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written by cassia melissa partane on May 15, 2007

BS'd

Dear Zula

I have spent some time reading this website and have now recovered from the astonishment of discovering that you must be the 2nd cousin of my mother. All I know about you is written under your profile, which is very little, and I have not seen the TV programmes. I hope you speak English. I am writing from Sydney Australia.

What I can tell you about your family, is unfortunately very little. My Grandmother, died when I was about 6 (1980). Her maiden name was Ada Klaften. She was born 1905 Lemberg, her father was Dr Joseph Klaften. My mother says she never spoke about her father. In legal correspondence she wrote that Dr Joseph Klaften died in Meran Italy 1912. He must have been about 33 ( the age I am now) and my granny would have have been about 7 years old at the time. Consequently she was brought up by her grandparents. Ada's mother remarried, and was deported from Vienna in the 1940's. Ada had a younger sister, Erna Klaften, who died in New York in 1972.

My mother says her mother remembered the Russians invading Poland as child and how the Russians loved children. My grandmother suffered a lot at school because the teachers were very anti-Semitic.

My granny left Poland for Vienna in 1920 and got a job in a bank. Her visa and her birth certificate state her father as being Dr Josef Hirsch Klaften. She married in Vienna, where my mother was born in 1936. They were lucky to escape in 1940 to France where they imprisoned but fortunately survived. Not so lucky was Ada's half brother (no relation to you, from the 2nd marriage of her mother) who was murdered by the French, although he seems to have been instrumental in rescuing my mother and her parents. After the war my grandparents moved to London. After my grandfather died my mother moved to Sydney, and later my granny came too.

Looking at the photo of you as a young lady, I have to say - there is a remakably similar photo of my mother.

It would be nice to correspond and to hear something about you and your life. If you have an email address I can send you some photos - of my mother, my granny, my great aunt, and maybe you can try to see some of the face of your grandfather in them.

My granny had quite a lot of photos of prewar times that she amazingly kept. We don't really know who many of the people are. There seems to be a family connection to Italy, which might have something to do with the Klaftens since Joseph Klaften died in Italy. Perhaps. One of the family photos I am told has something to do with Italy because some of the men are wearing Italian army uniforms near a tombstone. Some family correspondence in the war relates to Italy also.

I don't think my mother likes to talk about anything much to do with life before coming to Australia. She left Europe behind when she came here. My father is not Jewish and I am the only child who has taken an interest in Judaism.

Last year I began corresponding with Ada's cousin (no relation to you) who is about 85, lives in London, and actually is rather distinguished in London and Austria, and he says his father spoke of nothing about the family. It is very difficult to put the pieces together. I am blessed to have as much information as I do.

If my grandmother and great aunt had known about you when they were alive I feel sure you would have been in their hearts.

Yours sincerely
Cassia Partane.

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written by cassia melissa partane on May 13, 2007

My grandmother, Ada Klaften's father was Josef Hiersz Klaften (who died in 1912). He was (according to JRO Poland) the brother of Izrael Markus Klaften. Therefore my grandmother's uncle or my mother's great uncle was Isabella's grandfather.

Ada Klaften survived the holocaust and died in Australia. My mother is alive and 70 in Australia, a child survivor of the Holocaust. I am tracing my family tree on my mother's side.

I am in a hurry to go at the moment and will reread this website when I have time.

Cassia.

Klaften in Lwow in 1937
written by logan on May 01, 2007

From the 1937 directory searchable at www.kalter.org/search, in Lwow:

Klaften I., magazyn zabawek, Akademicka 4, tel. 238-85 [image 933]
Waldbaum L., sklad farb i artykulow gospodarskich, Grodecka 62, tel. 284-53 [image 890]
Waldbaum (R. or H.), restauracje, Na Skalce 5, tel. 258-54 [image 921]