Cry, Cry, "Recall the Fifth Of July!"

On a Thursday, July 5th 73 years ago today, these two men were part of an uprising that is overlooked by historians and others alike: these two, Franciszek and Witold Andrulewicz, were part of the Augustów Resistance. They didn't have to fight the invading Soviets. They did. Why?

Why they didn't have to do it and why they did it are on the one in the same (and I can tell you that the sides of our family back in Europe were aware of it, no matter denials, etc. on all sides now): they were B'nei Anusim whom had seen it before, and they were not going to see it again, even if they had to die to try to make sure that nobody else would see it—and they did die.

Even if Holocaust historians and others overlook the Russian part of the Holocaust, I won't. Even if Holocaust historians and others don't consider the time from Stalin's reign to the closing of the gulags as part of the Holocaust, I will. Even if the Augustów Resistance isn't remembered even much in Poland—let alone as much as other defenses that Jewish and other partisans undertook—I will remember it.

אפריים בן אביגדור (פרנטישק בן וינצנטי) ופעידל בן יוסף (ויטולד בן יוסף), זיכרונם לברכה; וכל אחרים קדושים באוגוסטוב, זיכרונם לברכה

On the 71st Anniversary Of the Liberation Of Jews From Auschwitz And Other Murder Camps, I Remember The Life Of...

My distant cousin✡ Antoni Andrulewicz (אנתוני בן יוחנן הכוהן אנדרולוביץ, ז''ל והי''ד).

When I was doing more family research, I found out about him (and found this picture) and read about the horrid circumstances of his death.

According to what Ogrodywspomnien.pl cited, he was "arrested" (read "kidnapped"), "held hostage in the Suwalki prison" for almost three months, and murdered by asphyxiation with other victims of a "mass execution" (read, quite frankly, "mass lynching"), and put into a mass grave at the murder site.

Remember that not all Sho'ah victims fit the profile of the oft-described Sho'ah victim—and certainly, not all lived to be victims whom became liberated survivors. Because he was a ben Anusim, he (like other bnei Anusim in Non-Hispanic Europe) got overlooked (despite that Anusim and bnei Anusim were not only in Iberia and not only during the Spanish Inquisition).

As has been said, ****** didn't care whether Jews were Rabbinical, Karaite, or Non-Rabbinical and Non-Karaite Jews; and many continue to leave millions of those whom were counted for murder out of the count of those whom are to be remembered ("[B]ut for Thy sake are we killed all the day; we are accounted as sheep for the slaughter.").

Even 71 years later, only 6-11 Million victims of the Sho'ah (not counting the gentile ones) are counted and remembered for a blessing; and Stalin, despite that he had his equivalent of a "Final Solution", is remembered as part of the Yalta Three whom led the armed forces that liberated Jews from Auschwitz and other murder ("concentration") camps (and lets be clear: the "concentration" camps were not designed to be anything but murder camps).

Even 71 years later, then, Israel is still not fully liberated from the Nazis—how can Israel be fully liberated when his murdered sons and daughters are still not fully counted and what he endured in, e.g., murder camps is minimized?

לעולם לא שיכחו; לעולם לא שוב!


✡ "Andrulewicz" and variants thereof originated with "Andrulevičius" (especially "Andrulevičus") in Stakliškės (as I was told on Polish Forums). However, we also have Sephardi or Mizrachi roots, as two of our cousins were named "Kasis" (not "Kasis" as in "spit" or "Kazys" as in "Kazimierz", since that was a later renaming). As far as I can tell perAncestry.com and other sites, then, "Kasis" probably comes from "Casis", which comes with "Qisis" or "Qasis". 

As far, BTW, as why the various branches were all over the place in terms of not speaking to each other, etc., I do not know. I do know, though, that, e.g., the Andrelewitz branch in Vilna probably was done with most of us long before my branch became Anusim (Rochla bas Gitla was among the Vilna branch). 

As far as the Vil'gel'm Andrulevich branch, we last had contact with them roughly about when Great-Granddad was born in Cuman (now Tsuman), since Vil'gel'm lived in Buzhanka near Zvenigorodka (now Zvenyhorodka). Whether it was before Great-Granddad was born or after he was, I don't know. 

I've had to figure out quite a bit of this through inference, etc.. Ultimately, nonetheless, it won't change that I'm a bat-Anusim whom has a duty to make sure that even distant relatives who were Sho'ah victims aren't forgotten.

Part Three Of My Stage32 Writer's Submission

For a lack of better termage and since someone in Brooklyn searched, I'll get one of the sensitive chapters (maybe the most-sensitive chapter) over with.

   

Brooklyn, New York arrived from google.com on "The Nicole Factor: Why the Non-Anusi Rusnaks Reached Out To the Anusi Ones" by searching for mary rusnak gaydos.

I did not find out that Great-Grandma Gaydos was a kapo until much later. I watch my Feeedjit (for Blogger) stats, by the way--so if you are who I think you are (i.e., Ally Shumack or one of the other Rusnaks in New York) and you haven't been following what I've been writing, you're in for a surprise about your cousin, or your grandaunt (if you're my great-grandaunt Agnes Rusnak Shumack's granddaughter or grandson), or whoever she (that is, Great-Grandma Gaydos) is to you--that is, in relation to you.

By the way, I may be jumping back and forth here, but this all connects--and will help you understand why my grandma Joan Czarnecki (nee Gaydos) married Jack Czarnecki. To begin, who else would marry a Crypto Jew but a Crypto Jew (with few exceptions, though--might I add--Anusim did stick together and still stick together)? Who else, also, would marry a Crypto Jew who was good at hiding secrets? I'll obviously get back to Great-Granddad Czarnecki and the Czarneckis in a minute, by the way.

Meanwhile and anyway, I'd give Dr. MaryAnn Gaydos (Grandma's surviving-oldest sister at present) credit for making up such a clever story if the situation for which it was made up wasn't as serious as it was. I have to begin with Dr. Gaydos' story because it'll show you how full of secrets and (for a lack of better termage) crap my family is.

Dr. Gaydos claimed that after the war (according to Kevin, though I've recalled during the war), relatives wrote to Great-Grandma Gaydos asking for money. Great-Grandma Gaydos, according to her daughter, then stopped writing. She, however (and as Kevin reminded me that Dr. Gaydos had stated), sent food.

To make the true story short, records on YadVashem.org (which I found while searching to see if any relatives were mentioned or noted on Yad Vashem's website)--so to speak--poke holes right in Dr. Gaydos' story. Now, is it traumatic for a 10-12-year-child to deal with her mother being a kapo? Yes. Does that excuse the cover-up for her mother years later? No, it does not.

The story (as I figured out on my own and through contacting a relative-in-law's grandnephew) is this: Great-Grandma Gaydos had Non-Messianic Jewish relatives in Kosice, Slovakia (then part of Hungary and then Czechoslovakia) who reached out to their Anusi relative as a final resort--after all, they realized that they had stayed in Europe for far too long and should have made (but regrettably did not make) aliyah or another type of exit from Europe (which, long story short, Tibor Geza Rusznyak eventually did--and after he survived the Holocaust, and by coming to Ohio and understandably never contacting our side of the family for the rest of his life).

They, like all other Orthodox P'rushi ("Rabbinate") Jews, were done with the Gyorgy Rusznak ("Gyorgy Kvetkovits"--in other words, Great-Great-Granddad Rusnak's paternal granddad)'s side of the family--with shiva having been sat for him (that is, Gyorgy "Gyorgy Kvetkovits" Rusznak) years ago. However, since Talmud Bavli states that one may break a mitzvah to save a life, they obviously broke the shiva-set boundary to save their own lives and their families' lives by reaching out to an Anusi relative.

What was at least one smuggled dollar to get Vilmosz Rusznak, Zoli Grinfeld (Vilmosz's brother in law), and their families out of Europe? What was reaching out to Jewish relatives as a (supposedly-) Jesus-believing Jew? What was helping family and exposing one's self as a Jew?

To Great-Grandma Gaydos, it was everything--and she stopped writing to Vilmosz, Zoli, and the rest of the family in Kosice--and that's how she became a kapo. By the way, I now understand the remark that Mom told me that Grandma had once made to her during a conversation about sponsoring needy children--that is, "You keep your money in your own country."

If you think that what Great-Grandma Gaydos did to Vilmosz, Zoli, and their families hit then-10-to-12-year-old MaryAnn, just imagine how it hit then 6-to-8-year-old Joan--and it must continue to hit the self-proclaimed Czechslovakian-American Catholic years later. By the way, Claims Conference Records on JewishGen.org indicate that Vilmosz survived after all. However, neither such evidence nor any other evidence indicates that Zoli and his family did--in fact, the evidences indicates the contrary. Also by the way, one of the Rusznak-Grinfeld children (Sandor) was MaryAnn's age at the time that he was murdered (The other child, Miklosz, was only 10.).