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Mayer and Milka and Bernhard and Rosel were sent to the Mechelen transit camp, halfway between Antwerp and Brussels, to wait for their deportation. Mayer died in the transit camp, and Milka and Bernhard and Rosel were deported to Auschwitz on Transport XVIII on 15 January 1943.

The Dossin barracks deportation list for Transport XVIII with Bernhard, Rosa, and Malka listed. Copyright Belgium National Archives.

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In November, 1942 the entire family were to be deported, but the Association des Juifs en Belgique were able to secure a place for Bernhard and Rosel's young son in one of their orphanages. This photo was taken at the orphanage; the boy on the right is him.

A photo of three young boys, between the ages of 3 and 5, holding hands in front of a brick wall. They are all wearing shorts, and shirts with collars, and two are wearing suspenders. Photo: Yad Vashem, Album Number: FA231/86, Item ID: 32151, Archival Signature: 2849, Photographer: Cary (Curt) Dressler

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Bernhard married Rosel (Rosa) Kardimann in Brussels in 1935 when he was 30 and she was 27. Rosel was born in Vienna to Polish parents, but like Bernhard, had been raised in Germany. They ran a grocery store and had a son in 1939.

A black and white photograph of a young woman with a hat and bobbed hair, wearing a woolen coat buttoned up with a scarf, with her fist jauntily resting on her hip. Copyright unknown, possibly Belgium National Archives.

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Lina G. @thecuckootree.com · 09/04/2025

For Yom HaShoah (Holocaust Remembrance Day) I wanted to memorialise some of the Goldbergs in my family who were murdered in the Holocaust.

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This is the 1917 hospital tag from when my Jewish great grandfather had his leg amputated from an injury he received fighting for Germany in WWI.

Paper tag with illegible(ish) script and a string attached, sitting on an empty acid-free envelope, on a pile of other documents in acid-free envelopes.

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Lina G. @thecuckootree.com · 24/02/2025

And here are some more photos of the beautiful Garnethill Synagogue in Glasgow

Apologies for not having an artistic enough eye to describe the images in this post very well. This one shows light streaming through a bright stained glass window with a vase of dried flowers in front of it

A colourful, very tall, three-panel stained glass window with a floral motif at the top of a rather grand staircase

A coloured tile floor made with small tiles in a diamond pattern with a magen david in the middle, and white tiles around it forming another six-pointed star

A sort of wild convergence of multiple tile patterns, all colourful, two of which feature the magen david

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Lina G. @thecuckootree.com · 24/02/2025

The Wiener Holocaust Library event at the Scottish Jewish Heritage Centre yesterday was great. I learned more about the International Tracing Service (ITS) and how to preserve my home archive. Plus a tour of the Scottish Jewish Archives and Garnethill Synagogue. @wienerlibrary.bsky.social

Harvey Kaplan talking about the collections of the Scottish Jewish Archives Centre at the Wiener Library event in Glasgow yesterday, 'Recovery & Repair: Supporting Jewish Family Histories of the Holocaust in Britain' with Scottish Jewish Heritage Centre and the Scottish Jewish Archives Centre

The Scottish Jewish Archives Centre in Glasgow

The excellent presentation by Elaine Woodbridge included some hands-on demonstrations of tools for preserving and digitising a home archive

Torah scrolls at the Garnethill Synagogue

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Lina G. @thecuckootree.com · 15/02/2025

I'm researching a Jewish woman who fled to the US in 1941. While examining her passenger manifest I noticed that her contact person in the US was no less than Margaret Sanger at 501 Madison Avenue, NYC, the Planned Parenthood headquarters!

Clip from a 1941 passenger manifest that reads Margaret Sanger 501 Madison Avenue New York City

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Lina G. @thecuckootree.com · 22/01/2025

I got my MA at University of Limerick in History of Family yesterday. So pleased to be done and very proud of all of my peers. Time to decide what's next!

Graduation ceremony with a green University of Limerick banner, with a man in a floppy black hat shaking the hand of a student in graduate robes.

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Lina G. @thecuckootree.com · 01/01/2025

This is the energy that I'm looking to bring to 2025

Moo Deng, a moist and feisty pygmy hippo bites a man's leg, with her eyes opened wide, and the whites showing, suggesting both intensity and ferocity

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Lina G. @thecuckootree.com · 28/12/2024

At King's Cross station there's something far more magical than Platform 9 3/4. Just next door in the Family Waiting Room is a pressed penny machine that has an out-of-service sign but actually works if you put the coins in while pushing the slot in slightly, and turning the wheel quickly.

Sign on a Penny Press machine that says "this machine is out of service"

Two pennies from said machine, one that says London King's Cross and the other Celebrating LNER 100 years anniversary

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Lina G. @thecuckootree.com · 24/12/2024

Back in the Glasgow Archives for the first time since finishing my dissertation. It feels like being reunited with a long-lost friend.

In the foreground, a large book resting on a pillow with handwriting in it visibile. In the background, a card catalogue.

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And here's a photo of my gorgeous boy enjoying the sunset near Loch Rannoch, contemplating Andrew Carnegie's legacy and his dueling roles in the United States and Scotland. 7/7

An absolute stunner of a dog with champagne-coloured fur and a hot pink plaid bandana sitting on a wild snow-dusted expanse with snowy trees and mountains and an ethereal pink sunset behind him. The dog is genuinely very attractive.

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We also went to Loch Rannoch, to see the Scottish lodge where Carnegie holed up during the strike (while furiously sending telegrams and letters from Pitlochry to Frick encouraging him to bust the union by any means necessary). 5/

Telegram dating 7 Jul 1892 from Andrew Carnegie to HC Frick that says "Cable just received all anxiety gone Since Know you Stand firm never employ one these rioters Let Grass grow over works must not fail now you will win easily next Trial only stand form law + order wish I could"

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One such example was the 1892 Homestead steel strike in Pennsylvania. I went on this Carnegie tour of Scotland with @tammyhepps.bsky.social, Homestead historian, who told me the backstory, detailing Carnegie's role in the union busting that left workers dead in a riot involving 300 Pinkertons. 3/

Tammy Hepps posting under a sign that says "Industry and Fortune" while wearing a shirt that says 'You can take the girl out of Homestead but you can't take Homestead out of this girl".

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Espousing something akin to effective altruism, Carnegie believed that industrialists should accumulate maximum wealth which they could redistribute into the community. It was a paternalistic view of the world, and one he used to excuse extraction of wealth from workers in the United States. 2/

Advertisement from the Pall Mall Gazette 22 July 1889 for The Gospel of Wealth, by Andrew Carnegie, the American Millionaire.

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Lina G. @thecuckootree.com · 07/12/2024

I just went to the Andrew Carnegie Birthplace Museum in Dunfermline, where he's considered something of a hometown hero. He was a major philanthropist and generous benefactor to causes around the world, but also a union buster and rapacious factory owner whose employees lived in near poverty. 🗃️ 1/

Cartoony drawing of Andrew Carnegie sitting on a stack of books, reading a pamphlet. By Carlo de Fornaro.

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An 1899 article described an "energetic Scotsman" James Seves Hosie, who arrived in Melbourne in the 1850s with little in the way of capital but ended up making a fortune off his threepenny Scotch pies. He became something of a real estate magnate off the back of his Scotch pie earnings. 4/

An article from the Hartlepool Northern Daily Mail, 13 May 1899 that reads:

A Fortune Out of Scotch Pies.
Two of the most familiar features of Mel- bourne are Cole's Book Arcade and Hosie's Scotch pie shop. They are almost next-door neighbours in Bourke Street. Cole is alive and well, but Hosie has just died at the age of 68. An energetic Scotchman with only a few pounds in the way of capital, he landed in Melbourne in the early fifties and started a little Scotch pie shop at one end of Bourke Street-what time two other young men named Spiers and Pond were be- ginning business in a little restaurant at the other end of the same street. In 1861 Spiers and Pond risked all their available capital in bringing out the first English cricketing team to Australia. The specula- tion proved a great financial success, and on the profits Spiers and Pond were enabled to transfer themselves to London and to revo- lutionise the eating business in Eng- land. Unlike Spiers and Pond, Hosie re- mained in Melbourne, made a fortune out of his threepenny pies, built a pretty Bijou Theatre, provided Melbourne with a luxurious Turkish bathing establishment, erected a couple of gigantic hotels, and attained the dignity of Mayor.

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Lina G. @thecuckootree.com · 07/12/2024

After this blow-out meal, Scotch pies started appearing in the Scottish community in Australia and New Zealand in the 1860s. This advertisement from Nelson, New Zealand 1879 is for the "Colonial Scotch Pie Shop" which invites, a little hopefully, "Country Friends always Welcome" 3/

From the Nelson Evening Mail, 26 Apr 1879, an advertisement that reads:

The Colonial Scotch Pie Shop
Where all kinds of CAKES, PASTRY, BUNS and BREAD, are made Fresh every day. Hot Pies, Tea, Coffee, and Cocoa from 11 am. to 11 p.m.
Wedding, Christening, and Birthday Cakes made to order on the shortest notice.
R. SCOTT, BAKER AND PASTRYCOOK
Central Bri'ge-street, (the Shop lately occupied by Mrs Middlemies)
Country Friends always Welcome.
1236-fmo

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Lina G. @thecuckootree.com · 07/12/2024

Here, at Mr. LeGeyt's table (apparently the meat-n'-tatties table compared to the others) oyster pattees, cotelettes d'Agneau, were served alongside what were called Scotch pies, which I assume were mutton pies. The reporter left the dinner in a huff, and the resulting article is quite snarky. 2/

Bombay Gazette, 1 Jan 1851
FAREWELL DINNER TO SIR WILLOUGHBY COTTON.
This affair came off last night, as proposed. The Hon'ble Sir Erskine Perry in the Chair.
In common with our contemporaries, we sent reporters to the Dinner, having on application obtained a formal order for their admission from the Committee of Management. But it appears that Sir Erskine Perry and his friends consider that admitting a Reporter to such an affair consists in putting him into a dirty, out of the way hole, in company with the cooks, so as in the language of Dr. Downes, conveyed to the reporters through Sir Erskine Perry's tipstaff, Mr. Robinson, "that they should be out of view of the guests, and that the Committee had assigned that as their proper place." Treatment so contemptuous, and on the part of Sir Erskine Perry aud others so contemptible, left no option to the reporters, but, from a feeling of self-respect, to leave the scene; and accordingly we give no report ; and will give none. One of the flunkies, however, has in a very kind and condescending manner, sent us one or two of the Bills of Fare provided by the Hon'ble the Chief Justice and his friends, and we do not object to publish them, as we have no cause of quarrel with the cooks; and if the dinner was as good as it looks upon paper, it would no doubt be all very fine, though our friend, "Mr. Ferguson," was not allowed to lodge there, and so got none of it;-

Menu from the same article, including:

Mr. LeGeyt'sTable, No. 7.
Potage a la Reine.
Potage a la Sage.
Iced Fish with Jelly and Salad Sauce.
Plain Boiled Fish.
Fish with Macaroni.
Oyster Pattees.
Cotelettes d'Agneau.
Cotelettes de Mouton with Tomata Sauce.
Croustade a la Polonaise.
Compote de Pegeon.
Prawns in Mould.
Scotch Pie.
Risolles with Truffles.
Roast Saddle Mutton.
Roast Turkey.
Boiled Ham.
Boiled Round Beef.
Plain Rice.
Chicken Curry.
Prawn Curry.
French Salad.
Pate de Foie gras.
Iced Charlotte Pears Pudding.
Iced Green Gage & Raspberry Pudding.
Gooseberry Tart.
Damson Tart.
Punch Jelly.
Curacoa Jelly.
Jelly in Oranges.
Blanc Mange.
Italian Cheese.
Sardines.
Wines,
Champagne
Claret.
Sherry.
Madeira.
Hock.
Port.
Liqueurs.
Beer and Soda Water.

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Lina G. @thecuckootree.com · 22/11/2024

Jack has a huge file at the National Archives, which I hope to examine in the future, but they seem to pertain mostly to his later criminal exploits. This is one of those genealogy mysteries that may be solved in time, when more records come online or otherwise become available. 7/7

Large stock of folders full of records on a table in an archival setting.

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Lina G. @thecuckootree.com · 22/11/2024

Not long after, Jack was sent to the Gertrude Jacobson Orphanage, a home for Jewish children in Glasgow, where he stayed for seven years. Given the painful series of losses he experienced in childhood, it is not surprising that Jack didn't know where he came from. 4/7

1921 Scotland census entry for Jack Pairos at the Gertrude Jacobsen Orphanage. He is recorded as a boarder, age 14 and 8 months, born in "Russia Wilna".

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Lina G. @thecuckootree.com · 22/11/2024

I was never able to conclusively determine where Jack Pairos, identified in this 1936 article as a "man without a country" was born. It is likely that he himself didn't know, which is how he evaded being deported from the UK. 1/7

Birmingham Gazette, 6 Oct 1936

A MAN WITHOUT A COUNTRY

When Jack Pairos, aged 28, a kitchen porter, appeared at the Worcester Quarter Sessions yesterday it was stated that after being deported from Montreal, where he had arrived by deserting from his ship, he got into trouble with the police again, and an order was made for him to be deported, but this was amended to an order for him to report under the Aliens Restriction Act.

Pairos: Is it not a fact that I cannot be deported?

Superintendent Cooks: He is a man without a country. I think he is a Polish Jew. There is nowhere to deport him to.

Pairos, who pleaded guilty to the theft of 14s. from Ernest Bishop, of Great Malvern, had many previous convictions, and he was sentenced to three years' penal servitude.

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Lina G. @thecuckootree.com · 19/11/2024

Day out in Parma today. This is the wall of the city comune building. #italy

Stone water fountain protruding from a wall. The water is coming from an algae-covered mouth of a woman with two piles of fruit and veg next to her. The wall has been stained by the water.

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Lina G. @thecuckootree.com · 16/11/2024

On my way to Italy. Just asked an Italian a question, in Italian. Killing it.

The painting shows a half-length depiction of Judith behind a ledge on which the decapitated head of Holofernes rests. Judith is wearing a sumptuous gown with decorative slits in the sleeves and brocade bands, a neck band, a large linked chain and a wide-brimmed hat. Both her head and body are turned to the right. In her left hand she holds the sword used to kill the commander Holofernes, the besieger of her native town.

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Lina G. @thecuckootree.com · 14/11/2024

Might be too late for your zine, but here are some I picked up in Italy over the summer.

Four pressed pennies from Polignano and the surrounding area.

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After my request, the listing of this record was removed from the archive site. The fond it is in is still listed, but with no description of its contents. A researcher who didn't already know about these records would not be able to find them. 8/11

An archive inventory that lists the number of files but no description of the contents.

A screenshot of a page from the Polish State Archives with a red bar through the middle that says "The unit is temporarily unavailable."

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The Polish State Archives have a document in which Jagda's father requested confirmation of her and Josef's death. I was told I needed to prove a direct ancestral line to see the file about a Holocaust death 80 years ago. I can now use this marriage record as proof, but why is it necessary? 7/11

A black-and-white photograph of Jagda and her mother before Jagda's 1939 marriage.

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In the sidebar of the 1939 marriage record is written: "The wife died on 6 May 1943 in Annenberg (Germany), Death Act Nr. 295/1948 in registry office in Dąbrowa Górnicza. Częstochowa, Registered 30 Nov 948 by Registrar Jan Grabalowski." 4/11

A document with a purple stamp, with a short one-sentence form about a death. Details such as the date and location have been hand-written in with a signature and stamp of the registrar.

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My cousin went to Poland in the 1960s, and met a taxi driver who had known her father. He took her to the former family home and told her the fate of Jakob and Jagda. When Nazis came to take the family, Jakob refused to leave and was shot on the spot. Jagda and their baby Josef were taken. 2/11

Excerpt from 'He Walked Through Walls' that reads:

"So Yamrus got in the taxi and took them to Klucze. He told them that when the Nazis came to get Jakob and his family, Jakob refused to go with them, so they shot him. The Nazis took away his wife Jagda and their son Josef and burned down the house. I have heard that as soon as they came to Przedborz, the Nazis murdered about a thousand Jews and put them in a mass grave, but it was mostly older Jews. Maybe my brother Moshe is lying in this grave. Jagda and Josef they probably sent to Treblinka to die."

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Lina G. @thecuckootree.com · 12/11/2024

A few days ago I found this 1939 Polish marriage record for my cousin's uncle Jakob and his wife Jagda. In the sidebar it gives a terse summary of the bride's previously unknown, tragic fate. 1/11 [🗃️ genealogy]

Official document hand-written in Polish for a marriage that took place in 1939.

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This is the FamilySearch copy on the left versus the Genealogist copy on the right. The Genealogist's is better than Ancestry but still blurry; the FS one is still much better, imo. I guess it depends on how close you live to a FS library, but there are FS affiliate libraries all over the place.

The FamilySearch copy of the 1674 will of Lord William Grey versus the Genealogist copy.

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Lina G. @thecuckootree.com · 10/11/2024

In my study of deserted wives in early twentieth-century Glasgow, only a handful obtained a divorce. One was Elizabeth Harvie, the wife of a formerly prosperous house factor who had been brought down by drink and deserted her and their children repeatedly. 1/6 🗃️

Dundee People's Journal, 3 July 1915

FOUND AFTER FOUR YEARS
Man Thought He was Divorced
FACTOR'S DOWNFALL

When William Renton M'Allan was discovered in a Glasgow lodging-house after he had been missing for four years he was somewhat astonished that he was not already a divorced man.

He told an officer of the Parish Council be thought his wife's action for dissolution of the marriage had come off a week before, but declared he did not mean to do anything about it, and the other day Lord Ormidale granted the divorce decree to Mrs M'Allan, who now resides at King's County, Canada. Mrs M'Allan's evidence had been already heard. Her husband was at one time a prosperous house factor in Glasgow, but it transpired from the evidence drink had brought about his downfall.

Couldn't be Released
Walter Gillie, an officer of the Glasgow Parish Council, said he first became acquainted with the parties in 1910. At that time defender was suffering from delirium tremens. His wife had to make an application for poor relief. She had three children.

The defender had ruined his business. One day he walked out of the house and never looked near his wife again. On witness's instructions he was arrested for neglect. He pleaded guilty, and the case was continued.

Meanwhile he was arrested for drunkenness, and sent to prison for five days. At the end of that time he was unfit for liberation, suffering from the effects of alcoholism, and he was removed to the Parish Hospital.

With Another Woman
It was intended to bring him again before the Sheriff, but on getting out of the hospital he disappeared. There had been some misunderstanding when he left the hospital. He was not heard of again until 21st June last.

Mrs M'Allan had told witness she bad traced her husband on several occasions in the company of another woman, one of these times the couple being traced to Helensburgh. A week before the action of divoree came on witness discovered the defender in a common lodging-house in Glasgow.

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Lina G. @thecuckootree.com · 31/10/2024

Remembering the time I came home on Halloween to find my disproportionately long dog dressed like a Viking Longship. 🗃️

A handsome dog with a German Shepherd face, a very long body and short legs, wearing a sandwich board made of cardboard to look like a Viking Longship, with spray-painted teal and orange cardboard shields on the side and wooden spoons for oars.

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And this is my beautiful boy in front of the church where my great great great great grandfather had been left on the wheel in 1818. 12/

Photograph of a extremely good looking, windswept dog with his mouth open and wearing a bow tie in front of a crumbling Italian church. The focus of the photo is on the dog, not on the church.

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p.s. When I first heard about the foundling wheel, I imagined a vertical wheel like a waterwheel, which would launch a baby into the church. But no, the wheels were horizontal, like a lazy susan for condiments. 11/

A wooden lazy susan fitted into a stone wall. Photo from: https://diariodacidadaniaitaliana.com/2020/09/16/registros-antigos-de-criancas-abandonadas/

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My Paolo Sarpi did not make a name for himself. He moved to Fragneto Monforte where he worked as a tailor and had ten children with his wife Nicolina Guida. Every year the church took a census of every citizen of the town, and every year, they noted that Paolo was an “esposito”. 8/

An Italian Stato dell'Anime (a church document that was similar to a census recording the "state of souls" in the parish) for the Sarpi family. Instead of having a birthdate listed, as there is for every other member of the family, Paolo's entry says "Da Morcone nelle fasce nel 1818, Paolo Sarpi, esposito"

Translated: "From Morcone, in swaddling clothes, in 1818, Paolo Sarpi, abandoned"

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My great great great great grandfather didn’t have any tokens on him when he was left on the foundling wheel, but he was wrapped in linen and wearing a red silk bonnet. These were not fabrics that the average contadina would have, so the babe may have come from a wealthier household. 6/

Black and white copy of a register of birth from 1818. It reads (approximately), in Italian,

On January 24th, 1818, before the civil status officer of Morcone appeared Nicolina Masino of the late Nicola, receiver of foundlings, who declared that during the night someone had deposited a child on the wheel, wrapped in a white linen blanket and with a red silk bonnet on their head, and without any distinctive sign whatsoever. The officer visited the child, ascertained that he was a male and that he was born a few hours before, and bestowed to him the name of Paolo and the surname of Sarpi.

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While many mothers abandoned “illegitimate” newborns due to social stigma, others were forced by poverty, leaving open the possibility of retrieving their baby in the future. Mothers did return, but sometimes it was too late (see alt text). The mortality rate of abandoned babies was very high. 5/

Jesus Mary Joseph

On March 15, 1855

Amaddio Gromi born in Florence

On Thursday at 11 o'clock at night, the present child was brought in by a woman who said she was sent by Margherita Mattioli, a midwife in Via dell'Ulivo, with the upper half of a brass crucifix threaded with a purple velvet ribbon, but it is believed to be all false because she had a sheet of paper which read: "Unbaptized creature whose father has been ill for a long time and recommends himself to the Hospital".

He was judged to have been born there on the 14th and was baptized sub conditione with the repeated name of Amaddio. Address in file 122 n. 359.

185524 March: to nurse Luisa, wife of Luigi Bandinelli of the people of S. Ansano a Monte Aceraia, community Borgo S. Lorenzo;

1856 January 14: Eighty-four lire and ten soldi for the whole 4th since he died including ten soldi for the funeral.

[After the child's death, the natural parents came to the hospital to look for him. Their names were Ferdinando and Anna Lapini of S. Felicita]

(AOIF, Nurses and children 1855 R 7a p.1°, 01/01/1855-31/03/1855, inv. n. 731, c.266)

https://www.fondazioneinnocenti.it/product-page/amaddio-gromi-14-03-1855

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