Jakob Moshe and Freida Blumels

Source: Monique Kwiatowski , daughter of Sara/Sola Blumels  ,  Edited by Avi Borenstein

Jakob Moishe Blumels (b. circa 1892 in Lublin) was son of Kadysz/Kadysh Blumels (b. 1866 in Lublin)  and  Bila/Bayla Gringlas (b. in 1874 who died at a young age, circa 1918) .

His parents had 6 children who were born in different towns.  One sister, Sheva (b. 1898 in Opatow) was married to Yechiel Honigman who's family had a flour mill and lived near the Rynek.

In 1919, Jakob married in Freida Buchman (b. circa 1895 in Ostrowiec-but most of her family was from Wislica). They had a grocery store near the Rynek but later  moved to Lodz in the 1930s

They had 7 children all born in Ostrowiec:

Mayer born in 1917 (d. 1942)
Rushka/Rozia born in 1920 d. 2008
Sara/Sola  (Monique's  mother) born in 1922. d. 1985
Shmil born in 1924 d. 1944
Chawa/Ewa born in 1927 d. 1987
Hannah born in 1929 d. 2002

Unknown child name

My grand-parents run a grocery store with a special “patent” for salt or sugar or tobacco. Around 1930 they left Ostrowiec for Lodz. But most of the Blumels family stayed in Ostrowiec.

Holocaust and Post Holocaust family history

The Holocaust

My grand-parents and their 6 children were pushed into the Lodz ghetto

My grand-father Jakub Moishe disappeared in 1941. It is told that  he managed to leave the ghetto in order to return to Ostrowiec and was caught in the round-up in 1942 and perished in Treblinka

My uncle Mayer was deported to Chelmno in April 1942

My grandmother Freida and her 5 remaining children were taken to Auschwitz in August 1944

Freida and her son Shmil were both gazed upon arrival

My mother Sara and her 3 sisters survived being taken for slave labor in different camps.

After the war

Roshka/Rozia and Sala/Sara arrived in Palestine around  1947, while their sisters Chava/Ewa and Hanna were still in Sweden while Hanna was recovering from illness . **

The 4 sisters spent a few years in Palestine / Israel and around 1950-1955, 3 of them decided to emigrate:

My parents Sara Blumels and Noach Weinsaft moved to Paris France where Hania, my mother’s younger sister chose to live as well with her husband Moshe Licholat

Hava Blumels married a Canadian Jew and moved to Toronto

Rushka Blumels married a survivor and lived her whole life in Israel

**Source: Ontario Jewish Archives