The ancestors from my family came from Russia and Poland to Czernowitz.
After pogroms in Russia, (1838?) Hersch Zvi Jankl and his brother,
arrive to Czernowitz.
Hersch Zvi Jankl married and Chaje Reisel in Czernowitz (b.1845)?
When Chaje Reisel met Jehuda Zeev Ziegler, a widower with children, she
was 16 years old. She have given birth 11 children, all lived 80-90
years, except those, which were murdered in the Holocaust in a young
age. One of her children was my grandfather, Isak Ziegler (19 October
1878 in Czernowitz – 22 July 1960 in Rischon le
Zion-Israel).
My grandfather Isac Ziegler was tailor for clergy vestments. He met my
grandmother, Cilly Henia b.Wolf (Bernstein) born in Czernowitz, (1
August 1877 – 1974 Rischon le Zion) and at 1905 they married. She was
dressmaker and brought her sewing machine Pffaff as dowry, which still
is exposed in my living room in Haifa, as an antic exhibit.
My grandmother had 5 children, 4 boys and one girl (one died when he
was 1 year old); the girl was my mother Lina Ziegler (4 October 1909
Czernowitz – 6 April 1999 Haifa). They lived in the Ziegler family
house with some of the brothers and sisters from my grandfather, on the
Franzengasse in Czernowitz.
Chaje Reisel
My grandfather Isac Ziegler was a smart man, an autodidact, a very
diligent man, and in the evenings, when he finished the work he liked
to learn Torah, Geography and natural sciences. When the World War I
began, Czernowitz was under Austrian regime and my grandfather Isac
Ziegler had to recruit at the Kaiser Franz Josef army. Because he had a
nice handwriting, he was incorporated in the chancellery, where it was
needed to write nicely the documents. At the home, my grandmother Cilly
Henia, had to maintain the house and to feed 4 small children, to heat
the apartment. They suffered from hunger and cold in the icy winter in
Czernowitz, so my grandmother decided to saw the vestments for the
priests, the grandfather’s clientele. My mother had not shoes, only
clothe slipper, for the northern winter it wasn’t enough, so her
brothers carry her, sometimes, on his back to the school.
When the war ended, my grandfather Isac Ziegler returns home, the
workshop run. During the war, the most part of my grandfather’s family
traveled to Wien and nobody helped my grandmother, fact that she never
forgot and excuses it.
Isac Ziegler
My grandfather Isac Ziegler had 10 sisters and brothers and each one of
them had 6 and even 8 children. A part of them lived in the same house
or in the vicinity. Shabbat, when he return home from the
Synagogue, he gathered the nephews, a lot of girls and boys and took
them to the Habsburgshoehe, a big forest in the vicinity of Czernowitz.
There, he explained them about trees, flowers, animals, about mounts
and rivers in far countries and told them Bible Histories. Myself, the
most Bible stories I learned from my grandfather.
The family manages a Jewish life, my grandmother Cilly Henia (born
Bernstein Wolf) was religious, she keeps kosher habitualness and my
grand
father want to the Synagogue every Friday and Saturday. The whole
families went to the Synagogue to all the Jewish holidays. All the
family members were in friendship relation and the whole family met
often, to different occasions, especially, musically gifted, to
celebrate Baba Reisel's birthday.
Cilly Henia Wolf
In Baba Reisel's birthday’s night, baba Reisel Chaje Reisel (born
Jankl) Ziegler (b. 1845?) prepared in her apartment, in the Steingasse,
a long table, full with food and goodies. The Ziegler family, musical
gifted; sang and play musical instruments. So, at midnight, they came
to baba Riesel's apartment, it was not light at any window inside, and
they began to sing and make her a serenade. Then, baba lighted the
rooms, opened the window and the whole family went up the stairs and
the celebration began. All the street neighbors waited for the baba’s
birthday serenade.
My father, Jacob Schärf (5 October 1907 in Czernowitz - 14 August
1988 in Rischon le Zion), met my mother, Lina Ziegler, (4 October 1909
– 6 March 1999 Rischon le Zion). They married in Czernowitz, at the 3
July 1937. My father was a jeweler. His father, Kalman Schärf was
born in Wiznitz, near Czernowitz, (1896 -1961 Paris). He was a very
talented men shirt tailor.
Kalman
Schärf
He was able to begin and finish in day 2 shirts, a rarity in those
times. He made wonderful paper scission, whiteout to sketch or design
the motif previously. When I cam to visit him, he took out a big
handkerchief from the pants pocket and, around his fingers, he shaped a
rabbit, with big ears and a moving snout. He met Tilda (Tilzia)
Mathilde Rostholder, (born in Colomeea, Poland - 1958
France).
Tilda Rostholder
When the I World War erupted, Czernowitz pass under Romanian
domination. Than began the II World War, the Germans, the Russian, the
Romanians, the Ukrainian, and the regimes changed and changed the city
domination. Czernowitz changed regimes more than many places in the
world. I was born as a Russian citizen, at the 11 June 1941 in my
parents' apartment on the Universitätsstrasse 9, during the period
when Czernowitz belongs to Russia. Today Czernowitz belongs to
Ukraine.
Lina Ziegler and Iacob Schärf
My husband Arie Sternbach-Sharvit was born in Lvov, 5 October 1937, so
his father Isac Israel Sternbach (1895 Lvov- 1941 Lvov). His mother
Sofia, born Dym, Sternbach, born, (9 December 1907 in Crosno – 17 May
1997 Haifa), today those places belong to Ukraine.
Arie Sternbach Sharvit
In 1941, when my husband Arie was 4 years old, the Germans gathered in
a forest near Lvov all the Jewish intellectuals and shot them down.
Between those Jewish people was murdered also his father,
Isac Israel Sternbach.
Sofia Sternbach, my mother in law, had to remaining Lvov, under German
occupation, with her sick mother and her 4 year old son, Arie. Arie
didn't want to remain in the apartment, he wanted to go out, to play,
he said to his mother: I didn’t do anything bad to Mrs. Hitler, why
can't I go out, to play with the children in the yard? So she had to
send her son, Arie, to a Polish Christian
family Sofia Dym in a village, Kamionka,
near to Zakopane, far from Lvov. Knowledge about the little child she
received from one of the polish family member, when she wants with the
train to visit him in Kamionka. After two years, when Sofia's mother
(Chana Torcziner), died, she joined Arie in the
village.
Sophia Dym
My husband Arie connects until today with the Christian Polish family
which saved them the life, and the family was accepted as Hassidei Umot
Haolam. They live in Crosno- Poland.
From the Steven Spielberg Jewish Film Archive, came to my husband Arie
to interview him about his surviving during the World War
2.
During the World War II, a part of the Czernowitz Jews were deported to
Transnistria, over the Bug, Mogilev, etc, than under Ukrainian
occupation, where they died from hunger, diseases or shouted by the
German and Ukrainian. Because my grandfather Isac Ziegler was
tailor for clergy vestments for priesthood, the Bishop edited a
letter where he declared that his personal tailor is a
"necessary" person, he have to remain living in Czernowitz, with
his family, and no to be deported in Transnistria.
Ruth Schärf
Sternbach Sharvit
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