Jablonowicz-Herszaft family. Collection

Mojsze Leib Jablonowicz was born in Ostroleka, Poland, in March 1904, as the oldest child of Isy (Isaak) Jablonowicz and Maja Sary (Sarah) Rucki. He had three younger sisters who were also born in Ostroleka : Reisla (Rose) (b. 1910), Laia (b. 1911) and Bella (b. 1913). Shortly after the birth of youngest daughter Bella, Isy Jablonowicz emigrated to the United States to build a better life for his family. During World War I, his wife Maja Sary Rucki and all four children fled to Lomza, Poland. In 1926, only son Mojsze Leib Jablonowicz emigrated to Belgium, where he settled in Antwerp. His mother and three sisters remained in Lomza until mother Maja Sary Rucki was able to obtain American visa for herself and daughters Rose and Bella in 1929. The three women arrived in New York on 26 January 1930, where they were reunited with their husband and father Isy Jablonowicz, renamed Yablow. Second daughter Laia Jablonowicz stayed behind in Lomza, Poland. Her fate remains unknown. It is presumed that she and her family perished during the Holocaust. In Belgium, Mojsze Leib Jablonowicz earned a living as a baker’s apprentice. In the 1930s, he religiously married Frieda Herszaft. She was a hairdresser who had been born in Warsaw, Poland, on 25 December 1912 and who had emigrated to Belgium via Dortmund, Germany, in 1920. The couple’s first son Jacques Robert Jablonowicz was born in Antwerp on 11 November 1936, but passed away a few weeks later on 4 December. On 20 December 1937, Frieda Herszaft gave birth to twin boys Robert and Salomon Jablonowicz. The following spring, Mojsze Leib’s sister Reisla (Rose) Jablonowicz visited her brother in Antwerp, Belgium. She left for New York again on 1st June 1938, where she would pass away due to illness in the summer of 1943 or 1944. In the summer of 1942, Mojsze Leib Jablonowicz was deported by the Nazis to the north of France, where he was put to work as a forced labourer at the camps of Organisation Todt. During his internment the first large anti-Jewish raid was organized in Antwerp. Frieda Herszaft and twin boys Robert and Salomon Jablonowicz were arrested at home in the night of 15 on 16 August 1942 and taken to the Dossin barracks. All three of them were killed after deportation to Auschwitz-Birkenau via Transport IV on 18 August 1942. Mojsze Leib Jablonowicz did not survive deportation from France to Auschwitz-Birkenau via the Dossin barracks with Transport XVI on 31 October 1942. The only Jablonowicz family members to survive the war were living in the United States : father Isy Jablonowicz, mother Maja Sary Rucki and youngest daughter Bella Jablonowicz. Isy passed away in 1960, Maja Sary in 1973. Bella Jablonowicz had already married Alex Kirschner in 1936. The couple had children, including son Barry Kirschner, grandchildren and great-grandchildren. Bella Jablonowicz passed away in 2006.

Barry Kirschner, son of Bella Jablonowicz and nephew of Mojsze Leib Jablonowicz, donated two original photos of his aunt Frieda Herszaft and nephews Robert and Salomon Jablonowicz to Kazerne Dossin in 2011. Kazerne Dossin was able to provide mister Kirschner with additional information regarding the fate of the Jablonowicz-Herszaft family which he incorporated in the book he was writing on his family's history.

Barry Kirschner, 2011