Story of the Neugewirtz

The year is 1932, maybe 1933. This photo must have been taken around that time. Summer. Someone had deliberately dragged two chairs out of the house and placed them in the garden so that the grandparents could sit comfortably and pose for a photo with their grandchildren. In a few years, war would break out and only two people in this photo would survive it. But one would be killed by the Poles a few days after Germany's capitulation.

The grandparents were Gitel and Natan Neugewirtz. All we knew about Natan and his wife (then without even giving her name) was that he made tinware and that they both died in August 1942.

Thanks to the Korngut family, some of whom survived the Holocaust, we have more information about them, and above all this extraordinary photo. Gitel (or Jetti) was born on August 20, 1873 in Wróblówka, her father, Moses Korngut, was a "propinator", i.e. he ran a tavern, her mother's name was Schain. Gitel had a younger brother, Henryk (Chaim).

Gitel married Natan Neugewirtz and moved in with him in Czarny Dunajec. Natan, born on October 18, 1869, (his parents were Sara and Markus) was a craftsman, he made tin objects, dishes, he had his own tinsmith's workshop, and in their house lived students who were learning the trade. The Polish Address Book from 1929 lists him as the only tinsmith in the town. Natan was also a member of the board of the local crafts guild.

The Neugewirtzs had at least three daughters: Chaja Estera (born 1895), Reisel (Rozalia, born 1896) and Mindel (Mina, born 1898). The grandchildren posing with their grandparents in the photo are the children of Ruzia (and her husband Chaim, who was a shoemaker in Czarny Dunajec) and Mina (who in turn married Kraus). From the left, the oldest of them: Nela Trepper (Netla, born 1925), in the middle Leon Kraus, and on the right Jenia (Yafa, born 1928). The photo survived thanks to Nela, who was the only one of the five to survive and leave Poland (Leon Kraus was killed right after the war in Podhale in May 1945).

In the summer of 1942, the Nazis were preparing to deport Jews from Podhale to the extermination camp in Bełżec. In August, they carried out a selection and killed a dozen or so people in Czarny Dunajec who, in their opinion, would not have survived the hardships of transport anyway. Among those shot on August 24, 1942, were Gitel and Natan Neugewirtz. They were 69 and 73 years old, respectively. They were buried in a mass grave at the Jewish cemetery in Czarny Dunajec.