Nathansohn Family

About authors:

My name is Jakub Szyszka. I am a graduate of the Secondary School of the Presentation Sisters in Rzeszów, and I am currently studying law at the University of Rzeszów. In my free time, I enjoy discovering unknown or forgotten episodes in the history of my city. I am particularly inspired by the Galician period when Rzeszów was a home for representatives of many cultures, religions, and languages.

Representative of the Nathansohn Family – Rena Epstein

What does Rena Epstein know about her family from Rzeszów?

Rena’s grandfather is Saul Nathansohn. He was born on October 4, 1903 in Oświęcim, from where he moved to Rzeszów in 1923. He married Rosa Blima Teitelbaum (born May 21, 1905) from nearby Błażowa and had two children with her: Samuel “Milek” (born June 18, 1929), father of Rena Epstein, and his older sister, also Rena (born December 30, 1925). The family lived in Rzeszów, probably at Naruszewicza Street 14/26. The head of the family, Saul, was a businessman whose family owned a factory producing asphalt and roofing material in Oświęcim. Later Saul opened a similar factory in Rzeszów.

An almost hour-long recording of Samuel Natansohn’s memories, available on the website of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, was a particularly valuable source of information for me. Samuel’s childhood took place before the outbreak of World War II. He recalled that he came from an Orthodox Hasidic family, but Polish was always spoken at home. According to Rena Epstein’s father, Jews were not fully accepted in Polish society and anti-Semitic behavior occurred among Poles. Despite this, he considered himself a Polish patriot, supported Polish teams, and had friends among the non-Jewish population. Samuel also remembered September 1, 1939 well. As a ten-year-old boy, he was not particularly concerned about the outbreak of the war, for him it mainly meant canceled classes and longer holidays. He was convinced that the Polish army would defeat Hitler and everything would end well. However, it soon turned out that the situation had taken a different direction, and extremely dire times had come for the Nathansohn family and the entire Jewish community of Rzeszów.

All Jews over the age of twelve were forced to wear an armband with a Star of David on their left arm, and synagogues, prayer houses, and Jewish schools were closed. The extermination of the Jewish population took place gradually. At first, the Germans took young people for forced labor outside the city. Some of those young people never returned. Over time, a ghetto was established in the city, where over 20,000 Jews lived in a small area in extremely difficult conditions.

Samuel’s father, Saul Nathansohn, was falsely accused of writing an offensive letter against Hitler and had to go into hiding. The Gestapo searched the family’s apartment, and when nothing was found, his wife Rosa was arrested. After a long time, thanks to a bribe, Samuel’s mother was released. Saul initially hid in one of the villages near Rzeszów, but soon his health deteriorated seriously. Over time, he went to Tarnów city, where in June 1942, together with approximately 5,000 other Jews, he was murdered by the Nazis.

In the summer of 1942, mass deportations of Rzeszów Jews began. They were transported from the Rzeszów ghetto to the death camp in Bełżec, where most of Samuel’s extended family was murdered. The first deportation took place on July 7, and the next on 10th, 14th and 17th of July. Samuel saw the course of these war crimes in detail: thousands of people crowded into a small area of ​​the former Jewish cemetery (today’s Ghetto Victims Square) in the summer heat, barked at by dogs and rushed by German guards. Anyone who did not have the strength to walk towards the Rzeszów Staroniwa railway station was killed on the spot. Rosa Nathansohn avoided deportation and was allowed to stay in the Rzeszów ghetto because she worked physically on the railway. As her children, Rena and Samuel, worked with her, they also avoided deportation.

The family managed to obtain forged Aryan documents for Rena, thanks to which she was able to get out of the ghetto. Unfortunately, during a routine inspection, she was turned over to the Germans by a Polish railway guard. She was sent to the criminal prison and then a forced labor camp in Przemyśl, from where she was transported to Auschwitz in the fall of 1943. She died in the gas chamber.

Rosa Nathansohn and Samuel, who was already 14, remained in Rzeszów. They were already aware of their inevitable extermination. However, unexpectedly, they had a chance to save themselves. In November 1943, together with three cousins, they escaped from the ghetto and, thanks to the help of Karola and Kazimierz Kuśnierz (who worked for the Nathansohns before the war) they took refuge in a basement storage closet. When this hideout was compromised, they were taken in by Mrs. Kusnierz’s sister, Mrs. Wisniewska. In this way, they remained hidden until the city was liberated in the summer of 1944. The heroic attitude of the Kuśnierz and Wisniewska families was remembered and appreciated; in 1975, the Yad Vashem Institute awarded them the title of Righteous Among the Nations.

After the war, Samuel went to West Germany, where he spent two years at the University of Frankfurt. Then in 1949, he went to the United States, where he graduated in chemistry from Brooklyn College. He worked professionally in GTE laboratories as a material scientist  and obtained many patents. In addition, he was active in his  synagogue and served on the board of  a local hospital. Rosa Natansohn died in the USA in 1991, and Samuel in 2020.

Search effects

I started my search by checking Google search results for the phrase: Nathansohn Rzeszów. Although I did not expect spectacular results, I had to start somewhere. To my surprise, I came across an interesting document on the website genealogyindexer.org. that looks like a fragment of an address book from pre-war Rzeszów, with data of state institutions, enterprises, and production plants. The information that caught my attention was: Standard Nathansohn and Orschuetzer, roofing felt, asphalt and chemical products factory, Szopena Street 5. It seems to be a record of a company run by Saul Nathansohn. I shared the document I discovered with Rena Epstein. She was surprised because she did not know about the existence of a co-owner named Orschuetzer.

The next part of the search, which brought the most results, took place in the State Archives in Rzeszów. In the old files of the City of Rzeszów, I managed to find a population traffic control book with a file regarding Saul Nathansohn, his wife Rosa and two children – Rena and Samuel. It shows that Saul arrived in Rzeszów on December 1, 1923. The file also allowed me to confirm the family’s address: Naruszewicza Street 14/26.

I tried to find the given address, but currently in Rzeszów at Naruszewicza Street there is no house marked with the number 14. This is quite surprising, because there are numbers 13, 15 and 16 (adjacent to the Medyk Medical Center). Interestingly, just around the corner there is the building at Szopena Street 5, where Saul Nathansohn’s factory was supposed to operate. Did Szopena 5 and Naruszewicza 14 streets have access to the same yard? Maybe there used to be a factory there? I assume that the tenement house at Naruszewicza Street 14 could have been destroyed during or after the war. The numbering of buildings on this street may also have changed.

In the collections of the State Archives in Rzeszów, I also found a document of the civil wedding of Saul Nathansohn and Rosa Blima Teitelbaum. The bride and groom were married in Rzeszów on August 21, 1932 in the presence of Rabbi Aron Lewin. Lewin was a rabbi in Rzeszów from 1926, and twice in 1922-1928 and 1930-1935, also a member of the Polish Sejm on behalf of the Agudat Israel party. The document contains detailed information about the dates and places of birth of Rena Epstein’s grandparents, as well as personal details of their parents.

Based on the information obtained in the conversation with Rena Epstein, I assume that before the outbreak of the war, Rena’s aunt – Rena Nathansohn – attended a junior high school in Rzeszów run by the Jewish Folk School Society. The family chose this school as studying in a coeducational middle school was difficult to reconcile with their religious beliefs. Unfortunately, I was unable to find any documents confirming Rena’s education at this institution.

I also tried to find out more about Karolina and Kazimierz Kuśnierz, who gave shelter to Rosa and Samuel during the Holocaust. For this purpose, I contacted the Yad Vashem Institute, which has extensive archival collections on the Righteous. It turned out that apart from Rosa and Samuel, there were several other people hiding at Mr. and Mrs. Kuśnierz’s place. Mrs. Kuśnierz’s sister, Mrs. Wiśniewska, and her two sons – Józef (13 years old) and Ryszard (11 years old) – were also involved in the action. Kamil Kopera, a historian from the Pilecki Institute, helped me determine that the grave of the Kuśnierz family is in Rzeszów at the Pobitno Cemetery. Unfortunately, I did not manage to find out the post-war fate of Mrs. Wiśniewska or her sons.

Summaries

Jakub Szyszka

Participation in the project “My Rzeszów. “Our Rzeszów” was a valuable and interesting, although demanding, experience for me. I learned how to use archival resources. Once again, I realized how personal and close a big history can become if you look at it through the prism of ordinary people who once lived in the same city, grew up here, experienced their joys and dramas, and walked the same streets as us today… The project also made me realize how many people emotionally connected with Rzeszów live all over the world and preserve the memory of the city. A question also arose: what does today’s Rzeszów – its community – do to cultivate the memory of its former residents and maintain contact with their descendants? But perhaps the most important part of the project for me was the opportunity to meet Rena Epstein. I am grateful that she allowed me to delve so deeply into the history of her family, as well as for our conversations that concerned history and contemporary challenges, memory, identity, and democracy. During one of these conversations, Rena confessed that she used to approach the country of her ancestors with some distance. It gave me satisfaction when she said that after participating in our project she was considering visiting Poland.

Rena Epstein:

When I first joined this project, I was attracted by the enthusiasm of our student counterparts in Rzeszow and hoped the experience would broaden our mutual understanding of Jewish life there. I was thrilled (and admittedly somewhat surprised) that this new generation of Rzeszow-ians was intent on learning about the town’s Jewish history.  So many Polish Jewish lives were wiped off the face of the earth during the Holocaust, without even a tombstone or a surviving relative to remember them, that this effort, several generations later, to acknowledge their humanity and contributions to Rzeszow was heartwarming.

I also wanted to gain additional insight into my father’s family history, several details of which remained elusive: for example, when the Natansohns arrived in Rzeszow, where they lived, and whether there were any records of their education.  My father Samuel Natansohn, a boy of 10 when World War II broke out, saw virtually his entire extended family murdered during the war. However, besides my father’s written and oral testimonies about his wartime experience, we had few resources documenting their lives beforehand.

I am so grateful to my Polish counterpart Jakub Szyszka,  who unearthed several documents that brought me closer to my family’s pre-war lives. As a former history major, I have long appreciated the importance of primary sources, but I underestimated the emotional impact that seeing, for example, the address of my grandfather’s roofing factory in a 1939 phone book or my grandparents’ civil marriage registration (retrieved from the archives) would have on me. This evidence of my family’s pre-war existence has helped me think of my family’s experience in Rzeszow as not only associated with the horrors of World War II and antisemitism but also as typical of people going about their normal daily lives. I am profoundly grateful to Graznya and Jakub for opening this window into their past and for pursuing this research with great intelligence and dedication. 

From the left: Samuel, Rosa and Rena Nathansohn, probably Rzeszów, 1940. This is probably the last photo of these three together. Photo courtesy of Rena Epstein.

On the right, Samuel Nathansohn, next to his friends, taken in Rzeszów during World War II, 1941. Samuel was under 12 years old, so he did not have to wear an armband. Photo courtesy of Rena Epstein.

Saul Nathansohn, Samuel’s father, murdered in Tarnów in June 1942. The photo was probably taken during the war as Saul Nathansohn does not have a beard here. He probably shaved it to avoid drawing attention to himself as being a religious Jew. Photo courtesy of Rena Epstein.

Rena and Samuel Nathansohn. Siblings pose for a photo in Rzeszów near the Adam Mickiewicz monument at the intersection of Mickiewicza and Gałęzowskiego streets (the place was identified thanks to the help of members of the Facebook group Rzeszów yesterday, today and tomorrow). The photo was taken in 1936. Photo courtesy of Rena Epstein.

Rena Nathansohn, died in Auschwitz in October 1943. The date written on the back of the photo is May 19, 1940. Photo courtesy of Rena Epstein.