Finding Jennie Henczynski

For many years, we have known that Lotte (nee Kaufman) Rothschild, Debbie’s Oma, came from Kattowitz (which is German, but is now Katowice in Polish) in the area of today’s Poland that has changed hands between Germany, Poland, Hungary and Russia for centuries. The family narrative has always been that Lotte left home to visit a cousin in England and never returned, ultimately making her way to Montreal and where she would meet Opa, Fritz Rothschild, and start their family. Her father Leo (born in Inowrocław in 1881), for whom Debbie’s dad, Les Rothschild is named, was a dentist and purportedly died during the war, outside the Warsaw Ghetto living incognito as a non Jew. That is where his trail is lost. Lotte’s mother, Jennie Henczynksi’s trail (born in Breslau) also went dark during the war and it was thought that she had died at their home in Katowice. Les had some letters in German that Lotte had kept that gave hints, but very little detail. And so the goal became finding Jennie.

With the help of a researcher in Poland, we were able to learn a great deal more about the family, going back several generations from Jennie and Leo. Debbie and I traveled from Vilnius, Lithuania to Kraków to meet up with Debbie’s parents, Bev and Les. They had already been traveling in Poland and were able to visit the grave of Les’s Great-Grandmother Caroline Henczynski in Wroćlaw. They also visited the building in which lived Les’s Great Grandfather, Neuman Kaufmann, whose home was not damaged in the war and still is in original form.

*Here lies in God's grace our deadly beloved mother, mother-in-law, grandmother, sister and aunt Caroline Henczynsky born Jablowski, born in Gnesen, died November 9, 1898 in her 62 year. Rest gently.*

The apartment building where Neuman Kaufmann lived.

It is from Kraków that we visited Auschwitz and also made the trip to Katowice to see if we could catch a glimpse of what life was like for Oma (Lotte) and her parents, Jennie and Leo, before the war permanently separated the three of them from each other. Today, Katowice is a mid-size city which appears vibrant. There are huge coal deposits all throughout this part of Poland, which is why Auschwitz isn’t too far away because the train lines for the coal export literally goes everywhere in Europe. Today the mines are closed and modern industry has moved in. Like other cities we have visited, there is a mix of the old and new. Some was destroyed in the various wars and rebuilt, some was lost to time. And some sits as it has for hundreds of years. There is a large open square at the center of town. From there you can see the mix of old and new. The square glass faced building to the left in this photo is where we believe Leo’s dental practice in town was. The second photo shows what it looked like back then.

Poststrasse #3, the shorter building to the right of the tram is where the dental practice would have been. The tower above the tram is the same as the one in the far left of the photo above and below.

A close up that show you the 19th century building still standing across the street.

Les, Debbie and Bev standing approximately in front of where Leo Kaufman’s dental practice was.

If you count over four buildings from the left of the center building, you can a see a yellowish Bauhaus apartment building. The building is new, but the location is where the family home was located. Hard to tell in this photo, but it is on a corner as you will see below.

House at Friedrichstrasse 3 (now Warszawska) in Katowice as it stands today - the one on the right.

The original house at Friedrichstrasse 3 (now Warszawska) in Kattowice, the building where Lotte (nee Kaufman) Rothschild lived with her parents, Jennie and Leo. It was from this apartment building that Lotte left for the New World.

Before we left Katowice, we met with the head of the Jewish community whose parents came to town after WWII. He was born there in 1952 and is committed to preserving the history of the Jews in Katowice. He has worked to build bridges with the non Jewish community similar to what so many of our Jewish communities are doing in North America. The community has about 100 members and they have a building around the corner from where the Katowice Synagogue had stood before it was destroyed in November of 1939. He hosted us in his office and then showed us the chapel the community uses when they gather for Shabbat.

From Katowice, we travelled a short distance to Chrzanow where Jennie was laid to rest in 1941. From the letters that Les had, we knew the date of her death and burial. But because it was during the war, we did not have the details of who took care of the arrangements and in which cemetery she was interred. Jakob, our researcher in Poland, found the death record and was able to locate the cemetery. Jennie was likely moved to Chrzanow as the Jews were concentrated after German occupation. She was buried there, but there was no grave marker. Luckily there is a local man who takes care of the cemetery and restores the headstones. He showed us approximately where the grave would be.