit the Gerer Rebbe in Israel every year. When Mendel was to be married, he wrote to the Gerer Rebbe asking for his blessings. He never heard back.

When Mendel went to Israel, he visisted the Gerer Rebbe. He told me that he lined up in a long queue, nobody asked who he was, nor anything else, and when his turn came at the head of the queue, the Rebbe nodded to him, and my cousin left without any verbal communication taking place.

The following year, his father-in-law visited the Rebbe, and the Rebbe said to him, “your son-in-law was here. He asked if I sent him blessings for his wedding. I told him that I had. He also asked me if I remembered his family in Poland. I told him that I did.”

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