This page is dedicated to the memory of the Jews of Jasienica who called it Yashnitza. It was a dairy town, and famous for its eggs. A family story explains: at my parents wedding in 1934, they determined that my grandparents were born within 10 miles of each other in "the old country", and how? Because they called the scrambled eggs, Yashnitzers!
On the right is an area map and Jasienica is located at latitude 49° 45´
longitude 21° 57´, about 10 miles North East of the major
city of Krosno (find Krosno, then go up and right). There were many towns in Poland
called Jasienica (just as in the United States, there are many Washingtons); "ours" is
named Jasienica Rosielna today.
This is important: if you are interested in the history or current status of the area, please visit our primary site the Krosno web site.
I hope you will find all this interesting and helpful. As with any genealogical research, this is an evolving project. If you have anything
to add or any questions, please contact me by clicking here:
Phyllis Kramer, New York City &
Palm Beach Gardens, Fl. Created January 2003; updated November 2009. Copyright © 2003. You are visitor #:
Also note: This site exists because of your Generosity. Your tax deductible donation to JewishGen makes these services possible. If this site helps your search, just click on Jewish Gen-erosity.
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2009
(Polish) Miasteczko, pow. Brzozow, siedziba sadu powiatowego, sad okr. Sanok, 2090 mieszk.........
(French) Petite ville, distr. De Brzozow, trib de distr Brzozow, trib d'arr-t-Sanok, 2090 habit. (train) (17 km) Iwonicz x x Jasienica k. Brzozowa, x Brzozow; 1 cath, 1 synag. Marches: le jeudi
The following is the beginning of an English translation...I will try to improve it with time The following trades and tradesmen were listed, first in Polish, and then in French; we have translated the trades into English. (note that only surnames were extracted; company names were omitted):
Great Grandfather Abraham Kramer (~ 1863--~1942) lived in Jasienica.
I have a tree of all the Kramer/Beim/Wisners and would be happy to share that with anyone interested. Phyllis Kramer, Wilton, Conn. & Savannah, Georgia
I visited Jasienica about six weeks ago. My husband Zeev Etra, is the great grandson of Natan Feit who is listed in the 1929 Business Directory. My father in law's father (Wolf Etra) died in Rymanow when my father in law was three months old and his mother Reisel nee Feit, went back home to Jasienica and helped run the family grain business.
Yehoshua lived in Jasienica until he was taken to Cracow, Plazow, Auschwitz, Dachau etc.He was in his twenties when the war broke out. After the war he was in a DP camp near Frankfurt and in 1947 arrived after internment in Cyprus, to Palestine.
My husband and I spent a weekend in Cracow and then drove to the Krosno area to see the places where Yehoshua had spent his childhood and youth. All our information for Jasienica was the number of house 351.
First we tried to find the site of the cemetery. People were most helpful.
There is indeed nothing there except for a rectangular square with a
plaque, on one corner the remains of a Jewish headstone.
It seemed that there had been a memorial ceremony or something because we
saw a wreath and a churchlike candle, not a Yizkor light. We said Tehillim and I
left earth that I had brought from Israel. Afterwards we saw a sign with a map
that showed the former Jewish sites. (That's how we understood it). We went
looking for house no. 351 and eventually were directed to it. I cannot say for
certain that that was the house. Yehoshua says the house looks familiar in our photos, but our description as to its location is not exactly as he remembers it. He says is house was near the square.
We tried looking for the market square but it didn't seem to exist! There
was a
public library situated in beautiful grassland park by the stream/river Rosiela and I was drawn to this building but there was nobody around to ask.
By then it was late and pouring with rain. We left Jasienica feeling very frustrated,
slept in Krosno and in the morning decided to return. Again I felt drawn to this
building. We walked around and couldn't see anything.. We got into the car
feeling very dejected when suddenly I saw what could only be the
pillars of a synagogue in the grassland not far from the library.
(The library was closed both times we were there). We scouted round the area and
indeed, there was a hidden sign that said that this was where the synagogue was.
When we showed the pictures to Yehoshua he recognized the pillars and told us
that the Synagogue had been situated near the square. Obviously, all that
beautiful grassland is where the square had once been.
Editor's Note, Sept 2009: We are fortunate to have a local expert in Jewish History,
Piotr, who has written: "Unfortunately, this is a mistake. What Mrs Etra saw was
the remains of the mansion of the local squire to whom Jasienica belonged before
WWII. The last squire to own Jasienica was Count Wysocki, and it was the remains
of his mansion that Mrs Etra mistook for the remains of the synogogue. Nr 351, that
local people directed her to does not correspond to the 351 from before the war.
The sad truth is that most of the Jewish town had been destroyed by the nazis,
and only few buildings remained till the present day."
I took a picture of
the school and Yehoshua recognized it immediately as the place he had learned till
the age of 14. In the afternoons, he had Jewish studies in the Heider and the Kloiz.
Today, Jasienica looks like a prosperous agricultural community. The rolling hills, cultivated land and the beautiful lush greens of summer make it look very attractive. From Jasienica we went on to Rymanow and to Dukla. I just felt that it would be right to inform you of our visit. Shana Tova.
Daliah Maurer Etra
On May 1, 2004, I left Los Angeles, for a trip that began in Poland, and continued to other parts of Eastern Europe over the course of a month. It began in Warsaw, paying homage to the Holocaust victims with visits to the site of the former ghetto, the Jewish cemetery, Pawaik Prison, and other important memorials, most notably Treblinka.
I then set off for Krakow and from there hired an excellent guide, Artur Davidson, based in Krakow, who agreed to help me over the course of two days, to find the birth records of my grand parents. Both were born in 1873, Ray Weiser Feit, in Tarnow and Benjamin Feit, either in Tarnow or Jasienica-Rosielna. Both great-grandparents, Leibish Feit and Ester Eiss Feit, were born in Jasienica-Rosielna and I very much wanted to go there.
Our first stop was the Tarnow Archives where I found the birth records of my paternal grandmother, and her parents, which was thrilling. In Tarnow, they actually let me go through the original records from 1873 and that was like going back in time, seeing the beautiful manuscript of the rabbis and their different writing styles.
We then went to the State Archives in Rzeszow, the Research Centre for History of the Jews from Galicia, (www.rzeszow.ap.gov.pl) and met with Dr. Grzegorz Zamoyski who was extremely kind and helpful; however, he doesn't speak English so a translator (Artur) was definitely necessary. He said the records for my great grandparents, born in Jasienica-Rosielna, in were in that town so off we went, only to be told by the head of the Records Office that they were not there.
Artur wasn't giving up easily and went to see the Mayor down the hall, Marek Cwiakala Wojt, who was extremely welcoming and anxious to help us in any way he could. He thought the records might be in the Lvov Archives.
He then escorted us to the Memorial
In the left hand corner of the memorial photograph above, is the Mayor of Jasienica,
Marek Cwiakala Wojt and our guide Artur Davidson from Crakow; if you'd like more information on
our guide, you can email
Phyllis Kramer.
The memorial, a simple plaque that lies flat on the ground, is at the site of what was the Jewish
Prior to the war's outbreak, there were two major property owners in Jasienica Rosielna, the
Catholic Church and Count Visotsky. The Count's son is still alive, living in
Crakow and wrote a book about his family and the town. Jews also owned land and today there are
some descendants who are trying to re-claim their property, making for some anxious feelings in this peaceful town.
Visually, Jasienica-Rosielna is a pastoral town, with lush farmland and broad vistas of green. It was a grey day when we were there but the beauty of the area was hard to camouflage. There are about 1100 people living in the town.
The Mayor telephoned several old people in town, trying to get them to talk with us.
I was hoping that someone might remember my great-grandparents who were killed by the Nazis, most likely at the site of the memorial. He took us to
He had no recollection of my family name but he had a lot to say and we sat there riveted for almost three hours.
He recalled his childhood, having Jewish friends he played with and who taught him some Yiddish. He was sometimes invited for their holidays and his family sometimes helped them in their preparations. He recalled being given matzah to eat and remembered many names of the Jewish holidays. He recalled the weekly market where Jews sold their wares.
His father was head of the local post office before World War I, knew Morse Code, and was educated compared to most in the town. His father was in the uprising, fighting with Pilduski, a great Polish hero and after the war, couldn't get his former job back. So he became a delivery man and worked for Jews, transporting their products by carriage-shoes, hats-all over the region, Sanok, Krosno. When he was very young, his father sometimes took him along. He would watch his father bartering with Jewish business associates and they always smacked their hands together when they made a deal. He recalled that all different types of Jews lived in Jasienica-Rosielna, Orthodox, those who "ate sausage" and also Communists.
Kazimierz Walczak was16 years old when the Nazis invaded on September 9th, 1939, with armies coming from Slovakia. They took people from the synagogues into forced labor. They were forced to make boats for the invasion of the Soviet Union. There was a Nazi School for officers in the town.
His father was fearful of being taken away since he had worked with and had a good relationship with the Jews. A man who ran Count Visotsky's business had a German wife and they were sent by the Nazis to spy on the townspeople. This man, Maternoffsky, began to rule the local population for the Nazis.
Jewish families were hidden in cellars, and some survived the war. Some escaped into the woods and some were massacred in the cemetery. A Ukrainian division of soldiers shot them. Some people paid the Nazis to prolong their lives but they didn't always live up to their bargain.
The Nazis took everything from the Polish farmers without giving them monetary payment, milk, wheat, meat and they had monthly quotas to meet. Their payment was only 1 liter of vodka. They were given soap by the Nazis and they found human hairs in the soap. He learned from those who escaped about what was going on in Auschwitz and how they made the soap.
He told the story of a man who knew his sister had been taken to Auschwitz and he went there looking for her. He was shown all the women and he recognized her. He asked to take her place in the camp and they released her. He lived through the war but while in the camp had the horrible job of working in the gas chambers.
In 1941, our host, Kazimierz, was sent to a labor camp, Visnowa, near Rzeszow, along with all the locals, including Jews, who could work. They were building a tunnel for a train, the Cieszyna Tunnel, designed by an Italian. A Jewish physician working in the labor camp, told them that the meat in the soup was human meat and they believed it because of the taste and that the vegetables contained were ones the Poles would only feed to animals. My guide said that he had heard that before, Nazis using human meat in food for prisoners. Kazimierz was there for three months but then escaped with four other men, one of whom was shot. He spent the rest of the war hiding in a small village near Krakow. Because of his escape, his father was imprisoned.
Upon finishing his story, he put on his "Sunday best" and took us on a tour of the town.
It was a very moving experience hearing his story and I know that he wanted to talk even more. No one listens very much to old people recalling their past, and although some memories are painful, they were part of his history and we wanted to hear it.
It was our history too. ---
Barbara Goldberg, Los Angeles California, June 2004
To email Barbara, click on her name.
Addendum April 2007 from Barbara: THE FOUR "LEO'S OF JASIENICA-ROSIELNA"
I am writing about four men I know very little about. They were all named Leo and they were
boyhood friends who grew up in Jasienica-Rosielna in Poland. All of them were shipped off to
Germany to work as slave labor for the Nazis. All of them were in various concentrations camps
and survived, settling in Brooklyn, New York.
As reported by the US Commission in 1992, the town of Jasienica has fewer than 5000 inhabitants (no Jews). In 1921 there were 479 Jews living there.
The cemetery is located 1 km north of the village center; it was used by Orthodox Jews.
It is in a rural area, on the crown of a hill, isolated; no marker, wall, fence or gate.
It is reached by crossing private property. It is 0.1 hectare in size and there are no
gravestones visible, however it does contain a special memorial monument to Holocaust victims.
The present owner is unknown. It is now used as a Jewish cemetery visited rarely only by private
visitors. Properties adjacent to the cemetery are agricultural. The cemetery is known to have
been vandalized during WWII. There is presently no maintenance.
This list came from the Yad Vashem website...it was secured from the Polish Archive "Zydowsi Instytut History"
in Warsaw. To view the original scripted polish list directly, go to http:yadvashem.org and click on
"Shoah related Databases"
For those researchers who may have ancestors buried in major New York area cemeteries, an exciting new development in 2006! The following cemeteries have put their lists online and you can browse them at your leisure, either by town name or surname.
If you want to see a list of immigrants who came to New York from any Shtetl during the period of
greatest Jewish immigrantion, the directions are below.
It is relatively easy to do the query using Steve Morse’s wonderful web page on JewishGen:
www.jewishgen.org/databases/EIDB .
Here are the steps:
SURNAME, FIRST NAME TRADE (Polish) TRADE (French) TRADE (English) Beim, J Blawaty Tissus Fabrics
Berglas, M Rozne Towary Articles divers General Store
Berglas, S Rozne Towary Articles divers General Store
Berglas, S Ubrania Gotowe Vetements Confectionnes Clothing Designers?
Blum, M Rozne Towary Articles divers General Store
Buchsbaum, G Wyszynk Trunkow spiritueux Liquors
Buchsbaum, S Tytoniowe Wroby Tabacs Tobacco
Chuchla, I Szewcy Cordonniers (?)
Cimer,A Piekarnie Boulangers Bakers
Czerny, Kar Apteki Pharmacies Pharmacist
Eichner, I Krawcy Tailleurs Tailors
Feit, I Rozne Towary Articles divers General Store
Feit, M Zboze grains Feed
Feit, n Zboze grains Feed
Fertig, S Bydlo-handel March. De Bestiaux Cattle Dealer
Fiebach, B Blawaty Tissus Fabrics
Folik, S Krawcy Tailleurs Tailors
Gutwirth, Ch Wyszynk Trunkow spiritueux Liquors
Horowitz,L Rozne Towary Articles divers General Store
Hunia, M Akuszerki Sages-femmes Medical Midwife
Jamel, H Rzeznicy Bouchers ?
Jamel, L Bydlo-handel March. De Bestiaux Cattle Dealer
Jarmusz, H Wyszynk trunkow spiritueux Liquors
Korb, D Zelazo fers Iron/hardware
Kresch, M Krawcy Tailleurs Tailors
Krolicki, W Lekarze Medecin Physician
Lesniak, A Tartaki scieries ?
Mazur, P Wyszynk trunkow spiritueux Liquors
Nagel, F Rozne Towary Articles divers General Store
Neuss, Ch Wyszynk trunkow spiritueux Liquors
Neuss, J Lasy - ekspoloatacja Exploitations Forestieres Lumbermen?
Parnes, B Blawaty Tissus Fabrics
Parnes, J Lasy - ekspoloatacja Exploitations Forestieres Lumbermen?
Reck, L Bydlo-handel March. De Bestiaux Cattle Dealer
Sarek,A Rozne Towary Articles divers General Store
Schachne, L Wyszynk trunkow spiritueux Liquors
Schiff, N Bydlo-handel March. de bestiaux Cattle Trader
Sicherman Konie-handel Marchands de chavaux HorseTrader
Silberman, P Wyszynk trunkow spiritueux Liquors
Unger, H Rozne Towary Articles divers General Store
Unger, H Zelazo fels Iron/hardware
Wallach, B Blawaty Tissus Fabrics
Weiss, A Rozne Towary Articles divers General Store
Wysocki, S Tartaki scieries ?
Wysocki, Stan Wlasciciele ziemszy proprietaires fenciers ?
Zimet, M/td> Rozne Towary Articles divers General Store
Return to Krosno's Table of Contents
Return to Jasienica's Table of Contents
. . . .
Families from Jasienica Rosielna
Phyllis Kramer of Connecticut
Return to Krosno's Table of Contents
Return to Jasienica's Table of Contents
. . . .
Memories from A Visit to Jasienica
by Daliah Maurer Etra, 2001
Return to Krosno's Table of Contents
Return to Jasienica's Table of Contents
. . . .
A Journey to find my roots in Galicia, Poland
by Barbara Goldberg, Los Angeles, CA, June, 2004
erected in 1967 to the Jews of Jasienica Rosielna who died in the Holocaust between 1939 and 1942.
The Memorial was built at the initiation of the Town Council
at the time and was re-furbished just a few years ago.
cemetery where, in August, 1942,
all the Jewish women, children and old people were rounded up, taken to the cemetery site,
summarily shot in a mass grave.
The area where they stood is cordoned off to convey the size of site and is considered hallowed ground.
The cemetery is beyond it, only a green field with no stones, no indication that it had been a cemetery.
. . . .
the home of Mr. Kazimierz Walczak, an 81 year old Pole with a very lucid memory and, inviting us into his home for coffee and cookies, more than willing to talk to us.
(The photograph on the left is a former Jewish Inn in Yashnitza).
He first pointed out where the Jewish bakery used to be on the main street of town
(photograph right), then the tailor (photograph below), next door, then several homes owned by
Jews, and as we walked along the main street, came to the site of what used to be a large matzah
factory, now a parking lot. According to Kazimierz, they even exported to the United States.
There used to be two synagogues in town, one made of wood, the other concrete, and showed us the site of one.
. . . .
One of them, Leo Feit, was my great-uncle. I never knew him, nor did my father speak of him
when I was a child. He was the last of our family to leave Poland and he was an only child,
a man who never married or had children of his own. His father's name was Israel, my grandfather's brother.
The others named "Leo" that I have limited or no information on were:
1. Leo (Gidalya) Strasfeld married Shirley ????. They had five children, David, and lived in
Brooklyn.
2. Leo Shachner married Mary ???
3. Leo Jamel ???
Does anyone know who they are?
Barbara Goldberg, Los Angeles California,April 2007. To email Barbara, click on her name.
Return to Krosno's Table of Contents
Return to Jasienica's Table of Contents
. . . .
Jasienica, The Cemetery
The Cemetery in Jasienica Rosielna
. . . .
Jews in Jasienica: A list of 30 victims
. . . .
Return to Krosno's Table of Contents
Return to Jasienica's Table of Contents
. . . .
New York Cemetery Lists are Online
Do a Search for your Shtetl’s Immigrants
.
Happy hunting!
Return to Jasienica's Table of Contents
. . . .
Genealogical Records Available Today
Jasienica Rosielna, which was in Krosno District and then was in Podkarpackie Province: