The following is the original "The Pieniek Roots" written in 1981-1982

   "ROOTS", the famous book written by Alex Haley and which has become an international television drama, has inspired many people to trace their family tree. In addition, researching one's heritage can become a valuable record for all relatives concerned. Such is the aim and goal of the following chronology of the lineage of DAVID ELEAZER PIENIEK and his wife RANA TEMARA PIENIEK.
   My name is David Leon Skop. Sitting beside me is my first cousin David Joshua Pieniek. He is the narrator of this chronology. He is a survivor of the Hitler Holocaust. His father, Meyer Pieniek, and my mother, Nech Flora Skop, were sister and brother. Both the narrator and I have derived our given names from our paternal grandparent, David Eleazer Pieniek, who passed away before the turn of the century. The interests of the narrator and myself have converged. We shall herein attempt to trace the roots, lineage and some of the experiences of our relatives. The time span covers 90 years from 1890 to 1980, and a period of five generations. Since family records are all but destroyed, we must rely on memories; and while these are quite vivid, we ask forgiveness for any errors or omissions.
   Our narrator, David Joshua Pieniek, was born in Alexandrowa, Poland, a city in a country of Russian domination. As a young man he was part of the pre-Holocaust generation. He has been lucky indeed to have been able to escape the persecutions and the purge of genocide of the Jews in that era by the Nazis under the Hitler regime.
   Before the outbreak of the war, he lived in the city of Danzig, in the corridor between Poland and Germany. It was then a Free City. He was married to Chana Patrol. They had a baby boy named Toby. David was arrested and imprisoned on the night of the infamous Crystal Night Massacre of the Jews by the Nazis in Danzig. He was fortunate to get away alive 10 days before the war started. He and his family boarded a ship to Bolivia, South America. In May 1945 they migrated to the U.S.A.
   I, as editor of this chronology, was born in Cleveland, Ohio in 1908. I finished high school there and attended Ohio State University where I majored in journalism. Both the narrator and I are of the same age. From vantage point I am able to record the lineage of those relatives who resided in the United States. The narrator, on the other hand, was raised in Europe. He was able to research and record those relatives who lived in Europe. Together we shall attempt to trace our family tree.
   DAVID ELEAZER PIENIEK lived in a village called KLONOW, in DOBRZYN, POLAND with his wife RANA before the turn of the century.
   DOBRZYN was a small town with a population estimated at under one thousand Poles, Russians and Jews and other minority groups. We can more conveniently call it a village where life was serene except for the pogroms under the Russian Czar, followed by the purges of the Jews by the Nazis. Most of the populace lived along the shores of the Drevenz River. The townspeople would often stride down to the banks of this river to wash their clothes, drying them on the large rocks and trees that abutted the shoreline.
   Our grandparents struggled hard to raise a family of seven children, the family trees of whom we shall herein write about and record. In their respective homes in Dobrzyn, Orthodox Judaism was more than a religion. It was a way of life, which somehow has survived to the present generation. The seven children of David Eliezer and Rana Pieniek were TOYVIA, BAERCHA, HERSH LEIB, BECKY, ANNIE, NECHA, and MEYER.
   Bubba Rana was widowed when the children were very young. The whole family felt their own plight. Growing up without a father brought the children closer together. One by one each of them helped with the daily chores. There was empathy among them to the extent that each guarded one another during the fearful pogroms. As time marched on, some of the children married and made their homes in Dobrzyn. Others migrated to parts all over the world including Germany, France, South America, Africa and the United States. We should now trace the lineage of the eldest son. His name was TOYVIA WOLFE PIENIEK.

(1) TOYVIA WOLFE PIENIEK lived in Dobrzyn all during his lifetime. All of the other children migrated, some to America, the "land of milk and honey". Toyvia married SHAINSHA. Shainsha was a good wife. She helped her husband operate his business.
   Toyvia was an importer and exporter of foods fish and other items. He exported seafood to all parts of the world. From Germany he imported and then marketed fishnets. To Denmark he exported fine grades of cheese and butter. From the Russian north country he imported all kinds of furs and then exported them. His mobile lucrative and major activity was the raising and selling of crabs and lobsters. He bought lakes and placed young fish in them. When they were nurtured and grown, he would export them.
   He was a wealthy man. He stood out like a "diamond in the rough" among his town folks and peers. His success was most rewarding. He was able to take care of his widowed mother; he also helped his brothers and sisters survive. He possessed the only telephone in the village. He passed away in the 1930s [1933].
The migration of the Pieniek family children began before WW1. It was then that the doors of this country opened to accept immigrants from Central Europe under certain quotas. It was an opportunity for many Europeans to flee the religious and social hardships that existed. Toyvia and Shainsha Pieniek had five children, namely: JACOB, DAVID, ESTHER, ZALMAN LEIB, and RACHEL
 
   (A) JACOB, the eldest son, made his home in Dobrzyn. It is recalled that he was taken prisoner during WW1 and he was banished by the Russian government to the island of Sakhalin, in the DNorth Sea. Efforts to contact him were fruitless. That is all that is known of Jacob - he just disappeared.
   (B) DAVID,the second child, also remained at home with his parents in Dobrzyn. He was married to YITA SHMIGA and they raised five children. Our narrator writes about them as follows “David derived his given name from his grandfather as I did, and I can only say that he and his wife Yita Shmiga were to me like angels. G-d sent down these wonderful people and forgot to call them back. Their goodness to me shall live forever. They both performed selfless service to me when I visited them after I fled Danzig, following my release as a prisoner after my being arrested on the night of the Crystal Night Massacre. It was this couple who also held some of my Uncle Hersh Leib's children to return to the United States. They made trips to the U.S. consulate for the good of those children. Many times when my father, Meyer Pieniek, needed help, it was these fine souls who helped him. These are only small fragments I can tell of the goodness of their lives. Their lives were mainly centered around upbringing of their own children. They had strived to give their children opportunities for a good education. I remember well that in their early days they encouraged their daughter, Hanya, to enter a dental school in Strassbourg, France. As late as 1938 they helped their son Daniel to enroll in a medical school in Sorbonne, France. Daniel went on to become an outstanding doctor and today owns and operates his own hospital in France. I want this generation to know that our family made every effort to educate their children. The five children of David and Yita Shmiga are HANYA, SHMULEK, FREEDKA, DANIEL, and BEENA.
       HANYA resides and practices dentistry in Paris, France. She remains single. She has visited the United States and we are in constant touch with her.
       SHMULEK, the second child of Yita and David Pieniek, was a devoted child to his parents. Our narrator says that "he could have saved his life but he chose to remain at home with his parents". He perished in the Holocaust.
       BEENA, left home on November 8, 1939 and is presumed to have perished in the Holocaust.
       FREEDKA, the fourth child, together with her parents, was forcibly sent to the Warsaw ghetto. There are some letters that came from them while they were living in the ghetto, copies of which are attached in the back.
       DANIEL, the youngest child of David and Yita Pieniek and their only living son, lives in France. Our narrator writes that, "Daniel married HARRIET, a French girl he had met while attending medical school. Both Daniel and Harriet were "Freedom Fighters" during the Hitler occupation of France. Daniel served in the Underground Movement as a doctor and surgeon. He helped save the lives of many French soldiers in his practice of medicine during the war. Presently, this family resides in Romans, France. They have two sons, namely, PIERRE and BERNARD. Daniel owns and operates his own hospital there. His eldest son, Bernard, followed in Daniel's medical footsteps. He lived for a while in Israel but he is now residing with his wife in Romans, where he practices medicine with his father. They have two daughters, MIRIAM YITA (10/21/72) and EMANUELLA BINA (7/14/76). Daniel's younger son, Pierre, is currently attending medical school in Paris.
 
   (C) ESTHER SONABEND is the third child of Toyvia and Shainsha Pieniek. About Esther, our narrator writes: “Esther married MORRIS SONABEND or MOISHA as he was usually called, and he was the son of the Neshaver Rabbi of an Orthodox Jewish home. He came from a prominent family. He had several brothers and sisters; One brother, Dr. Ezekiel Sonabend, was a leader of an ardent Zionist group which in 1952 decided to adopt and settle the ancient area known as Eshkalon. Dr. Sonabend, an architect and city planner, planned and designed the specific character of the modern city of Escalon and became its first mayor. Morris and Esther Sonabend moved to Dresden, Germany, where they manufactured cardboard boxes and cigarettes. About 1930 they moved from Dresden to Paris, France, where their oldest married daughter MARY married Dr. HENRY TOPOL. Around 1936 Morris and Esther moved to South Africa (Southern Rhodesia) to a city called Bulawayo where they operated a luggage store. In 1942 Morris died and Esther liquidated her store and moved to Capetown, South Africa, where her daughter LOTTIE married IRVING NEUMANN.
       MARY, the eldest daughter, as we said, married to Dr, Topol, a specialist in ear, nose and throat. He was a German prisoner of war and died sometime in the '40s leaving Mary with four children, IRENE, ALAIN, YVES and MONIQUE. Irene is married to the to Mr. Althias. They have three children and live somewhere in France. Alain is married, has two children and resides in Jerusalem. Yves was recently married and lives in Paris. Monique, the youngest, is married to a Mr. Lithwick and lives in Ottawa, Canada. Irene, Alain, and Yves are all chemists by profession.
       LOTTIE, the youngest daughter of Esther Sonabend is married to IRWIN NEUMANN. Irwin operates a ladies handbag store in Capetown where they have lived since 1942. Irwin's mother's maiden name was FREUD, and it was said that Irwin is a descendant of the famous Dr. Freud. They have three children, namely:
HAROLD SCHMUEL NEUMANN, MAUREEN NACHAMA LEYSER, and LAWRENCE TOBY NEUMANN. Harold is married to Hilary Shapiro. They have a girl, namely, ELLY, and also twin boys, namely, EVAN and RICKY. This family resides in Johannesburg, South Africa. Maureen is married to Dr. Selig Leyser. They have one son. This family lives in Seattle, Washington. Lawrence has been serving in the Israeli army. He has a Bachelor of Arts degree and lives in Jerusalem, Israel. Our narrator writes: "Lottie Neumann visited us at our home January 10th, 1980 while on a trip to see her daughter Maureen in Seattle, Washington. At this meeting I gathered a lot of information about the Sonabend families”.
 
   (D) ZALMA LEIB PIENIEK, the fourth child of Toyvia and Shainsha Pieniek, was married to SALLY. They had twin daughters but their names are not known. "I visit this family in 1938. I also remember that when I lived in Bolivia that I received a letter from Zalman Leib and although I had answered it, I never received an answer back. I presume this family vanished during the war".
 
   (E) RUCHCHIA, or Rachel, the fifth and youngest child of Toyvia and Shainsha Pieniek, married MORDECAI LIPKA. He had one son named after his grandfather. his name was TOYVIA LIPKA. "Ruchchia and Mordecai Lipka lived in an elegant house in Dobrzyn. I visited with them in 1938 and when I entered their home I was impressed with all the comfort they enjoyed. But, despite their well-being, they were not considerate enough of any of the family who was need of help. "Mr. Lipka," writes our narrator, "was a dry goods merchant. I advised them to sell their store and make an effort to escape, but they did not listen to me. I later heard from them once when I lived in Bolivia. It is presumed they were victims and perished in the Holocaust. Now we are through with Toyvia and Shainsha's children.
 
(2) BEARCHA, or BENU, the second child of our grandparents, David Eliezer and Rana Pieniek, left Dobrzyn when he was a young man. When he arrived in this country, he dropped the name Pieniek and was known as Ben Tobias. Tobias was an English name for Toyvia. He claimed that the immigration authorities at Ellis Island where he was processed to enter this country, could not pronounce the name Pieniek. He married BERTHA. They settled in St. Louis, Missouri. They had two sons, namely, LESTER TOBIAS and WILLIAM TOBIAS. Uncle Ben was in the leather goods business. He cured wood leather and was a traveling salesman in leather goods. He left St. Louis and lived with his sister Necha Flora and her husband Abraham Skop in Cleveland, Ohio. I was a young boy and I could remember that he drove an old model Ford car which he always had to crank. I used to go on his rounds to the local merchant shoe repair shops. He subsequently divorced his wife, Bertha. After a while we lost track of him. We do know that his two sons were living in California but we have made no contact with him for many years.
 
(3) HERSH LEIB, the third son of David Eliezer and Rana Pieniek, was married to CHANA BAILA. They had a large family of ten children namely:
DAVID, ESTHER, IRVING, ABE, ZELDA, RACHEL, PHILIP, MINNIE, GOLDIE AND MOLLY.
 
   (A) DAVID, the eldest, was a problem child. He grew up in Dobrzyn and then he lived in Warsaw, Poland. He became ill and passed away in a Warsaw hospital.
   (B) ESTHER, the second child, married MITCHEL ZEV, a sabra. After living in New York for some time they moved to Raleigh, North Carolina. When their children were grown they came to New York. Professionally, he was a rabbi and a mohel. Our narrator recalls that "Mitchell Zev was one of the finest, most compassionate men I have ever met. In about 1950, he was one of the first orthodox rabbis to settle in Crown Heights, Brooklyn, an area which is now the seat of the Lubavitch orthodox sect, the most orthodox Jewish sect in the world. He and Esther, who was equally as wonderful a person, raised their three children, Beatrice, Eliezer and Jacob in a traditionally orthodox environment. Whenever my family and I spent Sabbaths or holidays such as Succoth and Pesach, they always made us feel at home and those days will never be forgotten. When Esther passed away, she was taken to Israel for burial. Soon thereafter, Mitchel moved to Israel and retired in Netanya. At the time, his son Jacob was a rabbi in Jerusalem. One weekend, while visiting his son, Mitchel died of a heart attack. Mitchel and Esther are both laid to rest in the Mt. Olive cemetery near Jerusalem. Our cousin Archie Skop was visiting Jerusalem at the time of his death and attended the funeral.
   The Zev family consisted of three children: 
BEATRICE, also known as BASHA, ELIE and JACOB.
       BEATRICE, the oldest, is married to DR. JOSHUA LADELL, a physicist. This family now resides in Monsey, New York. Joshua has taught and lectured at the universities of London, Brussels and Basel. They have two sons: ELYA, who is a resident doctor at Beth Israel Medical Center in New York. He is married to MIRIAM and they have two children named MICHAEL and TALYA. Their second son, URI, is married to ESTHER, and they have a baby boy named Mordecai. They live in a kibbutz in Israel.
       ELI, Esther and Mitchel's second child is married to LILLIAN KATZ and they reside in Los Angeles, California. Both of them work as teachers and counselors of disturbed children. They have two sons, Ari (16) and Bobby (11).
       YAKOV, Esther and Mitchel's youngest, is married to CHANA. He is an Orthodox Rabbi, having been ordained at the Yitzchok Elchanon Yeshiva in New York. They reside in Jerusalem with their four children, AVI, DANI, YEHUDA and ILANA.
   (C) IRVING TOBIAS, the third child of Hersh Leib and Chana Baila Pieniek, we know resided in Los Angeles, California. We have not heard much about him for many years and is presumed that he has passed away.
   (D) ABE TOBIAS, also known as AL, the fourth child, married HELEN LEVI and lived in Seal Beach, California. Al passed away on October 22, 1980 at age 77. They have a son, STANLEY, a renowned rheumatologist, who lives and practices in Southern California. Stanley married JUDY, a former nurse who comes from an orthodox family in Canada. They have three children: Sheryl, Jeremy and David.
   (E) ZELDA, the fifth child of Hersh Leib and Chana Baila, lived in Dobrzyn with their her parents. She vanished in the Holocaust sometime in 1943 and that's all the information we have about her.
   (F) RACHEL, the sixth child of Hersh Leib and Chana Baila. She married MAX LERNER. About Mr. Lerner our narrator recalls that: "He was a very intelligent man. He was active in political and progressive groups and was employed by the subway system of New York City. He was an ardent chess player and did many good things for many people." Max Lerner passed away in 1978. Rachel Lerner now lives in Suffern, New York. The Lerners had one son, ABE, who with his wife HARRIET and three children, Jason (11), Scott (9) and Marcy (4), live in Rockaway New Jersey.
   (G) PHILIP TOBIAS, the seventh child of Hersh Leib and Chana Baila Pieniek, now makes his home in Brooklyn, New York.  He is married to FANNY, his third wife. Phil has two sons; JERRY TOBIAS who is a radio announcer at station CKOC (1150 AM) in Toronto, Canada, and the other MARTIN, who lives in Los Angeles, California.
   (H) MINNIE, the eighth child of Hersh Leib and Chana Baila, is married to SIGMUND ABER. They reside in Edison New Jersey. The Abers have one daughter ANNETTE. Her husband is BARRY BIEGELSON. Our narrator writes that: "Barry Biegelson is one fine man. He and Annette look after the comforts of the father and mother and it is not possible to describe how they carry out their kindness; it is really an example of the 5th Commandment so fulfilled by them. May G-d bless them and may their children be as good to them as they are to their parents. Barry is a well established manufacturer of ladies sportswear. They have two children, namely, LARRY, whose Bar Mitzvah I attended, and KAREN, who is about 12 years old.
   (I) and (J) GOLDIE PIENIEK and MOLLIE PIENIEK, the 9th and 10th children respectively, of Hersh Leib and Chana Baila, we can only say, vanished in the Holocaust.
 
   Now that we have taken up Toyvia, Baercha, and Hersh Leib, the first three children of my grandparents, David Eleazer and Rana Pieniek, we shall go to BECKIE, ANNIE and NECHA FLORA, the fourth, fifth and sixth children of the original family.​

(4) BECKY, the fourth child, was married to Morris Sachs. They always resided in St. Louis, Missouri. He was a tailor. They had one daughter, namely, JENNY SACHS, who used to carry on correspondence with the Skop family in Cleveland, Ohio. For many years after WW2 nothing has been heard of Becky and we do not know the whereabouts of Jenny Sachs.
 
(5) ANNIE, the fifth child, also lived in St. Louis. She was married to a Mr. Lewis, a Baker by trade. She was widowed for many years and like Becky, we also have not heard about Annie. It is only presumed at this time that they have passed away. These sisters were very close to each other in Saint Louis.
 
(6) NECHA FLORA, whose middle name Flora is an English translation of Feigelcha as they used to call her in Europe, was brought up as a small child in Dobrzyn. When she was a teenager, she stayed for many years with her niece in Dresden, Germany. When she returned to Dobrzyn, she then married ABRAHAM LOUIS SKOP, a soldier in the Russian army. Then her mother married Abraham's father whose name was Moisha Aaron Skop. In the year 1903 they migrated to the United States. Their ship was the "Moltka" and their trip across the ocean at that time took nearly fourteen days. Their family of five children consists of:
MORRIS, DAVID, MIRIAM, ARTHUR and MYRTLE.
   
   I, the writer of this chronology, know that my parents lived in New York City for a short while and then moved to Cleveland, Ohio. My father was a tailor. In New York he sold the ladies coats and suits in the sweatshops. Then in Cleveland, he also worked in the ladies clothing factory as a tailor. But then later on he went into business for himself and operated a small department store until 1965, when he passed away, five years after my mother died. From Cleveland, they migrated to Orlando, Florida and then to Miami, Florida, to be near their two sons, Morris and myself. We built for them a new house in Miami but they never lived to enjoy it. Now we shall go on to the eldest son of Necha Flora and Abraham Skop. He is
   (A) MORRIS A. SKOP, born in 1904 and a rabbi for 40 years, graduated Ohio State University, Columbia University and the Stephen SY seminary of New York. After he was ordained as Rabbi, he took his first pulpit in Orlando, Florida. After serving there for many years, he took a pulpit in Coral Gables (Temple Yudea) and in Pompano Beach, Florida (Temple Sholom), where he and his wife RACHEL RUBENSTEIN SKOP now reside. He is soon scheduled to retire after twenty years of service at the latter. Morris met Rachel while he was a student at the Seminary. They have four children:
SHIRA, RAPHAEL, ELI and DENA.
       SHIRA RANA, the eldest child, resides in Miami, Florida, with her husband WILLIAM PENN. From her first marriage to LOUIS HEILBERG, there are two children, MERYL HEILBERG (19) and ADAM HEILBERG (15) both of school age.
       RAPHAEL, the second child, was first married to Alva Levy, who was killed, tragically, in an automobile accident in Detroit, Michigan, where they lived. Raphael remarried to LUCY SPAET. Her father was the late Judge Spaet of Miami Beach, Florida, where her family now resides. Raphael is in the construction business in Detroit, He has two children, BONNIE and NEIL by his first marriage and two children, MICHEL AND HAROLD, by his second marriage.
       ELI SKOP, the third child of Rabbi and Mrs. Skop, was recently married to MELINDA, who is now expecting. They live in Coral Springs, Florida, near his parents.
       DENA, the youngest child, is married to BRUCE KONIGSBERG. They live in Coconut Creek, also near her parents.

Now let us go back to the remaining children of Necha and Abraham Skop.
   (B) MIRIAM SKOP is a single girl and lives in a fine Home For The Aged in Jacksonville, Florida. Her brothers and sisters visit her very often. She attended Ohio State University and was a secretary in the Cleveland school system. She is an ardent piano player and seems adjusted to living in this home.
   (C) DAVID LEON SKOP is myself. I am the third child. About myself, I attended Ohio State University and majored in Journalism which to this day is a hobby of mine. I have been a real estate broker for over 30 years. During WW2 I married MOLLIE MINTZ of Houston, Texas where I managed a ladies millinery store for a large national chain. I served in the U.S. Army and after my discharge we had a child, namely, ARLENE GWEN SKOP who is grown and lives in Texas. After my divorce in 1946 I lived in Miami, Florida where I married PEARL GERBER of Baltimore MD. We have no children and reside presently in Lauderdale Lakes, Florida in a condominium apartment.
   (D) ARTHUR U. SKOP, my younger brother is a twin to MYRTLE SCOTT RUTBERG. Arthur married DOROTHY STAR and they reside in Tampa, Florida. They have grown children. DENNIS SKOP, their eldest son, is single and lives in Tampa, and RENE STARLET SKOP lives in Orlando, Florida. They are both in the real estate business and doing well.
   (E) MYRTLE RIVKA, twin to Arthur, lives in Orlando, Florida. She was married to ALBERT RUTBERG who was the son of a Massachusetts rabbi. He was a traveling salesman for the Wrangler Co., national manufacturers of men's sportswear. He was an outstanding leader in the Jewish community of Orlando, Florida. He was learned of Jewish history and acted as Rabbi of his shule at times and prepared boys for their Bar Mitzva. He passed away just a few years ago at an early age. Over 500 people attended his funeral. Myrtle and Al Rutberg have one son. His name is GERALD RUTBERG. Gerald is a graduate of Auburn and Emory Universities and practices law in Orlando, Florida where he and his mother reside.

   Now we shall go back to the seventh child of David and Rana Eleazer Pieniek.
 
(7) MEYER PIENIEK was the father of eleven children. His first wife was BAILA. There were five children born of this marriage. After Baila passed away, Meyer remarried to HENNA SARAH and from this marriage there were six children. The eleven children in order of their births were MIRIAM, DAVID, JOSHUA, HENRY, MORRIS, and BAILA (of Baila) and YITA, ESTHER, CHAYA LEAH, SHLOYMA, RANA, and YITZCHAK JACOB (of Henna Sarah).
   (A) MIRIAM was married to SAUL MOSKOWITZ who passed away in Europe and then she remarried to AARON ROSENBERG. The Rosenbergs live in Jamaica, New York. They have no children. We see them each year when they visit Miami Beach in the winters. About them, our narrator writes: “Miriam, my sister, lived in the ghetto of Lodz, Poland with her husband, Saul Moskowitz, who died of a typhoid epidemic there. After she was widowed she went through some terrible times. While she lived in the Lodz ghetto, it was liquidated by the Gestapo. She was among 5,000 women and children who in the middle of a very cold winter, were forced to march barefoot and hungry for many miles. Little did they know that they were being taken to the infamous concentration camp RAWENSBRICK. Out of the mass of women and children that marched for many days and nights, only about 500 reached their destination. In Rawensbrick, they were treated like animals in cramped quarters. The languished, day by day and week by week, until by some miracle of fate, Miriam got out of this camp. It is told, that an order came from Graff Prince Folke Bernadotte, then President of the International Red Cross, that the remaining women in the camp should be transferred to Sweden somewhere. Miriam left in this transfer and her life was spared. She remarried in Paris, France to a man named Aaron Rosenberg who also escaped from a concentration camp where he lost his wife and a child. They migrated to Canada and then were brought to the United States by David Pieniek.”
   (B) DAVID JOSHUA PIENIEK, our narrator, is the second child of Meyer and Baila Pieniek, whose grandparents were David Eleazer and Rana Pieniek. He is married to CHANA PATROL and they have two children, namely, TOBIA (Toby) and HELEN BEATRICE PIENIEK. We shall let the David Joshua tell his own story of his experiences, as follows:
   "In tracing the family tree, I have been very fortunate to this day to have been in contact with most of our relatives both in this country and in Europe and other countries. I'm happy to say that my memory serves me well. Now that I have reached my seventieth birthday, I have attained this inward desire to write for the records, all of the valuable information which I have gathered, in order for all of the living relatives to know first-hand something about their heritage.
   It was many years ago that I started my own diary. I wrote down in Yiddish what was happening including a lot of history when I was on the ship destined for Bolivia, South America. I wrote of the remnants that remained of the family after the Holocaust. I still have this diary. About my own life, I would like to say the following.
   I was born in the city of Alexandrovw, Poland which, is not too far from Dobrzyn. At sixteen years of age I traveled to Danzig. Danzig was then known as a Free City and existed like a small country created by the League of Nations. My son TOBY was born on January 16th, 1936. He was named after my famous uncle Toyvia Pieniek. At that time, the Nazis began to grow in power in Germany. The atrocities and the torturing of the Jewish people was in full swing and accelerated day by day beyond human description. I was an eyewitness to all of this. I vividly remembered the "storm troopers" and saw the Nazis attack and killed innocent Jews in their shops the night of the infamous Crystal Night Massacre. They broke every glass window of the local merchants. I was on that night taken as a prisoner when I was arrested for no other reason but that I was a Jew. Luckily I was temporarily released awaiting deportation from Danzig. Every minute and day was borrowed time. My family was destitute and in fear of their lives. But we were lucky to survive. It was then that I smuggled myself into Dobrzyn for help. The answer to my prayers were my cousins, David and Yita Shmiga Pieniek, Toyvia's children. I returned to Danzig and remember well that many members of my shul tried to arrange passage for Jews on an illegal ship, Astir, which was destined for Israel. But, I did not want to go on it because I knew that this ship embarked at Constanza, Roumania and many had to jump over water to board it. Toby, my son, was only two years old and I did not want to take the risk. So, I kept investigating for some other means to escape. I finally secured an agricultural visa to Bolivia on a Hamburg Line German ship named, the Monte Pasqual. The ship was bound for Buenos Aires, South America, a country which had immigration quotas lifted at that time. Before we sailed, I wrote all of my relatives as to where I was going. It took us 21 days to sail on the high seas and we had to stay in port for about seven days to wait for a train that would take us to Bolivia. I must recall the dangers we went through. It was on September 1st that WW2 broke out. We were on a German ship somewhere located on the high seas between Brazil and Argentina. We were exposed to be torpedoed by British Navy warships. Many nights we had to stall by pulling to one port and then another along the way. We finally reached Mar de Plata, the port of Buenos Aires. It was from there that we boarded a train. It took us five days and nights traveling through the Andes Mountains to reach La Paz, Bolivia and we finally arrived on September 9th, 1939. In March 1945 we left for the U.S.A. and landed on May 14th, 1945.
     (C) HENRY, or HEINCHA, the third child of Meyer and Baila Pieniek, married ELLEN ABRAMOWITZ and from this marriage there were two sons, namely, LEIBISH PIENIEK and JAKOB PIENIEK. Henry's wife Ellen and their two sons perished in the Holocaust. Henry, who survived, married YADZIA. They have a daughter, namely, MIRUNIA or Miriam as she is now known. Mirunia married Kevin Venger. They live in the city of Poughkeepsie, New York. They have three children named HENRY, ELIZABETH and DANIEL. Mr. Venger is working for the IBM corporation.
   While Henry and Yadzia Pieniek were living in Paris, France, after the war, I arranged to get them to Bolivia. They operated a dry goods store in the city of Cochabamba, Bolivia. Their daughter Miriam was born in Lodz, Poland. Henry was killed by an automobile while he was crossing the street and is buried in Cochabamba. Yadzia and Miriam then migrated to New York City. Esther Pieniek, my younger sister, whom we shall write about later, was in Paris at the same time that Henry and Yadzia were in Paris. For this reason I also brought Esther to Bolivia at the same time my brother Henry and his wife Yadzia came to Bolivia, Esther and Alex Morgenstern now live in Jamaica, New York.
 
   Now let us go to the fourth child of Meyer and Chana Baila Pieniek and he was MORRIS PIENIEK. We called him MONIEK or MOISHE,
   (D) MORRIS PIENIEK lived in Switzerland. He made one trip to the United States around 1959. He is a history of himself. He was a shoe salesman in Lodz, Poland. He married a fine girl, I remember, named SONIA. When WW2 broke out, they moved from Lodz to Lemberg, Poland. There they had a child but Moniek and Sonia had to leave this child with my wife Chana's sister who happened to be in that city at that time. Both Moniek and Sonia went up into the forests of the Ukraine as they were members of the partisans, an underground organization fighting against the Germans, and Sonia was killed in battle. It was known that Moniek was among the partisans who placed dynamite on the tracks where trains full of ammunition, food and clothing were being taken to the German front where the Germans were pushing toward Russia. This train, it was learned, arrived, but Moniek survived. After the war he got sick with tuberculosis and was sent to a sanitorium in Davos, Switzerland. He lived in Lugano, Switzerland where he eventually died of TB. In a lonely Jewish cemetery in Lugano, Switzerland, there is a tombstone on his grave bearing the name of Moniek Pieniek which I visited.

   (E) BAILA - My mother, BAILA, was pregnant with her fifth child when she started to bleed. She was taken to a clinic in Torun (then Germany) and two days later gave birth to a girl. Within one-half hour thereafter, my mother passed away. The infant was named Baila, after my mother.
   After Baila, Meyer Pieniek's first wife, passed away, Meyer remarried to a younger girl, our cousin from my mother's side, named HENNA SARAH.She was a daughter of my mother's older sister.They had six children, already mentioned before. There is not much to write about these six children because there was only one survivor of the Hitler Holocaust. She is ESTHER PIENIEK. All the others, Yita, Chaya Leah, Rana, Shloyma and Yitzchak, who were all taken to the Treblinka concentration camp in Poland, were victims of the furnaces together with their own father and mother, Meyer and Henna Sarah Pieniek.
   (F) ESTHER PIENIEK, the survivor, survived in the ghetto of Lodz together with my oldest sister Miriam. She is now married to ALEX MORGENTERN. Their daughter, Sylvia, who was mentioned before, was born in Bolivia and is now married to JACK DRAGON. They reside in Kibbutz Tzora, in Israel and they have two young girls, OSHRAT (6) and SARIT (4).
   Esther lived in the ghetto of Lodz until it was liquidated. Thereafter, she participated in a forced march with thousands of women, thru ice and snow, to the Stuthoff concentration camp, near Danzig. There she contracted Typhoid so severely that she could barely walk.She was saved by the invasion of Russia from the Prussian border and went back to Lodz after it was liberated. There she fortunately found our brothers, Moniek and Henry and our sister, Manya.
 
   My children Toby and Helen are both married.
       TOBY is married to ELLEN GEISLER and they live in Syosset (Long Island), New York with their two girls, MELISSA (13) and ROBIN (11).
       HELEN is married to STEVE NAMM and they live in Manhattan.
This concludes the chronology of the PIENIEK FAMILY. Both myself and the narrator, David Joshua Pieniek, hope that we have contributed to this record dating back from our grandparents, David Eleazer Pieniek and Rana, his wife, to the present day. This covers a span of almost 100 years. Should any other information about the Pieniek family come to light after publication of this chronology, we ask the reader to forward same to David Joshua Pieniek, at 78-04 Parsons Boulevard, Flushing, New York, or to his son, Toby Pieniek, 3 Ann Drive, Syosset, New York 11791.
 
    
EPILOGUE

TOBY PIENIEK, who served in the Air Force after graduating college, was stationed as a second Lieutenant in Osan, Korea in 1957. Military personnel wore name tags on their uniforms. Toby was approached by a GI who told him that there was a soldier in his unit with the same name, Pieniek. Although Toby could not believe it, he nevertheless called the other Pieniek who was stationed about 80 miles South of him in Tagu. His name was Ari and, sure enough, his last name was Pieniek. He hailed from Belgium and lived in Ecuador during the war with his family. He had moved to Seattle, Washington to work in the aeronautical industry and eventually was drafted to serve in the US army. Toby conveyed the information to me and I confirmed that I really in fact was a long, lost cousin.

This Pieniek Roots report defines the chronology of the lineage of DAVID ELEAZER PIENIEK and his wife RONA FLORA. It is difficult for us to start earlier as we don't have definitive information. However, because of the fortuitous meeting between Toby and Ari, we can provide some additional highlights.

David Eleazer Pieniek had several brothers. One of them moved to a town, Serock, near Warsaw. He married and had four sons who apparently dispersed. One of the sons apparently moved to Brussels, Belgium. By coincidence, in 1930, I was in Brussels, Belgium having dinner in a restaurant when a young man sat down next to me, also an immigrant, and we started a conversation. He also came from Poland and was a furrier, and since I was a tailor from Poland, we had a lot in common. After I mentioned my name, he asked if I was related to the furrier, Pieniek, who lived at that time in Brussels. I didn't know who he was talking about but I took the address and went to Pieniek the furrier's house that night. He was married and had two sons and a daughter and he told me that he came from Serock. Remembering that my grandfather, David Eleazer, originally came from Serock, I realized that we must be related. It turned out that Pieniek, the furrier, was a nephew of my grandfather David Eleazer, and therefore my cousin.
 
Several of his other brothers moved to Brussels and, to this day, there are two fur stores in Belgium named Pieniek - one in Brussels and one in Antwerp.

Pieniek, the furrier, whom I met in Brussels later moved to Riobamba, Ecuador and settled there with his family, including two sons, Ari and Vladi and a daughter whose name I don't remember.

ARI (who met Toby in Korea) had moved to Seattle. After serving in the army he went back to Seattle and a few years later came to New York to live with us. Toby and he are like brothers. At the time, Ari worked for Pan American Airways in their computer department and went to school at night, studying engineering and computer analysis. Ari married      from Brooklyn. They now have two children, a boy, Marc David and a daughter, Lisa, and they live in the suburbs of Virginia outside of Washington D.C. Ari is currently in charge of the entire communication system for Amtrak.
About three years ago, we attended a combined Bar and Bat Mitzvah of Marc and Lisa, at which time we met many of the other members of Ari's family.

VLADI lives in Atlanta, Georgia with his wife and three children.

Ari's and Vladi's  older sister is a doctor who lives with her husband and children in Ecuador. Pieniek, the furrier, passed away several years ago but the mother still lives in Ecuador near the daughter.

Respectfully submitted,
DAVID JOSHUA PIENIEK, Narrator
&
DAVID LEON SKOP, Editor

January, 1981