Polish Telephone Book - 1938

Bukachevtsy descendant Tomasz Kizny shares some comments, in his own words, on some of the listings in the telephone directory:

The names in the page of telephone book concerning Bukaczowce sound very familiar to me. 

Jan Cienski was a starost (community leader or elder) of Polish regional gentry; a little bit eccentric, living in a manor house in Chakhrov and possessing 600 hectares grounds.  

Henryk Landau was a land owner with an estate of 1000 hectares and a distillery in Sloboda Bukaczowiecka on the other side of Swirz river. He was a sort of magnate on the regional scale. Landau was married with a Lviv banker's daughter, an educated elegant woman. Their daughter was disabled by Heine-Medina (polio). Landau’s wife and daughter were deported to Kazakhstan with grandmother Helena and uncle Zygmunt (Tomasz's family). For some period of time they lived together in the same kolkhoz (collective farm). Afterwards they moved to Temir city (in Kazahstan) where both of them died of starvation.

 

 

 

Ruins of the Landau Distillery

The next name in the telephone list Mr. Jan Waligórski – wow! He was renting an apartment on the first floor of the house of my grandparents and indeed, in his memories Uncle Zygmunt mentioned that he had a telephone at home, a great luxury in Bukaczowce, and of course an attraction for children. Mr. Waligórski was a mayor of Bukaczowce. He was medium high, thin, with a small beard. He appeared to be unhappy all the time. His wife was ‘huge dimensions’ woman as Zygmunt described her, smoking cigarettes, a sensation for that time and place. She used to drink very strong black tea and getting brown on a beach chair placed in the balcony of Kizny’s house. Her daughter was getting brown in bikini, what was shocking oddity for uncle Zygmunt.

 

 

       Kizny Home

And eventually thanks to your research and website I learnt that telephone number of police post where my grandfather Izydor Kizny was on duty as a constable was number 3. Today I would like to call him so much to ask very many questions I did not when he was still alive."

Special thanks to Tomasz Kizny for sharing his recollections and those of his Uncle Zygmunt as well as his photographs.

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Copyright LCantor (April 13, 2008)