Other names: Libatchov, Libechuyv, Liubachev, Lubachov, Lubatchov, Lubichuv
The Family of Abusch Brunner
Abusch Brunner, his wife, and their granddaughter Mala Blumenberg
Abusch Brunner (sometimes written Bruner) lived on Rynek 13 in Lubaczow with his wife and three children: the son Leizer or Lazar, the daughter Lea Flora and the daughter Anna. Abusch was working as a timber merchant, and was a wealthy man for his time. It is estimated he was born around 1865 - 1870. According to one testimony he had a mill in Oleszyce, was an exporter of railroad ties and owned two houses in Lubaczow.
In the 1929 Business Directory for Poland the following information is listed:
A. Brunner Przemysl drzewany (wood industry)
A. Brunner Poklady kolejowe (railroad ties)
In the 1932 telephone catalogue for Lubaczow the following information is listed:
Abusch Brunner Przemysl drzewny (wood merchant) Telephone number 1 (!)
In 1932 Abisch Brunner donated money to the religious institution Kolel Galicia in Mea Shearim, Jerusalem.
In the 1938 telephone catalogue for Lubaczow the following information is listed:
Abusz Brunner Rynek 13 Telephone number 1
Lea Flora seems to have married first. She married Aizik Blumenberg. He had a Galanterija (Haberdashery) store in Lubaczow, and this family also lived on the Rynek. Lea Flora and Aizik had three children - a son named Berisch (Dov in Hebrew), a daughter named Malka, nicknamed Mali or Mala, and a daughter whose name is forgotten.
In the 1929 Business Directory for Poland, we can read the following listing:
A. Blumenberg Galanterja (Haberdashery)
In 1932 Aizik Blumenberg donated money to Kolel Galicja in Mea Shearim in Jerusalem.
A. Blumenberg did not have a telephone, according to the listings, from 1932 and 1938. Leizer BrunnerLeizer married Chaja Brendel Berta Bruenner from Cziezyn on the Polish Czeck border around 1926/1927. Their son Moshe was born on the Czeck side in Cesky Tesin in 1928. For a short time the family lived in Lubaczow, but the marriage did not work out, so Berta moved back to her family in Cziezyn with her baby son.
Leizer moved in with his parents and continued to work in the timber business. Around 1936 Berta's family moved to Krakow where Moshe grew up. His mother tongue was German.
The youngest of Abusch Brunner's children, Anna, married the lawyer Dr. Emil Haber from Nisko and settled there.They had a son named Szymon, nicknamed Imek, who was born in 1935 in Nisko. (Click here to read more...)
When the Second World War was approaching, in August 1939, Berta Brunner decided it would be safer to send her eleven year old son Moshe to his father in Lubaczow. Perhaps she hoped that the Germans would not get that far east.
Moshe came to Lubaczow on August 27th 1938. For him this was a great change in his life. He did not know his father and his paternal grandparents and uncles and aunts and cousins. He spoke German; they spoke Yiddish. They lived in a comfortable house on the Rynek, but the toilet was outside, and the comfort could not compare to what he was used to in Krakow.
Shortly after he had arrived, the Germans invaded Lubaczow and stayed till the end of September of 1939. At that time the agreement between the Germans and the Soviets made Lubaczow a part of the Soviet Union. The Germans retreated.
Moshe stayed with his father and the Brunner family for around half a year. In particular he remembers his cousin Mali who was sixteen at the time and would spend time with him. After half a year in Lubaczow, he joined his maternal uncles who were living somewhere around Lwow/Lviv. This saved his life.
His cousin Malka "Mali" was given to a Ukrainian family near Zloczow, for a big sum of money. She may have been around 18 or19 years old. Her beauty can be seen on the photos taken before the war, where she is standing next to her maternal grandparents. According to what the family has been told, the Ukrainian man started to take a special interest in Mali, causing his wife to denounce Mali to the Gestapo. Mali was murdered in the Zloczow area in 1942.
During the war, Anna and her husband Dr. Emil Haber and their son Szymon also had settled in Lubaczow, so Abusch and his wife had their three children with them - Lea Flora, Leizer and Anna.
According to what is known so far, it seems they and their families were all murdered during the final destruction of the ghetto in Lubaczow in January 1943.
In the Yizkor list made here in Israel in 1954, these are the names listed:
Brunner Abusch, Leizer, Jakob and family.
From the Yizkor list, it is clear that Jakob Bruner was part of this family, but how? Was he a brother of Abusch Bruner?
At Yad Vashem, the following Pages of Testimony have been found so far:
Leizer Brunner
Chana/Anna Haber nee Brunner
Malka Blumenberg
Dov Berisch Blumenberg.
Of Abusch Brunner's children and grandchildren who were alive when World War Two broke out, the only known survivor is Moshe Brunner, Leizer's son.
