I found some photos under this title in a friend’s Facebook profile. I was interested, so I decided to write Nora Lerner, who had posted them, asking to get in touch. Nora answered immediately, in perfect Polish: „Marysia, I sent a few family photos because I was fed up with all the prewar photographs of poor Jews”.

 

This is how, at the end of April, the correspondence between cold Cracow and much warmer Tel Aviv begins. I came to know fragments of the history of Lerners, Bornsteins, Gross’ and Singers. As much as Nora remembers and as much as she managed to hear – because after leaving Poland at the age of ten – she did not want to listen. She did not want to know about Mengele, labor camps, Poland. I came to know about Natan Bornstein’s family (Nora’s grandmother’s brother), who lived in a building where I live. With this in mind – how could I not write this story? So I asked questions, Nora answered. From time to time she consulted with her family and then I had to wait for her reply a little longer. After all her mother is 96 years old!

“At the beginning of the second half of 18th century four Lerner families lived in Cracow. I am not sure when exactly the Jews got their surnames but supposingly it was during these years. The name “Lerner” comes from German and means a student, a scholar, a scientist. Surnames were given in accordance with professions, character, attributes.

Nora comments: “Of course I am very proud of this surname… :)) Only recently I found a web page: http://www.ics.uci.edu/~dan/genealogy/Krakow/family.html, where – thanks to Dan Hirschberg’s work – all Cracow’s Jews are listed.

This is my grandmother, my father’s mother – Rachel (Bornstein) Lerner:

 

 

 

My grandfather, my father’s father – Salomon Lerner:

And here in Sopot or Międzyzdroje, 1921 or 1922 – the boys were 14 – 15 years old. The second woman from the left with her right arm up is Hela (Bornstein) Singer, my grandmother’s sister. The third one, with a towel, is my grandmother Rachel (Bornstein) Lerner. The fifth, wearing a cap, is Pola Lerner, my father’s sister. The boy in a white costume is aunt Hela Singer’s younger son –  Nathan (Singer) Ophir. Lying on the sand are Heniu Singer (Hela’s older son) and my father Emil Lerner (Meniu)”.

I take a brief look at all the other pictures. It is Saturday, cleaning day in my house – so I write a quick answer: „Thanks, I will look and read later on. Now I am cleaning our apartment with my kids. I have finally made them help!” Nora: „Bravo! Good luck!”

After having achieved a definite educational success with my older child cleaning our rabbit’s cage and our hamster’s aquarium, I let myself have a short break. I write back:  „Thanks. What is the weather like in Tel Aviv? It is really warm in Cracow today, finally!” Although we have just celebrated Easter at Podlasie (eastern part of Poland), the snowdrifts haven’t melted yet. Spring comes reluctantly this year. Nora writes: „Hamsin. This is how we call a very dry and hot day. 35ºC. I am sitting in an air-conditioned room. I know you had a very long and harsh winter. Last year we were in Poland, in Szczawno Zdrój at the end of October when it started to snow. It was great fun for us… My husband made an eagle on the ground…” We also make snow eagles! My daughter says they are  angels, not eagles. „Maybe she is right?” – comments Nora in her next mail.

I like our „discussions” – I do not know her and in fact I cannot tell much about Nora. What is she like?  I know only what she wants to share with me. At present, she is retired, before that she taught history of art. She likes pearls and makes necklaces, earrings, bracelets for sale. The money that she earns selling her work Nora allocates for special, rare pearls for herself. She has a diploma of pearl expertise awarded by  the GIA (Gemological Institute of America). I also know that she has a dog – Lolabelle. And, last but not least – a husband, Eli of whom she very often writes or uses plural while talking about herself – „we” – Nora and Eli. I think they are a loving couple.

Obviously on Sunday, when we could let the youth out on the grass –  the sky is grey and it looks like rain. Oh well, at least I may stay home and carefully look at all the photos. Beautiful Nora’s father – very good looking face. He died in 1975.

And here Emil Lerner again, indicated with an arrow, at Hebrew grammar school (Brzozowa 5 street):

I looked at the photos quickly, to make it before all of the inmates wake up, I write an email to Nora, asking how the Israeli Sunday looks like. Just after breakfast I have an answer:  „Good morning Marysia, this is just an ordinary working day, a Sunday is called „the first day”. Then comes the second day, third day etc. In the sixth day, meaning Friday, the shops are closed at one or two p.m. because Saturday starts with the sunset. Public transport does not run. It is different in Tel Aviv – here you can buy anything. The restaurants and cafes are open”.

The windows of my bedroom face the backyard of what used to be the Hebrew grammar school. The one that  Meniu, Nora’s dad, attended. This evening I look through my window, at the dark windows of the opposit builing and ask myself: what was it like to study there? Maybe Nora knows? She claims that when she comes to Cracow and walks along the Kazimierz’s streets – she never thinks of ghosts and shadows. She writes: „Behind these windows my dad studied, took exams, gazed at  girls and so forth, and so forth”.

Meniu survived. How? I’m sending an email. The answer comes several minutes later:
„Let’s go further… 🙂 My father was a gynecologist. He studied medicine in Prague because in Cracow there was a regulation called “numerus clausus” – the access to study medicine was limited, like other places then,  for people of Jewish origins. My father’s cousin – Moniek (Maurycy) Gross (he died in 1959) managed to study medicine at the Jagiellonian University, because his father sold coal  for the Jagielonian University….. During World War II my dad was in Auschwitz, he worked with Mengele. He survived. I don’t know much because I didn’t want to know. My parents were talking about the war all the time, and I used to leave the room whenever they started… After the war, after the camps, my parents wanted to go to Palestine. Unfortunately, they did not get permission to  leave the country, because there was a lack of doctors in Poland. My parents settled in Wałbrzych (I was born there), because they neither could, nor wanted to go back to Cracow. Understandable…. My dad’s friends, at hospital, advised him to change his name into Polish so as to make his life in Poland easier. He was not the only one who got rid of his Jewish surname. My father never got back to „Lerner” again. He was a popular gynecologist, then he was an emigrant, he had to start everything anew. All of his documents were for „Leśniak”.

 

I have gone back to my family’s Jewish surname. My brother, Leopold Arie (Arie means a lion in Hebrew) and his three sons have the name „Leshniak”. This is a great tragedy for me. I don’t have children because I never wanted. So, for the time being, I am the last Lerner…”

While looking at the photos, my attention is drawn to beautiful Pola (Lerner) Kolber, Nora’s father’s sister.

„My father’s sister, Pola, married a pediatrician. Dr Roman Kolber was a well-known philantropist in Cracow. He used to give toys to the poorest children.
They had a son, Bruno (a photo with a sledge). During the war they decided to run away and managed to reach Romanian border.  There, the whole family – Pola, Roman and Bruno were all shot by the Germans”.

Pola (Lerner) Kolber

dr Roman Kolber

Bruno, the son of Pola and Roman Kolber

Bruno, the son of Pola and Roman Kolber

Zakopane:  1925 or 1926, just before my father’s trip to Antwerp for a diamond polishing course. My grandmother Rachel (Bornstein) Lerner, aunt Pola (Lerner) Kolber and my dad with striped socks

 Zakopane: grandmother Rachel (Bornstein) Lerner  and aunt Pola (Lerner) Kolber

 

Nora’s grandmother, Rachel (Bornstein) Lerner was murdered in Auschwitz in 1942. The same fate awaited her grandfather, Salomon Lerner. It’s hard to believe there is God when a war comes. Nora says: „I am an atheist but I have respect for others. Let people do what they want… My father’s family was religious. And my cousin is also religious – Prof. Natan Bornstein, a famous neurologist (from a family that lived in your house). But my father after the camps didn’t want to hear about God. And I think he was completely right”.

I ask Nora if she knows the number of apartment in my building the Bornstein family lived.

„Sorry…… I don’t. The same with my grandfather’s shop – I cannot find it, the shop was at  Grodzka street opposite the church with twelve saints  [Peter and Paul Church]. My grandfather Salomon sold clothes and the like. I was there, searching. I don’t know. I think the shop was rented so my grandfather is not be mentioned in city archives as an owner”.

I want to know something more about Nora’s cousin, a famous Israeli professor of neurology, Natan Bornstein. And once again, history is catching up with me: at Yad Vashem webpage I find Szlomo Bornstein’s testimony of his father Natan’s death, in Cracow ghetto in 1943. I am sending a link to Nora who reacts immediately: „Oh dear! I have never seen it! My cousin got his name just after his grandfather. This finding will never end……” Half an hour later Nora writes: „Natan is now sitting in New Delhi, crying”.

On May 4th I get an email with exclamation marks from Nora: „Marysia, just a minute ago, for the first time in my life I saw my great-grandmother!!! Look, place of residence: Krakowska 29. I cannot believe this. I got it from my cousin Varda from Washington. Our contact is turning into something amazing „.

 

Varda… „My grandmother’s sister, Róża (Bornstein) Gross i jej mąż, Markus Hirsch Gross were the owners of the whole building at Miodowa 34. They had two sons: Natan Gross (murdered) and Maurycy/Moniek Gross. Moniek managed to survive thanks to Aryan documents. He was a gynecologist, graduated from medical studies at Jagiellonian University. He was admitted there – I have already told you about it  – because his father sold coal to the university. Moniek’s daughter is my cousin Varda who lives in the United States. Her name, Varda, means a rose in Hebrew”.

 

Róża (Bornstein) Gross

 

Natan Gross

Maurycy (Moniek) Gross

I get to know something about Nora’s mother’s family at the very end. It is a difficult subject, I do not dare explore.

„My mom, Irena (Neiger) Lerner, comes from Chrzanów. Her mother was Lea (Silberman) Neiger. Only in 2008 did I see for the first time how she looked. My mom always claimed her mother’s name was Leonora. In the city archives in Cracow I found out my grandmother’s name was Lea. During the war my mom worked at Rakowice airport, then she was in Auschwitz concentration camp. She met my father in Wałbrzych. You know, when we visited Cracow in 2007, it was essential for Eli to see Rakowice airport. He is interested in everything related to WWII – especially airplanes. We went there, took hundreds of pictures, we even found three barracks dating back to the war. When we showed the pictures to my mom she said she did not recognize anything, full stop. Lea (Leonora) Neiger was murdered. In Auschwitz also mother’s younger sister Pola died. Only recently I discovered that she was called Pepa in the family. My mum’s father, Israel Neiger, survived. After the war he changed his name to Antoni Wieluński and came with us to Israel in 1957. I had a great relation with my grandfather however, our contact broke off in Israel since we lived in different cities. I went to stay with him during holidays and I often slept at his apartment when I was in the army.  My mom didn’t have that good relationship with him. They argued a lot”.

Erna Irena (Neiger) Leśniak

Pola Neiger. A picture enlarged from a group photo. The only photo of Pola that has survived

Nora with her grandfather, Antoni Wieluński (prewar Israelem Neiger). Wisła, 1953

“My mom was worried that she would forget her mother’s face. At her request I searched for grandmother’s (Lea Silberman – Neiger) photo in the Cracow city archive. I found a picture of her, taken in the Cracow ghetto. So I – at 61 years of age – sat on the bench at the city archive’s backyard  thinking: what will I feel when I see my grandmother’s face for the first time in my life.

Lea Silberman – Neiger

“Two years later also my great-grandmother came back 'after centuries’  (Leonora Lea’s mother) – Golda Silberman. By the way, I would not want to meet her in a dark alley… Take a good look at  Golda. Doesn’t she look like a very sour lady?

Golda Silbermann

“I have heard from Ruth, my mom’s recently discovered cousin, that Golda indeed was a witch. Cousin Ruth was born after her grandmother’s death and knew a story of Golda from her mom, Golda’s daughter in law – that’s why the truth may be completely different. There is a wig on Golda’s head because she was very religious, and on her neck – a stunning gold watch from 1909 with a diamond ornament in art nouveau style. This watch is now in my possesion. Golda died in Berlin in 1926″.

Golda Silbermann’s grave

This is the last photo. The story is going to end. Collecting the information and details concerning life and death of all the people mentioned above took me a month and several days. Over thirty days of continuous exploring of my mailbox – because there might be a crucial information waiting for me! While corresponding with Nora I feel neither a difference of age or experience nor a distance. Maybe it is because Nora avoids patronizing, does not dictate her views, still surprises with witty comments and has no bitterness or blame. She talks about painful memories with irony and black humor. Sometimes opinions in her emails open my eyes and also very often I have to read her remarks repeatedly so as to believe that Nora really wrote that. When I ask what happened to Rachel Lerner (grandmother) – Nora replies: „She went out with smoke like everyone else. Pardon, not everyone, because Roman, Pola and Brunuś were shot”. Several moments later I get another email: “Actually, I could also say that they left through the chimney”. I’m not appalled, because how could I be? This is Nora! I don’t need to be careful with what I ask and write about in my emails – when I don’t know – she explains, when I ask – she answers. How is it that you’re so normal? – I ask. „Normal? I’ll tell Eli!” – I imagine that she laughs at the other side of the monitor. She says that cynicism and skepticism help her live. Facts she accepts as facts, problems – the issues to be solved. For example – the issue of recovery her Polish nationality.

“I asked the Governor of Lower Silesia (I was born in Wałbrzych) twice, to restore my Polish nationality. And twice I received a negative decision. So I sent a request to President Lech Kaczynski and this time it worked. The ceremony took place at the Presidential Palace in Warsaw  in 2008. This is the picture taken while I’m receiving the document restoring my Polish nationality and I am handing in to the President the Lerners family tree, proving that my family lived in Cracow since 1775. Now I have dual nationality.”

 

Nora  sends to me a link to her profile at “Nasza Klasa” (Our Class) – Polish social networking site. „Nasza Klasa?!!!” – I ask surprised that she wanted to get back in touch with her Polish friends whom she had left 56 years ago. „And why not?” Nora answers with a question.

Would you like to come and stay in Poland for good? – I ask

„No” – Nora answers decidedly. We do not talk about it anymore.