Nachum Sokołow was born on 1 January 1859 in Wyszogród, as the son of Szmul Josek (born in 1827, son of Icek and Gitla Chaja née Bresler) and Mariem Gitla (born in 1830, daughter of Szmul and Itta Smrodynia aka Kohn). He spent his childhood […]
The history of the Flatau family in Płock dates back to the times of the Duchy of Warsaw, when Joachim (Nochem) Judas, a merchant from the Grand Duchy of Poznań, came to Płock from the town of Gołancz. In the Jewish civil registry documents of […]
On December 27 1868 Edward Flatau, one of the greatest Polish doctors and the most prominent scholars, was born in Płock.
Edward was the son of banker Ludwik Flatau and Anna nee Heyman. In 1886 he graduated from Płock Secondary School with a gold medal and went to study at the medical department of the Moscow State University. He attended lectures by eminent professors, including neurologist Alexei Kożewnikow and psychiatrist Sergey Korsakov. After graduating from the Moscow State University, in 1892 he went to Berlin, where he continued his education until 1899. He worked on neuropathology, neuroanatomy and neurohistology. The years spent in Berlin gave a foundation for his great and comprehensive knowledge in the field of anatomy, pathology and the nervous system treatment. He cooperated, among others, with Emanuel Mendel, Hermann Oppenheim, Ernst Remak and Hugo Liepmann. The first work that immediately made him famous in Europe was “The atlas of the human brain and the course of nerve fibers”. This atlas was published in 1894 and was translated into Polish, Russian, English and French. In 1898 he was offered the position of a supervisor of the neurology department in Buenos Aires. Flatau, however, did not accept this proposal and in 1899 he returned to his home country. In Warsaw, he was a consultant in internal and surgical departments, at the same time he arranged a laboratory in his private apartment, where he continued his own work in the field of anatomy. In 1904 he became the head of the Jewish Hospital in Czyste. Leading a small department with 20 beds, Flatau formed a group of doctors, encouraged them to work in clinical treatment and anatomy and gradually, thanks to his deep knowledge, unusual pedagogical skills and personal charm, he created a school, which educated a number of well-known neurologists. Thanks to his efforts in 1913, his unit was moved to a new pavilion, designed just like the European clinics. Two years earlier Flatau arranged a workshop for the research in anatomy and pathology at the Psychological Society, and in 1912 he moved it to the new building of the Warsaw Scientific Society, of which he had been a member since 1908. In 1912 he published a monograph about migraine, for which he suffered his whole life. Flatau was also a member of the Polish Academy of Learning, a member of the Neurological Society in Paris and the Society of Psychiatry and Neurology in Vienna, an honorary member of the Neurological Society in Moscow and the Medical Society in Vilnius. He was the author of over 100 publications in Polish, German, French and Russian.
He died in 1932 of a brain tumor. He was buried in the Jewish cemetery at Okopowa Street in Warsaw.
(text based on the memoirs of Teofil Dawid Simchowicz on Edward Flatau in the Annual of the Warsaw Scientific Society from 1932)
Lejzor Brygart was born on March 13, 1893, he was the son of Szlama (1842-1911) and Iska nee Fibus (1855-1918). Szlama Brygart was a butcher by profession. Lejzor had a younger brother – Dawid (born in 1894). In 1913, Lejzor Brygart married Dwojra Ides Bomzon […]
Estera Golde-Stróżecka – freethinker, activist for women’s rights, journalist, political and cultural-educational activist, doctor, was born on August 1, 1872 in Płock, as the daughter of Beniamin and Liba Ruchla nee Goldsztejn. Her father was a well-known merchant, industrialist and philanthrope. After graduating from the […]
The records reveal that Bomzon family have lived in Płock from the beginning of the 19th century. My paternal great-grandfather, Izrael Abram Bomzon (1861-1913) was one of the six children of Dawid Szlama Bomzon (1826-1904) and Ruchla Łaja Bomzon née Liberman (1830-?) and a gingerbread baker. Sometime during the 1890s, he became the manager of a bakery, which was owned by Jenta Fridman née Szrajber and located at 28 Szeroka Street. In addition to managing the bakery, he also began romancing Jenta and was undeterred by her being a widow with three children and seven years older than him. Izrael Abram and Jenta lived together as a de facto husband and wife first at 21/23 Stary Rynek and then at 30 Szeroka Street. They registered their marriage with the Płock civil authorities on 22 August 1901 in order to secure their status and rights of their living children: the twins, Bajla Sura (born first) and Hersz Fajwel (born 14 January 1887 in Płock), Dwojra Ides (born 21 December, 1889 in Płock), Estera (born 16 April 1891 in Płock), Chawa (Eva; born 22 March 1892 in Płock), Lejb (born 17 May 1893 in Płock) and Brucha (born 21 June 1897 and died in 1906 in Płock). They also had a son, Chaim, who was born on 22 December 1895 and died on 12 December 1896 in Płock. After Izrael Abram’s death at age 52 in their home on 22 May 1913, Jenta moved to 20 Szeroka Street to live next door to her daughter, Dwojra Ides, and her husband, Lajzer Brygart. Jenta, my paternal great-grandmother probably perished in the Holocaust.
Bajla Sura Bomzon married Moszek Baruch Ejzenman, a tailor and trader, on 14 April 1907 and they had eight children: Chana Łaja (born 19 April 1909 in Płock), Estera Malka (born 1 April 1910 in Płock), Chaja (born 20 May 1912 in Płock), Iska (born 6 June 1913 in Płock), Lajzer (born 20 June 1915 in Płock), Hinda Ruchla (born 18 March 1917 in Płock), Berek (born 22 September 1919 in Płock), and Perla (born 4 January 1921 in Płock). The family lived at 19 Bielska Street. Chana Łaja, the oldest daughter, married Abram Mordka Łotenberg on 2 September 1928 and they migrated to Buenos Aires, Argentina where they managed a small tailoring factory. Iska, Lajzer (Leon), and Berek (Bernardo) also emigrated in the interwar period to Buenos Aires. Iska married Izsak Łotenberg and managed a women’s clothing store. Lajzer was a barber and Berek was a tailor who created custom tailored menswear. Their emigration was part of an emigration of Jews from Płock to Buenos Aires which started after World War One. Moszek Baruch Ejzenman also left Poland in 1939 to join his family in Buenos Aires. Bajla Sura and Perla perished in the Holocaust and Chaja died in Warsaw in 1938.
Two of Bajla’s daughters, Estera Malka and Ruchla Ejzenman survived the Holocaust in Magnitogorsk, Russia. Hinda Ruchla met her husband, Jósef (Jósiek) Szymanowski in Warsaw, when she went to say good-bye to a friend who was leaving for America before the Holocaust. They lived together and were formally married in 1941 in Magnitogorsk, Russia. They had four children: Leszek (born 11 April 1937 in Warsaw; died 19 September 2000), Mira (born 15 April 1941 in Magnitogorsk, Russia; died 1 August 2018), Roma (born 31 August 1944 in Magnitogorsk, Russia, died 12 October 2020 in Płock), and Krystyna (born 22 December 1950 in Płock). In 1940, she fled Poland with Jósef (Jósiek), her son, Leszek, and her sister, Estera Malka, when the frontier between Nazi-occupied Poland and the USSR was opened for refugees, thereby saving their lives. They wanted Bajla, their mother, to flee with them, but Bajla did not want to leave Jenta, her mother. In 1946, Hinda (Dasza Szymanowska) and her family returned to Płock and they lived at 10 Kościuszki Street until she died on 24 December 2002 in Płock. Her sister, Estera (Elżbieta Eisenman), who never married, also returned to Płock where she worked in the Gerszon Dua Knitting Work Cooperative for 20 years before retiring. She died on 11 March 2005 in Płock and the two sisters are buried in Płock.
Hersz Fajwel Bomzon, Bajla Sura’s twin brother, was a painter and an active member of the revolutionary faction of the Polish Socialist Party, which was outlawed when Poland was under the tsarist Russian partition. He was arrested and imprisoned in Płock under guard on 17 February 1908 by Płock’s gendarmerie after his surveillance by the Tsarist Russian secret police (Okhrana) and a search of the Bomzon family apartment in Askanas house on Szeroka Street where an unregistered loaded Nagan revolver and several illegal documents were found. On 19 September 1908, he was sentenced to four years hard labor in the Hard Labor Prison in Warsaw and deprived of all his rights by the District Military Court. It is assumed that he died in early 1912 because his identity document was returned to Płock in March 1912, six months before his scheduled release from prison on 19 September 1912.
Dwojra Ides Bomzon married Lajzer Brygart on 23 February 1913, and they had four children: Ruchla Łaja (Rushka; born 8 October 1916 in Płock), Iska (Irka; born 3 March 1919 in Płock), Szmył Szłojme (born 4 July 1920 in Płock), and Chanka (born 16 March 1927 in Płock). After Izrael Abram’s death, Lajzer became the bakery’s manager. As its manager, he modernized and expanded the bakery to include the sales of colonial goods and other consumer goods, such as sugar, rice, coffee, tea, cocoa, and tobacco, which were imported from England using Dwojra’s sister, Chawa (Eva), who lived in London, as their agent. Ruchla Łaja, their oldest daughter, married Izrael Hilel Frydenson (Fridenson; born 14 January 1914 in Warsaw) on 8 October 1938. Szmył Szłojme (Sam) was the only member of his family who survived the Holocaust. In 1949, he emigrated to the USA and died on 5 August 2015 at age 95 in Los Angeles.
Estera Bomzon married a trader, Jósef Hersz Cynamon (born 28 April 1886 in Płock) on 27 January 1914, and they had four children: Izrael Abram (born 28 September 1914 in Płock), Chana (born 3 January 1917 in Płock), Lajzer (born 24 October 1922 in Płock;), and Ruchel (born 14 June 1926 in Płock). The family lived at 28 Kwiatka Street. Izrael Abram was the only member of his family who survived the Holocaust. With the outbreak of war, he fled to Russia and joined the Polish army of General Władysław Anders. When Anders’ army reached Palestine (Israel), he left the army and ultimately became a small-scale poultry and citrus fruit farmer near Tel Aviv. He died in 2003 at age 89 in Israel.
Chawa (Eva) Bomzon left Płock in 1910/1911 to live in London, England, where she married Izak (Isaac/Harry) Wagner (born 1892), a barber, and with whom she had three children: Lazarus, Israel (Izzie), and Harry (Wolf, Woofie). Izak Wagner died at age 26 on 31 October 1918 in London, England from post-influenza pneumonia. Following his death, Eva gave birth to a daughter, Helen (Hilda), whose father was Solomon Goldstein, a cabinet maker. Shortly after Helen’s birth, she married Joseph Golding, a tailor, on 17 January 1923 and with whom she had four children: Rose, Martus (Montague/Monty), David, and Nathan. Joseph Golding died at age 33 from bronchopneumonia and bronchitis in 1934. Chawa never returned to or visited Płock during her lifetime. She lived most of her life in the east end of London, England and supported herself by working in a pickle factory and as a seamstress. She died at age 75 from a chest infection and cancer of the common bile duct and is buried in the Western Synagogue Cemetery, Montague Road, Edmonton, Greater London.
My paternal grandfather, Lejb Bomzon, was a baker and confectioner, who worked in Brygart bakery, and married Tauba Żeleźniak (born 1 April 1898 and one of the daughters of Chaim Jósef Żeleźniak and Chana Żeleźniak née Motyl) on 10 May 1917 and they had three children: Izrael Abram (born 7 February 1918 in Płock), Icek Jakub (Kuba; born 10 January 1922 in Płock) and Chana (born 10 June 1926 in Płock). Lejb Bomzon and his family lived at 33 Bielska Street. My maternal great-grandfather, Chaim Jósef Żeleźniak, was a butcher and he perished in the Holocaust. His wife and my maternal great-grandmother, Chana Żeleźniak née Motyl, died in 1915 in Płock.
My father, Izrael Abram Bomzon (Julius) was the only member of his family who survived the Holocaust and he never visited Płock during his lifetime. After his liberation from Buchenwald in 1945, he traveled to Paris, France where he met his wife, Bella Kociołek (born 23 July 1924 in Warsaw). They married on 5 April 1946 (civil) and 7 April 1946 (religious), and after the birth of their only son, Lionel (Arieh; 5 February 1947 in Paris), they emigrated to Sydney, Australia in September 1947. After their arrival in Sydney, Julius worked as an unskilled laborer in a confectionary factory and Bella worked as seamstress. In the late 1950s, they established a small women’s clothing workshop and then opened several women’s clothing stores. They retired in the late 1970s and moved to Israel in 1990 to be close to Arieh and his family. Julius died on 29 May 1996 in Israel and Bella lives in a residential care facility in Hadera, Israel. Arieh married Therle (Tova) Hoffmann (born 7 November 1947) in 1972 in Johannesburg, South Africa, where they had three sons, Wayne (Ze’ev; born 20 December 1973), Keith (Ilan; born 22 September 1975), and David (born 1 October 1977). On 23 July 1981, Arieh and his family emigrated to Israel and was a member of the Faculty of Medicine’s academic staff of the Technion, Israel Institute of Technology, in Haifa until his resignation in September 2006. Arieh’s three sons and their families live in Israel.
Arieh (Lionel) Bomzon
Stanisław (Salomon) Posner was born on November 21, 1868 as the son of Leon and Matylda née Bornstein. His father was one of the proponents of the assimilation, many of his articles were printed in Warsaw’s “Jutrzenka”. Stanisław Posner’s sister was Malwina Garfein-Garska – writer […]
In 1870, the successors of Ojzer Lewita bought from the Town Hall of Płock for 1000 rubles in silver a square bordering from the south with Misjonarska street, from the west with prison buildings, from the north and east with the garden and property of […]
Maurycy Fajans (1827-1897) – a merchant and industrialist, was the son of Herman, a merchant from Sieradz, and Leontyna nee Kon. His brother was a well-known Warsaw photographer and owner of a lithographic and photographic studio Maksymilian Fajans (1825-1890).
Maurycy Fajans was a representative of a Vistula river steamboat company in Włocławek, which belonged to Count Andrzej Zamoyski, then (from 1864) its director. In 1871, after the closing of the company, he purchased some ships, including the “Płock” steamboat. He was also the owner of the Steamboat Workshop in Solec. As we read in the article titled “Jubileusz żeglugi parowej na Wiśle” (“Vistula steamboat jubilee”) in “Tygodnik Ilustrowany” (No. 26 of 1908):
The new buyer had the luckiest hand of all current steamboat owners on the queen of our rivers. Introducing an effective administration, gradually increasing the number of ships, Fajans became wealthy very quickly. Thanks to his lucky hand, he also became the first to establish a successful steamboat business on the Vistula River. In 1884 Fajans continued the previously interrupted shipbuilding business in domestic factories, which he was the manager of. These workshops were improved in such a way that even military orders could be fulfilled. And finally, the first improved steamboats “Kraków” and “Wawel” were produced in the Fajans factory a few years ago, with covered cabins and electric lighting on board. It was a serious step forward in improving the aesthetics of existing steamboats on the Vistula.
Maurycy Fajans was also a business judge (since 1875), a member of the Warsaw Stock Exchange Committee (in the years 1888-1894) and a member of the board of the Warsaw Jewish community. He collaborated with the Płock merchant Ludwik Flatau in the field of grain trade. He was also a member of the Waterworks Construction Association in Płock (next to Zelewek Chessyn, Adolf Weisblatt, Krzysztof Doze and Gustaw Bergson), which was established in 1894, and co-owner of the real estate in Płock marked with mortgage number 515 on the bank of the Vistula.
Bibliography:
Przedpełski J., Stefański J., Żydzi płoccy w dziejach miasta, Płock, 2012
The mikvah, which existed even before the construction of the beautiful building, which is now the seat of the Art Gallery of Płock. The tenement house in which the Society for the Care of Jewish Children and the Shelter for Homeless Jewish Children was located. […]
