The Szwarc Site: Index

This web site is the story of 8 generations of the Gliksman and Szwarc families who settled in Zgierz, Poland in the middle of the 19th century.

The story starts in Brzeziny, a very successful tailoring town in the 18th century, to which Jews flocked from many parts of Poland. Our Szwarc ancestor in Brzeziny was probably a Mordechai who had a son called Hersz Ber who had two sons that can be traced -

The first was Jakub born around 1877 (he seems to have been the first to take on the name Szwarc (maybe from the river Czarny that borders the town of Brzeziny).Jakub married a Gitla and had sons called Mordechai and Hersz and David and this branch of the family remained in Brzeziny.

The second son was Mordechai, our direct forebear. He may have had more than one wife - one seems to have been called Kreindl and they seem to have had many children, among whom Abram, Hersz Ber, and Kiwe (Jakub) survived Mordechai's death in 1843 in Zgierz ( Akt 12 Mormon file 753,243 - I have his death certificate). Abram married Ester and seems to have moved to Strykow.He is the ancestor of the recently found distant cousin, Annette. Kiwe is the ancestor of Michal Szwarc and his family. Hersz Ber was born around 1825 and named after his grandfather who must have passed away in the preceding year (Jakub's son Herszel was born in 1825 as well). The name Szwarc was adopted by the family in the 1820s but I think they may have used Herszkowitz or Berkowitz before that time. There is also a possiblility that Mordechai used the surname Naiman for a while. This was quite common during this period as the use of surnames were first imposed by the prussians, then abandoned, then re-instated by Napoleon. Hersz Ber Szwarc got married in 1844 in Brzeziny (there is a record Akt 30 Mormon film 689703 but no mention of his wife's name but I think it was Haja) and then moved to Zgierz where there is much written about him in the Zgierz Yizkor book. He became famous in the annals of Zgierz for refusing to live in the quarter designed for Jews but insisting on living outside it, claiming he was cosmopolitan -ie knew several languages (although he claimed to have a sore hand when asked to write in Polish).

Hersz Ber was a store owner in Zgierz and is said to have had four sons, the first born in 1844 one year after the death of his father was called Mordechai (Mordka) (Zgierz 1844 Akt 39, Mormon film 753, 243).His other sons MAY have been Majer Ber, Juda Ber, Moses and some of these families may have grown up in Brzeziny. They all apparently worked in the metal industry One of them (Juda Ber?) is the ancestor of Czajka and Jean Dumas.There was also a daughter, Hana, - her mother may have died in childbirth.

Wolf Gliksman, a salt merchant, and his wife Zissl nee Tanenbaum had moved to Zgierz, probably from Radomsko, in the mid 18th century. I think (from name analysis) that he must have been the son of a Szmul and Zipporah but I have been able to find no records. When Haja died, Hersz Ber married Wolf's sister Miriam Gliksman who ran a distillery (family lore). Miriam and Hersz Ber looked after his four sons and the baby Hana (I have her death certificate. She died at age one) and had a son of their own, Issucher Mosze (Sucher) born in 1859.These records exist. Issucher loved to study and became very learned. At age 20 (1879) he married his cousin Sura (Salomea) Gliksman, the daughter of Wolf and Zissl Gliksman, who was born in 1861 in Zgierz.One of her younger brothers, Jakub, is the grandfather of Marcel Waks. Although Issucher tried his hand at selling ribbon and lace (galanteria), he was essentially a scholar and left it to Salomea to provide a living for their family. They lived for a long time with Salomea's widowed mother, Zissl,(Wolf died in 1880 - Wolutek was named after him) (probably not far from Zgierz because all the children were born in Zgiez) and, after Hersz Ber's death in 1887 rented out the Zgierz house.

Issucher's mother Miriam also died in 1887. Henryk and Mania were named after them. But when Zisl died (1898), Issucher and Salomea moved back into the Zgierz house on the street called 4th of May and rented some of the rooms to students. Issucher served on the town council, was involved in many Jewish causes, became a prominent citizen of Zgierz, wrote books, and amassed one of the finest libraries of Judaica then known.

Salomea and Issucher had 10 children: Samuel (born in 1880) possibly named after Salomea's Gliksman grandfather (Wolf Gliksman's eldest son was also named Szmul); Wolf (Wolutek) (born in 1882), named after Wolf Gliksman who died in 1880; Szymek (Simcha) (1883); Zippora (1885) (Cyprusza, Cesia named after Salomea's Gliksman grandmother???); Henryk (Berus,Dov) 1888 named after Hersz Ber who died in 1887, Mania (Maryia) 1889 named after Issucher's mother, Miriam, who died in 1887; Marek, 1892, named after Mordechai; Aleksander (Zyskind), 1899, named after ???, Zosia, 1902, named after Zissl who had died in 1898; and Ida (Jehudit) probably born a few years after Zosia. She was named after ???. Wolutek died in 1892 at age 10 and Ida died at age 5. It is not known which Maria (who married Adam Stern) (was she a Szwarc or Gliksman???) was the grandmother of the late Alfred Santell (California). Mary Seeman writes: "Alfred Santell made it possible for us to come to North America during the war. He met us in New York and then visited us many times. He had 4 children and a 2nd wife who was Japanese. I believe he died in Tokyo. One of his children, Barbara, married a Bartell (or Bartels).

* Czajka -Ý Izabella (Bella) Szwarc Gelbardt (later Stachovitz), granddaughter of one of Issucher's half brothers, graduated from Paris academy of art. During the war she lived in the ghetto of Ottovatck near Warsaw, survived and joined the partisans, (where she was named Czajka), and later enlisted in the Polish army and became an officer. She published 11 books, and died in Warsaw in 1969. (Her siblings were Fredek, Ela, and Eva. Ela is the mother of Jean Dumas)

** Henrique Glicenstein was a very famous painter. His father(?) married into the Gliksman family