Story of the Korngut family

In Czarny Dunajec and the surrounding area there were several families with the surname Korngut. We managed to learn more about one of them from the descendants' family and from documents preserved in the archives.

The head of the family was Abraham David Korngut, who was born in the first half of the 19th century, possibly already in Czarny Dunajec. He had at least four children with his wife Lina (Cina). The oldest was Szymon (born around 1867), then Israel Moshe (1870-?), daughter Genendel Minka (1876-?) and Efraim Dow (1880-?).

The Kornguts were engaged in trade, selling flour and bran, and had a wine and beer warehouse, a textile shop, and a leather goods collection point. Ephraim and Mojżesz were councilors, and Szymon was listed as a deputy councilor in case of a vacancy (data from 1920).

Szymon Korngut
Abraham's eldest son, Szymon Korngut, married Hinda (1867-?), née Neugreschel, from Krościenko (her parents were Majer and Mali Neugreschel). They had at least nine children: the eldest, Chaim, was born in 1893, followed by Jakub Szija Cwi (1895-?), Abraham Dawid (1897-?), Hirsch (1898-?), Izak (1899-?), Estera (1900-?), Jecheskiel (1906), Jehuda Leibisch, and Sali (1911-?).

Israel Moshe Korngut
Abraham's second son, Israel Moshe, and his wife Lea Mindel (née Rober, Bober, or Dober), had at least seven children: Josef David  (born 1900 in Czarny Dunajec – died 1990 in Israel), Rosa, Estera, Malka, Sara, Wilk, and Ryfka.

Genendel Minka Korngut
Abraham David's only known daughter, Gendel Minka (1876-?), married Izak Aron Kalfus, who came from Altendorf (today's Spišská Stará Ves in Slovakia), but after the wedding moved to Czarny Dunajec, where he sold alcohol. One child is known to have been born to them: their daughter Sydonia, born on July 1, 1911, in Czarny Dunajec.

Efraim Korngut
The youngest son of Abraham David, Efraim Dow, had at least six children with his wife Chawa Ewa née Horowitz (born in 1879 in Zborov, present-day Slovakia): Genendel Minka (1905-?), Aron (1909-?), Chaskiel (1911-?), Jakub Osias (1912-?), Debora, and Izak Hirsch. When Chawa died (probably around 1917), Efraim married her sister Hinda Horowitz (1890-?), with whom he had a son, Izak. The two sisters who were married to Efraim were from the Horowitz family of Zborov; their parents were Samuel and Sala née Zimmerman. Sala's relatives live in the USA: a great-great-grandson of her sister Breindla Zimmermann, who married under the surname Miller. In those days, marrying one's deceased wife's sister was not uncommon, nor were cousin marriages. Two of Ephraim Korngut's children married their cousins: Genendel Minka married Józef Dawid Korngut, and Izak Hirsch Korngut married his cousin Estera (daughter of Szymon), and they had a son, Majer (born October 24, 1925).

According to information provided by Ania Brzyska, who deals with the history of the Jewish community in Brzesko, two cousins ​​of the Kornguts from Czarny Dunajec married two girls from Brzesko. Jakub Szija (son of Szymon) married Scheindel Landau from Brzesko (born 16.12.1895 in Brzesko, daughter of Moses Dawid and Reisla Landau, merchants of mixed goods). We know of their two sons, who were born in Brzesko: Hersz Majer, born 07.09.1922 and Abraham Henryk, born 06.01.1924.

Aron Korngut
His cousin Aron (son of Efraim) married Cyla Silberman (on December 15, 1909, daughter of Berisch and Ella Silberman of Brzesko). Before the wedding, however, Aron appears in documents from Kraków. At the age of 20, he settled at 20 Dajwór Street in Kazimierz, a fact we know from his ID card issued in 1930 in that city.

It is possible that he left Czarny Dunajec to study at a religious school, as he listed his profession as "Talmudist." But just three years later, he opened a shop in Czarny Dunajec's market square, where he engaged in the "retail sale of alcoholic beverages in closed containers" (an entry has been preserved in the records of pre-war businesses), but the business quickly closed.

After marrying Cyla Silberman, they first lived in Brzesko, where their daughter Ewa Jochewet was born (December 2, 1937), and then moved to Nowy Targ.

Abraham Korngut
War archives contain information about Abraham Korngut, born in Czarny Dunajec in 1873, who died on December 7, 1916, during World War I (he served as a platoon sergeant in the 5th Company of the 32nd Landsturm Infantry Regiment of the Imperial-Royal Austro-Hungarian Army).

Josef David Korngut

From the descendants of the Korngut family, we know for certain that Josef David (his parents were Isreal Moshe and Lea Mindl), who owned a textile shop in the market square before the war, survived the Holocaust by fleeing eastward in the first days of the war. His son, Israel Koren, who currently lives in Natania, Israel, told a short story of his survival: "After the war broke out, my father and his family fled eastward until they found themselves in Przemyśl, which was already on the Soviet side. He was sent to a labor camp in Siberia, where he worked, among other things, cutting down trees. After some time, he reached Usbekistan. During this time, my father's six-year-old niece died of typhus."
The rest of the family survived and, with the help of the Jewish Agency, reached a DP (displaced persons) camp in Wels, Austria, where they lived for several years before emigrating to Israel in 1948. Josef David Korngut married his cousin Genendel Minka (daughter of Ephraim), who was also born in Czarny Dunajec. In 1949, their son Israel Koren was born in Israel.

During the entire wartime wanderings, Józef and Minka managed to keep documents from Poland: his identity card and copies of both of their birth certificates. Israel Koren transferred a copy of these documents to the digital archive of Jewish Czarny Dunajec.

Israel is related to another family from Czarny Dunajec, whose story was described earlier, namely the Kleinzahler family. Rosa Korngut was his aunt (father's sister), she was born in Czarny Dunajec and in 1926 she married Menachem Mendel Kleinzahler, with whom she had four children. After the outbreak of the war, the entire Kleinzahler family fled to the east, the parents died of typhus on the way, and the four children survived, passing through camps in Tehran and Karachi, among others, and reached Israel. The whole story is described here.

Israel Koren (with his wife Chaja) - son of Józef Dawid Korngut, born in Czarny Dunajec - during the commemoration in 2024, photo by Jagoda Bukowska-Ziółko