Max Faust’s 1938 Address Book

I woke up on Christmas morning and thanked G-d for creating Christmas so that I can have a day off.  The holy day of Shabbat has lost its significance as I have worked on Saturdays for many years.  Even the Sunday Sabbath for the rest of the staff has taken a back seat as Sunday has become one of our busiest (and most profitable) days of the week.  But on this Christmas day, I ran down to my home office with the excitement of a child who could not wait to open the gifts under the tree.  My gift was a book my mother had given to me 6 months ago if not a year, the size of my palm and wrapped in paper towel and placed in a ziplock bag for protection.   I knew this was an old address book of my grandfather Max Faust, but was not sure how old until I finally opened it and flipped through the brittle pages.  From dates and addresses written, it became apparent that this address book was from 1938, the year of my mother’s family immigration from Rohatyn to the United States. It listed friends and family who lived in America and those that remained in Rohatyn.  As I carefully turned each page in order to scan and digitize the contents, the binding gave way.  It took hours to scan over 60 pages of this address book.  I note the surnames of family, FAUST, LOW, ROTHEN, BLITZ, STEIN, AND FUHRMAN.  and also the names of friends, KLEINWAKS, SCHUMER, TEICHMAN, MARK, WEISS. There are also Polish names and Ukrainian names that I did not recognize.  All the notes written in the address book by my grandfather about the people listed is in Polish.  He had yet to master the English language.  I have attempted to enter all the names and addresses listed in this book into a spreadsheet.  However, his script is sometimes difficult to read.  Since I don’t understand Polish, it is hard to make out the notes written.  It does seem that my grandfather details connections between people, i.e. son, wife, husband, sister in law, etc.  Connecting those in Rohatyn with those in the United States.  Keeping related individuals on the same page.  Directions on how to get to someone’s house.  There were clippings stuffed in this book.  One in Hebrew or Yiddish about the Rohatyner Society.  I have uploaded the images here and the spreadsheet of names and addresses here.

From my first study of this book, 2 new facts instantly arose.  My mother to this day still wonders when she moved from  Dunmore, PA to Brooklyn as she was only small child.  Written in the corner of a page 8 is the answer to that question as if my grandfather knew that we would be wondering that minor detail 75 years later.  He wrote two inclusive dates followed simply by Dunmore.  They arrived in Dunmore on October 22, 1938 (actually October 23) and moved to Brooklyn on May 5, 1941.

Page 8 of Max Faust’s Address Book c1938. Dates of living in Dunmore in the upper right corner.

Another detail arose as I tried to confirm the address for Eli Moschel on page 9.  I have not researched the surname MOSCHEL in detail although I should as it is the farthest known surname of my mtDNA. Connected to a search for Eli Moschel on ancestry.com was a ship manifest for Rachel Moschel.  Rachel also appears on the same page as Eli in the address book.  As I looked closely at the ship manifest, I realized that Rachel arrived in NY on October 23, 1938 onboard the SS Batory.  So my mother’s family were not the only Rohatyners on that boat to the United States.  A distant relative, Rachel Moschel, was with them as well.  A few days later, I received some translations of the Polish written on the pages of this book.  A translation of the words under Rachel Moschel’s name was provided which read “on the journey”.  Makes sense.

Page 9 of Max Faust’s Address Book c1938.

Dotted throughout the address book are dates next to names.  You may have noticed the date of December 29, 1938 near Rachel’s name.  At first I was not sure what these meant.  Polish translations of words next to these dates included “done” or “answer to letter” as in the case of the date associated with Rachel Moschel.  It became apparent that my grandfather had written down dates when he sent letters or packages to the people listed in this address book.  I remember a story that my grandfather used to send care packages of products from his grocery store including U-Bet chocolate syrup to relatives as far as Israel.  This is the kind of story that was told by those relatives who remember receiving those packages and reflected the gracious character of my grandfather.

It is going to take me awhile to go through the names and addresses as I try to find new connections.  However, members of the Rohatyn Shtetl Research Group have already found connections to their own family in the pages of the book while others have found new clues in connecting people to their tree.

One member was excited to find her grandfather, Juda Hersch Weiss, written in the book along with an address, 6 Dr. Reich Street in Rohatyn.  Information she had not known previously and had always wondered.  It seems that Max sent Juda a letter on December 19, 1938.

Page 6 of Max Faust’s address book showing the address of Juda Hersch Weiss on the right hand side.

Discussion arose among members of the group as to the location of this street and possibly the actual location of the house in Rohatyn since all street names have long since been changed.   Several documents already in the possession of the RSRG were scrutinized.  These include a 1943 street map of Rohatyn, a 1944 aerial photograph of Rohatyn, and a list of streets with former and current names remembered by my great aunt, Rosette Faust Halpern.  Using all this information while referencing a Google map of Rohatyn plotted with tagged streets I had created, a good guess of Dr. Reich street was made. An arrow in the lower left hand annotated on a clip of the 1944 aerial photo overlays the street in question.  The Rynek is central in the photo.

So who is this Dr. Reich? Another discussion arose.  A few clicks on Google using a combination of keywords (Reich, street, ulica, Poland) revealed that this street was most likely named after Dr. Leon Reich.  You can read more about him on the German Wikipedia site but in short, he was a Polish journalist, politician, and leading Zionist.  Drohobych, the town of his birth, had renamed a street in honor of him after his death in 1929.

Max Faust recorded a lot of family information into this small book: names, addresses, phone numbers, relationships to others, dates of letters.  This attention to detail about family in addition to his written notes on our family history and his collection of family photographs reinforces my view of him as a family historian.  I now realize that my interest, or dare I say, obsession with genealogy may not have been a hobby of choice, but a hobby of genetics.  Its in my genes to be a genealogist. Destiny.