Klara and Fishel Alvais

FISHEL
’S FATE 

By contrast, Fishel’s whereabouts during the 
same period are shrouded in mystery. 
“Unfortunately, I have no one to ask,
” Ira 
said. “Probably Grandma Klara knew, but 
she didn’t share” details with young Ira.
“The only few things we knew about 
Grandpa Fishel is that he was in Poland 
and all his family died,
” said Ira’s cousin 
Alexander, a musician and a salesman at 
Cars2u. “I tried to find information about 
the place he was from but had no success.
”
Alexander volunteers in ZAKA, an Israeli 
rescue organization that is now assisting 
Ukrainian refugees. He lives with his family 
in Petah Tikvah, east of Tel Aviv, as does 
his older brother, Gershon, who works for 
WebGate Internet Solutions. 
Ira’s mother, Faina, told her that Fishel, 
when serving in the Russian army, was 
taken to a hospital in Uzbekistan after a 
bullet pierced his forehead. His future wife, 
Klara, who became a nurse, had been evac-
uated there with her family from Belarus. 
He returned with them to their country. 
Fishel was left with a deep scar from his 
wartime injury, but emotional scarring was 
another part of his existence. He returned to 
Jaslany several times after the war in search 
of his family.
“This is a topic that was very sensitive,
” 
Ira said. “My grandfather was told everyone 
had died in the synagogue” — a reference to 
the synagogue in Mielec set afire with wor-
shipers inside. “The loss of his family was a 
painful subject for Grandpa. It just ruined 
his life. He could not talk about it.
” 
From their reactions to finding us, I sense 
Fishel’s descendants absorbed his trauma.
Ira said she and her family have “feelings 
of joy and sadness mixed together about 
how much time we lost. Just think about 
how different Fishel’s life could have been, 
how much sorrow and anguish would 
have been spared him,
” if he’
d known his 
brothers survived the Holocaust? “Maybe 
he wouldn’t have died young,
” from a heart 
attack at age 60.
After Ira and I connected, she called 
her dad and an aunt in New York “in the 
middle of the night. I wrote all night to 
my cousins Alex and Gershon every bit 

of information I found. When 
I said I found Fishel’s family, at 
first there was silence. Everyone 
thought I was crazy,” she said.
Ira wrote me the following 
morning that she was just beginning 
to realize that finding her grandfather’s 
family was real. 
“I just broke down in tears — so happy 
that you [Sol and Zygie family members] 
are alive, but also sad. If only we had 
searched earlier, we might have had the 
honor of getting to know Zygie personally 
and talking to him. I’m heartbroken that 
the brothers went out of this world without 
knowing there was more family that sur-
vived.
”
Alexander wrote me on April 29: “It’s 
unbelievable. … I am crying from happi-
ness. … Our family history was changed 
today!”
Gershon posted May 1 on Facebook: 
“Dear Allweiss Family, I’m so excited we 
are not alone! For so many years we think 
our whole family did not survive the 
Holocaust. I’m still in shock after reading 
the real story.”
One of the first non-family members I 
chose to tell about finding Fishel was Bill 
Tammeus. The retired Kansas City Star 
columnist interviewed my dad for his book 
with Rabbi Jacques Cukierkorn, They Were 
Just People: Stories of Rescue in Poland 
During the Holocaust (2009, University 
of Missouri Press, 428 pages). After our 
exchange of emails, Tammeus posted “a 
joyful update” to the book on his “Faith 
Matters” blog entry dated May 11. I loved 
his headline: “
A Story of the Six Million 
— But Now Minus One” (billtammeus.
typepad.com).
“Good morning, Bill!” I wrote Tammeus 
on April 29. “Something very exciting has 
happened in my life!” I told him all about 
Fishel’s granddaughter contacting me “yes-
terday” on Facebook.
“Look what a significant date it was,” 
Ira said. “In Israel, we marked Holocaust 
Remembrance Day. All the programs on 
TV were about Holocaust survivors and 
amazing stories of survival. And on that 
day, I found my family.”

I find it inter-
esting, too, that the 
three brothers all died 
during the month of 
August: Fishel in 1981, Sol in 2004 and 
Zygie in 2014. 

THE U.S. ALLWEISS
FAMILY’S REACTIONS
Some relatives in the U.S. commented after 
learning that actually a third Allweiss broth-
er had survived the Holocaust.
“Fishel living through the war, but unable 
to share a family bond with us over all 
these years shows the real extent to which 
our people have been marginalized, trau-
matized, disenfranchised and psycholog-
ically damaged,
” said Sol’s oldest son, Jack 
Allweiss, a former Detroiter, of Mission 
Viejo, Calif.
“We are not talking about some ancestor 
150 years ago. We are talking about people 
who were alive during a meaningful part of 
our lifetime. This [discovery] put a whole 
new meaning on the inequitable way we 
and our children, and Jews in general, have 
been treated by society.
”
Zygie’s granddaughter Jenny Stollman 
of West Bloomfield said, “I was surprised 
and happy to hear of this new family infor-
mation, but I was also sad that Grandpa 
didn’t get to know his brother survived and 
had a family. I see similarities with Ira and 
myself [both mothers of two daughters]. I 
can’t believe we have the same birth date of 
May 5.
“I do notice family resemblances,
” she 
continued. “
Alexander looks a bit like the 
Allweiss men in general.
” 
For my part, I think Fishel more closely 
resembles his brother Sol than Zygie. 
However, Ira disagrees. “When you see 
Fishel’s children, they are very similar in 
their youth to Zyga,
” she said. “They have 
very defined facial lines.
”
Since finding each other, Ira and her 
cousins and I have informed Yad Vashem 
about Fishel’s survival.

Janice Young

Irene Wise

continued on page 18

AUGUST 25 • 2022 | 17

