Leib Leon Arie PRUSZINOWSKI / Baranovichi, Belarus / USSR KOORDYNACJA

arieh1 arieh4 arieh2 arieh3 Surname: PRUSZINOWSKI / PRUSINOWSKI
Name: LEIB ARIE LEON LOWA
Birth Date: Probably 17 Feb 1939
Birth Place: Baranovichi, Belarus
Father’s Name: Motel Mordechai Pruszinowski
Mother’s Name: Sonia Pruszinowski nee Kaniszewski
Paternal grandfather: Dov Berl Pruszinowski, died before WWII
Paternal grandmother: Jocheved PruszinowskiLEIB’S STORY

Motel Pruszinowski was born in Stolbtsy (Stolpce) around 1910. His known siblings were Feiga Fania, Rosa, Leibl and Bracha. Sonia Kaniszewski was born in Baranovichi around 1912. Nothing is known about her family.
Motel and Sonia married in 1937 and lived in Baranovichi, now Belarus, then Poland.
Probably on 17 February 1939 their son Leib Leon Arie was born.
In September 1939, as the German Army was approaching Baranovichi, the family fled to the east into the areas under Soviet rule.

At some time, perhaps in 1941, the father was enlisted in the Red Army. Later he was reported missing.
Together with the mother and little Leib were two paternal aunts– Feiga Fania and Rosa.
Feiga Fania was a recent widow with a little girl who also died during the war.

It is not clear when Leib’s mother was murdered. According to a testimony left by the aunt, the mother and a friend had gone to look for food when they were assaulted and murdered. This probably happened in Uzbekistan or Turkmenistan, according to some additional information found in another document.

In the spring of 1946 Leib and his two aunts returned to Poland on the Repatriacja scheme ( Polish citizens were allowed to go leave the Soviet Union and go back to Poland).

In July 1946 the two aunts gave Leib to Koordinacja Zionist children’s home in Kaminitz near Wroclaw. The Koordinacja wanted to bring the surviving children to Eretz Israel, though this was not easy as the British Mandate was ruling in Eretz Israel and restricted immigration. Leaving Poland and moving from country to country inside Europe was also problematic.

In August 1946 Leib and a group of children left Kaminitz and as illegal emigrants crossed the border to the Czeckoslovakia and then to Austria.

In the beginning of September 1946 Leib arrived at the Rosenheim Center in Germany.
In October 1946 he was transferred to a temporary children’s home in Dornstadt near Ulm, also in Germany.
He at some point attended the elementary school at the Bergen Belsen DP camp.
In July 1947 he was sent to Switzerland for recuperation.
In April 1948 he arrived in Haifa, Israel aboard the ship Endeavour coming from Marseille. He was nine years old.

RESEARCH JOURNAL JUNE 2005
STOLBSTY ( Stolpce), Belarus
There were around 1428 Jews in Stolbtsy before Holocaust, according to WOWW. Stolbtsy is located 69 km SW of Minsk. Any information about the Pruszinowski family from Stolbtsy will be important.

BARANOVICHI ( Baranowitz), Belarus
Any information about the Kaniszewski family from Baranovichi will be important. Baranovichi had 7796 Jewish residents before Holocaust. From Pages of Testimony at Yad Vashem we found that a couple named Zalman and Reisha(?) Kaniszewski ( born around 1882) lived in Baranovichi and had at least three children: Chwala born ca 1900, Ester born ca 1905 or 1910 and Miriam born ca 1908 or 1912. Were these related to Sonia, and if so, how?

LEIB ARIE PRUSZINOWSKI
According to the aunt’s testimony, Leib’s most likely birth date is 17 February 1939. Will it be possible to locate the birth certificate in Baranovichi?

LEIB’S FATHER MOTEL PRUSZINOWSKI
Leib does not remember his father, but he would very much like to know what happened to his father in the Red Army.

LEIB’S MOTHER SONIA PRUSZINOWSKI nee KANISZEWSKI
Leib knows extremely little about his mother. After all, Sonia was from Baranovichi, and the two surviving paternal aunts, now deceased, were from Stolbtsy. What information can be found about his mother and her family from Baranovichi? Will it be possible to locate her birth certificate? Does the marriage register for the year 1937 still exist in Baranovichi?

LIFE UNDER SOVIET RULE
Will it be possible to locate information about the Pruszynowski family’s life in the Soviet Union?
In one of the documents it says they lived in Kizyl-Arvat in Turkmenistan during the war.

THE REPATRIATION IN 1946.
Will we be able to locate any documents around the return to Poland in the spring of 1946 of Leib and his two aunts?

RESEARCH JOURNAL JULY 2005
CAN YOU CHECK RUSSIAN MEMORIAL SITE FOR PRISONERS NAMED PRUSZINEWSKI?
What can be found on a new Russian memorial site for around 1.5 million prisoners sent to the Siberian gulags?
Are these only male prisoners or are children and women also listed?
What is the information given about each individual?
If you read Russian , could you check this website for prisoners with the family name PRUSZINEWSKI and inform us about the results? http://www.memo.ru

Previous Comments

written by Yaakov Zelig Shapiro, May 03, 2009
Does anyone know of a Yankel Vodonos in Stolpce in 1940. Also, anyone with the family name of Saposhnik. Also, the Menaker family in the butcher business?
Stolpce
written by Leokadia Fildes, July 11, 2008
My mother was in Stolpce in 1938. Her name – Lubow (Luba) Kulaga. My parents were both born in the Baranovichi area. My father’s name was Michal Orszanski.

Logan Monday, 24 March 2014
A Boruch Pruszinowski appears in Piotrkow Gubernia in a 1900 Russian Empire Business directory, see top right (third line from top) at http://dlib.rsl.ru/viewer/01005452709#?page=1062. Found by searching at http://genealogyindexer.org.

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