Yisrael Meir and Bayla (Konskovolsky) Pieniek
Yisrael Meir and Henna Sarah (Dragon) Pieniek
Yisrael Meir Pieniek (b. Golub-Dobrzyn 1881, d. Treblinka 1945?)
Bayla Konskovolsky Pieniek (b. Raciaz, Poland 1880, d. Golub-Dobrzyn 1917)
Henna Sarah Dragon Pieniek (b. 1896, d. Treblinka 1942)
1907 Marriage in Raciaz
1917 Death of first wife in childbirth
1918 Remarried
"Meyer Pieniek was the father of eleven children. His first wife was Baila. There were five children born of this marriage... Miriam, David Joshua, Henry, Morris, and Baila (daughter of Baila, who died after giving birth.) ..."
"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 PIieniek. 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."
"The Pieniek Roots" by David Joshua Pieniek and David Leon Skop, written in 1982.
Yisrael Meir was married to Bayla (Konskovolsky) with whom he had five children. Bayla died immediately after giving birth to a girl, who was appropriately named in her memory, Bayla. Yisrael then married Henna Sarah (Dragon), a cousin of Bayla, who had come to help him after his wife's death. Together they had six more children.
Uri Ladell
Sol and Miriam (Manya) (Pieniek) Moskowitz
Aron Bezalel and Miriam (Manya) (Pieniek) Rosenberg
Miriam (Manya) Pieniek Moskowitz Rosenberg (b. Lodz 1908, d. Flushing, New York 2005)
Sol Moskowitz (b. Poland, d. ? in Holocaust)
Aron Bezalel Rosenberg (b. Poland 1912, d. New York 2001)
? Lodz, Poland
1945 Sweden
1950 Marriage in Paris, France
? Immigration to Canada
? Immigration to U.S.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.”
"The Pieniek Roots" by David Joshua Pieniek and David Leon Skop, written in 1982.
Aron's first wife was Ultkeh. They had a daughter Faigele. Ultkeh and Faigele died in the Holocaust.
- Uri Ladell
Miriam Pieniek
David Joshua and Chana (Patrol) Pieniek
David Joshua Pieniek (b. Alexandrovw, Poland 1909, d. New York 1985)
Chana Patrol Pieniek (b. Warsaw 1912, d. New York 1998)
? Marriage in Danzig, Germany
1939 Emigration to Bolivia
1945 Emigration to U.S.A.
Chana and David Joshua Pieniek
"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."
"The Pieniek Roots" by David Joshua Pieniek and David Leon Skop, written in 1982.
I remember David Pieniek from "Family Circle" meetings, held in the 1960's. He was a moving force in keeping contact with all the cousins.
- Uri Ladell
Heinich (Henry) and Ella (Abramowitz) Pieniek
Heinich (Henry) and Jadwiga (Krassusky) Pieniek
Heinich (Hanosh) (Henry) Pieniek (b. Aleksandrow, Poland 1912, d. Cochabamba, Bolivia 1962)
Ella Abramowitz Pieniek (b.?, d. Treblinka 1942?)
Jadwiga (Yadzia) Krassusky Pieniek (b. Siedlce, Poland 1925, d. Tampa, Florida 2008)
before 1950 Paris, France
1950 Bolivia
"Henry, or Heincha, the third child of Meyer and Baila Pieniek, married Ellen Abromowitz 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 him 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."
"The Pieniek Roots" by David Joshua Pieniek and David Leon Skop, written in 1982.
Heinich married his first wife, Ella, before 1932. They had three sons, the last apparently died as an infant. Ella and her two remaining sons died in Treblinka. Heinich somehow survived and escaped to Shedletz, where he met Yadzia Krassusky. There he was married and a daughter was born. After the war the family emmigrated to France. In 1950 the family emigrated to Bolivia with Chilian visas. In Cochabamba Heinich was tragically killed in a traffic accident. He is buried in the Cementerio Israelita there. (Another Pieniek is buried in that cemetery, died in 1945. It is unclear who this is.)
Jadwiga and daughter Miriam migrated to New York and then to Florida.
- Uri Ladell
Jadwiga and Heinich in Paris, France
Morris (Moniek) and Sonia (Kashamirska) Pieniek
Morris (Moniek) Pieniek (b. Aleksandrova, Poland 1914, d. Lugano, Switzerland 1963)
Sonia Kashamirska Pieniek (b. Poland ?, d. Ukraine, 1940)
1937 Marriage in Manhattan, New York
1959? Visited U.S.A.
1949 Coral Gables, Florida
Moniek (Moishe) Pieniek
"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."
"The Pieniek Roots" by David Joshua Pieniek and David Leon Skop, written in 1982.
"Moishe survived the war as a "partizaner" in the Russian or French underground. Moishe contracted TB and moved to Lugano, Switzerland after the war. I had the good fortune of meeting him when he visited us in Jamaica, Queens in the early 1950's. He was an exceptionally warm and engaging human being, handsome, somewhat short with a mustache and a magnificent head of black hair (he reminded me a bit of Charlie Chaplain."
- Toby Pieniek
Moniek and Sonia's daughter was named Baila. According to one account, she was left in a convent in Russia, and after the war could not be found. (Source: ?)
- Uri Ladell
Bayla Pieniek
Bayla Pieniek (b. Torun, Germany 1917, d. Siedlce, Poland 1942)
"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."
"The Pieniek Roots" by David Joshua Pieniek and David Leon Skop, written in 1982.
According to one source, Baila moved to Alexandrov. She was a beauty. She had Christian papers but was denounced. However, a German officer let her go. She was killed by Poles outside of Shedletz. Source: ?
- Uri Ladell
Alex Zalman (Salek) and Esther (Pieniek) Morgenstern
Esther (Pieniek) Morgenstern (b. Aleksandrova, Poland 1921, d. Israel 2022)
Alexander Morgenstern (b. New York 1920, d. Jamaica New York 1986)
pre WW2 Lodz
1945 Lodz
? France
1949 La Paz, Bolivia
1961 Jamaica, Queens
1986 Kibbutz Tzora, Israel
"Esther Pieniek, the survivor, survived in the ghetto of Lodz together with my oldest sister Miriam. She is now married to Alex Morgenstern. 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."
"The Pieniek Roots" by David Joshua Pieniek and David Leon Skop, written in 1982.
Esther survived the war and emmigrated with Salek to La Paz, Bolivia where Silvia was born. They all eventually also moved to Jamaica, Queens, NY (in 1961, with brother Heinich and then Aliyah in 1986 to Israel). It should be noted that Salek suffered from severe epilepsy and Silvia, as a child, saved him from several life-threatening attacks. Silvia made aliya (July 1969) and is married to a third generation cousin, Jack Dragon and they have three fabulous girls and two grandchildren. Silvia runs the B&B at Kibbutz Tzorah, but more than that, is a dynamic and motivating force. She reminds me of Golda Meir."
- Toby Pieniek
Esther (Estera) Pieniek
Salek, Esther and Sylvia Morgenstern
UNITED STATES HOLOCAUST MEMORIAL MUSEUM
Presentation by Esther Morgenstern
Oral History | Accession Number: 2013.156.1 | RG Number: RG-90.126.0001
Esther Morgenstern, born in 1921, discusses her childhood in Poland; living in the Łódź ghetto for four years; being deported to Auschwitz-Birkenau in the fall of 1944; being sent after a brief period of time to Stutthof; being sent on a death march; being liberated by the Russian army in March 1945; returning to Łódź after a long recovery; reuniting with several of her siblings; and immigrating to Bolivia and then to the United States.
Yita, Chaya Leah, Rana, Shloyma and Yitzchak Pieniek
Yita Pieniek (b. 1919, d. Treblinka 1942?)
Chaya Leah Pieniek (b. 1923, d. Treblinka 1942?)
Rana Pieniek (b. 1925, d. Treblinka 1942?)
Shloyma Pieniek (b. 1927, d. Treblinka 1942?)
Yitzchak Pieniek (b. 1930, d. Treblinka 1942?)
"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."
"The Pieniek Roots" by David Joshua Pieniek and David Leon Skop, written in 1982.