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    The Egg Dealer from Nowy Wiśnicz
    The Egg Dealer from Nowy Wiśnicz
    The Egg Dealer from Nowy Wiśnicz
    Ebook97 pages1 hour

    The Egg Dealer from Nowy Wiśnicz

    By Steve Buchsbaum

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    About this ebook

    Against a backdrop of rival empires and shifting borders, the Buchbaum and Heller families lived in the foothills of the Carpathians mountains for centuries.

    Follow Steve Buchsbaum as he visits the Polish and Hungarian villages and towns where his ancestors lived and traces the details of their lives over the centuries.

    Follow the story of Benjamin Buchbaum, the egg dealer from Nowy Wisnicz, Poland, as he and his family create lives for themselves in New York in the 1890s.

    Learn about the author's attempts to ascertain what happened to his European cousins during the Nazi occupation of their towns and villages. The eye-witness testimony of his cousin Genia Klapholz provides a shocking look into the Buchbaum's home town of Nowy Wisnicz and the people living there during the time it was occupied by Nazi forces. Visit nearby Brzesko to learn about present-day efforts to memorialize the town's Jewish residents.

    Visit the top secret Nazi death camp called Belzec through the eyes of Rudolf Reder, a Jewish prisoner forced to work there. Train loads of Jewish people were delivered day after day to the camp and put to death immediately, including many of the Jewish people from Nowy Wisnicz and Brzesko.

    50 pages.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherBoxwood Press
    Release dateMar 15, 2018
    ISBN9781386026334
    The Egg Dealer from Nowy Wiśnicz
    Author

    Steve Buchsbaum

    Steve Buchsbaum lives in Belgrade, Maine with his wife Gina Coppens. Sometimes he wakes up and wishes the Canadian border had picked itself up and moved a few miles south of his house during the night. He loves visiting other parts of the world and talking to people wherever he goes.

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      Book preview

      The Egg Dealer from Nowy Wiśnicz - Steve Buchsbaum

      Foreward

      Initially, this was a story about searching for the European roots of my family, primarily those people who left their parents, sisters and brothers and emigrated to the United States during the 1880s and 1890s. The story grew to include the Polish and Hungarian members of my family who stayed home when my direct descendants left. Once I was in Eastern Europe, I realized that this had been one of my goals all along. Occasionally, throughout my life, I had wondered if a dark history lurked behind my European family members. No one in my family living in the United States knew anything about them.

      In November 2017, I flew to Kraków, Poland. My goal was to visit the towns and villages where my great-grandparents and grandparents lived prior to moving to the United States. I stayed in Kraków for four nights and visited the small towns of Nowy Wiśnicz, Brzesko and Bochnia, about fifty kilometers east of the city. My father’s family lived in these towns for many generations. From there, I drove south through the Carpathian Mountains to visit Hungary and Slovakia, to learn about my mother’s family. I drove back north and visited the Nazi death camp called Bełżec, near the Ukrainian border. I went to Warsaw. Then I flew home to Belgrade, Maine, in the United States.

      The two week experience was mind-bending, thrilling and disheartening, all wrapped together like strands of DNA. Honestly, I don’t think I will ever be the same again.

      One of my takeaways from the trip is an impression that the images people have today of the Jewish citizens who lived in Eastern Europe for many centuries are incomplete and distorted by present day attitudes and narratives. Hassidic Jews and Jewish families living in segregated shtetls (think Fiddler on the Roof) appear to dominate these present-day pop culture images. Historical narratives can be shaded as much by what isn’t said as by what is said...picking and choosing what to emphasize and what to leave out. Today’s pop culture images seem to highlight the differences between Jewish people and their non-Jewish neighbors. I hope that my story contributes, in a small way, another voice and another image of the life of the Jewish people who used to live in Eastern Europe. It’s the image of the Jewish people living in small-town Poland and Hungary who had a modern outlook on life. It’s the image of some people who were religious and some who didn’t choose to participate in religious life. Some may have moved away to escape the restraints of organized religion.

      My great-grandparents were born around 1860 and emigrated to the United States when they were in their twenties and thirties. They were not members of a Hassidic sect and they did not live in segregated Jewish shtetls like the one pictured in Fiddler on the Roof. Nor did they live in big cities. They were ordinary people, not people who would stand out in a crowd of fellow citizens in the towns where they lived. I want them to be remembered, so that they are not excluded when people today, and in the future, talk about the Jewish citizens of these countries. They were, first and foremost, human beings. They identified themselves as Polish, Hungarian and Russian. That was their nationality. Judaism, for them, was a religion, not a nation. My mother told me that her grandparents always thought of themselves as Hungarians and were proud of it. From 1881 to 1914, eighty-five percent of the more than two million Jewish people who emigrated from Poland went to the United States. Ten percent went to Argentina or Canada. They were, by and large, seeking better economic opportunities, just like millions of other Polish, Italian and Irish immigrants. Three percent of the Jewish people who emigrated from Poland during that time went to Palestine. They believed in the goal of forming a Jewish nation.

      The stories of this diverse region cannot be trimmed and tailored into a single narrative like a suit of cloth. For example, most Jewish people shared religious traditions and the Yiddish language across the ever-changing borders of the empires that fought over control and resources. However, sharing traditions and a language does not mean that Jews were a homogeneous people. Judaism is not governed by a central committee or a single leader and the history of Judaism is replete with debate about the Old Testament and unending interpretations of rabbinical teachings. Secular, non-religious Jews rejected many of the orthodox rituals, restrictions and teaching. Orthodox Jews were split among several major groups whose differences I could not hope to explain. Small sects of Hassidic Jews followed their own rabbis and developed their own new traditions. The Zionist idea split the Jewish communities along a different axis. Most Jewish people rejected the idea of a Jewish state. Political ideas were varied and very contentious. Some people were communists, others were free market capitalists. There were poverty stricken Jewish families and wealthy Jewish families. Jewish people lived in major cities, small towns, and shtetls. Their experience was quite varied. Many lived and worked side by side with Christians, others chose to segregate themselves. Some thought that religious scholars who wanted to do nothing but study the Talmud should be supported by the Jewish community. Others didn’t like this idea at all. The Jewish history of this area is enough to make your head spin. There is no one narrative, but a multitude of narratives regarding the life and thoughts of the Jewish families that lived in this region. This should not be surprising. Just look at the political and cultural differences among Jewish people today.

      Similarly, there is no one narrative that describes the Christians who lived throughout the area.

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