Isaac PHILLIPS

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This is a 1938 Polish copy of a 1870 Russian original, written partially in Polish and partially in Russian using pre-revolution spelling conventions, when the original Birth Certificate is cited.

Blue text: originally in Polish

Black text: originally in Russian

Brown text: my comments (ZR)

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Birth Certificate

A clerk of the Register Office¹ of the Brześć Kujawski Synagogue District hereby certifies that the metrical books for the year 1870 contain the following Birth Certificate, recorded as the item No 14.

No 14. It happened in the town of Brześć on the 17 April 1870, at 9:00AM, that a Jew Jakub Pietruszyński², a tailor living in this town of Brześć for 34 years since he was born, in the presence of Jews: Mordka Rubinstein, a synagogue caretaker [ШКОЛЬНИК]³, 55 years of age, and Salomon Bolimowski, a merchant, living in the town of Brześć for 30 years since he was born, has shown us an infant of a masculine sex, stating that this infant was born in the town of Brześć on 10^th April of this year at 11:00PM by his lawful wife Fajgla Itta⁴ nee Kaftanska⁵, 34 years old, which infant, while circumcised, was called Icchak. This Act was read to the person presenting the baby and to the witnesses and signed by myself and by the witnesses. Signing the act were Chmielewski, S Bolimowski⁶, M Rubinsztein⁶.

I confirm the identity of the copy with the original act.

Town of Brześć Kujawski, 21 May 1938

Clerk of the Register Office, Mayor⁷ [illegible signature]

A round stamp on the first page: City Council, [part of the stamp missing, probably Brześć] Kujawski

A 1 Złoty duty stamp

On the next page:

A rectangular stamp on the next page: Włocławek District (Starosta)

A rectangular stem just below: I confirm the authenticity of the signature of the Mayor of Brześć and authenticity of the stamp

Włocławek, 25 May 1938

Starosta of Włocławek

A round stamp: District Starosta⁸ of Włocławek

A 1 Złoty duty stamp, two 25 Grosze duty stamps⁹

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Comments

1. Polish ‘Urzędnik Stanu Cywilnego’ means a clerk dealing with registration of births, deaths and marriages. I wonder if English ‘Register Office’ is the best equivalent?

2. I transliterate the names written in Cyrillic as they probably looked like originally in Polish.

3. Russian ШКОЛЬНИК used in this document means a school pupil, although taking into account the age of the witness, this does not seem to be possible. This is a an obvious language mistake of the Polish scribe, who literally copied an old Polish-Yiddish noun ‘szkolnik’, meaning a synagogue janitor/caretaker.

4. I have never heard of a Jewish female name Itta, but it looks like it is still used by the American Jewish community, see: http://names.whitepages.com/first/Itta

It does not seem to be particularly popular, as in the US there is 70-odd Ittas versus over 2000 Zbigniews.

5. Family name Kaftański (‘kaftan’ meaning a cloak in Polish, quite typical Polish-Jewish name) was wrongly transcribed to Cyrillic as Kawtanski.

6. Interestingly, although the clerk Chmielewski (an obviously Polish name) signed the original in the Cyrillic script, the witnesses, Bolimowski and Rubinstein, apparently preferred to sign it using the Latin script. That was back in 1870, during a period of forced russification following the failed January Uprising and tells something about the cultural allegiance of Polish Jews at this time. Rubinstein also used a polonised version of his name Rubinsztein.

7. It looks like in 1938 the town of Brześć Kujawski had one person fulfilling the duties of a mayor and more humble post of the Register Office clerk.

8. Poland was and still is administratively divided into Województwa (sing. Województwo, eng. Voivodeship, currently 17, each with a larger city) and Powiaty (powiat), with several powiaty in one Województwo. A chief government officer in a powiat is a Starosta (‘Elder’), an old Czech term dating back to early medieval ages. Starosta, even of a humble Powiat, was an appointed powerful figure in Polish inter-war administration.

9. Four duty stamps, one on page 1 and three on page 2, are together for2 zloty 50 grosze. 200 zloty was a very good monthly in pre-war Poland.

Brześć Kujawski [Brest Kuiavien, בריסק קױאװסק] belongs to the Polish region of Kujawy (eng Kuyavia). It used to be capital of a small duchy, independent from XIII to XIV century. Future King of Poland, Wladyslaw the Short (Łokietek) who re-unified the country in the 1st half of the XIV century was born in Brześć Kujawski and started his political career as its Duke. A Polish equivalent of Magna Charta, known as “Neminem captivabimus nisi iure victum”, was signed off by King Wladyslaw Jagiello here in 1425.

It is here (note that there are several towns/villages by the name Brześć in contemporary Poland and Byelorussia):

Currently it has 4500 inhabitants. In the 1877 census it had 2106 inhabitants. In free Poland, in the 1931 census, it had 6658 inhabitants, including 5998 Roman Catholics, 645 Jews, 7 Protestants and 8 East Orthodox.

Jews were mentioned in Brześć for the first time in a XVI century document.

In 1493 Bishop of Wielkopolska (Great Poland) Teodor was indebted to the Jews of Brześć on a significant sum of 1600 Hungarian Zlotys.

In 1538 the Jews were allowed to have 15 houses in the town; however, a 1565 census mentions 19 Jewish homesteads. On 15 April 1656, during the Swedish ‘deluge’, Polish troops of hetman (supreme commander) Jan Czarniecki (a Polish national hero, mentioned in the current anthem), massacred the local Jewish population, killing around 100 families (according to some sources) or164 people (according to others), including the local Rabbi. This was retaliation for alleged Jewish collaboration with the Swedes. Before the massacre the Jews were offered a baptism which would save their lives, but they refused. Some historians claim that Czarniecki troops waged a fairly indiscriminative campaign of terror in the region, which as a whole supported the Swedes.

In 1674 there were only 32 Jews in Brześć.

There is a record of a 1765 dispute between the local Jewish community, numbering 164 persons and the local Roman Catholic parish priest about Jewish obligations to support the local hospital.

After the partition of Poland, probably as a result of a particularly severe destruction of Brześć during Napoleonic Wars, the Jews transiently left the town. A first Jewish re-settler appeared only in 1851. In 1914 Jewish shops were looted by Cossacks.

Local Jews were regarded as relatively wealthy in the inter-war period of the Second Polish Republic. Most of them were tailors or merchants.

During the Second World War the Germans burnt the synagogue, and established a local ghetto in 1940, incarcerating around 600 people. It was later closed and remaining 400 Jews were sent to the Łódź ghetto and the Włocławek ghetto (in September 1941), from which they were further deported to the death camp in Chełmno on Ner in April 1942, where they were all murdered.

A local Jewish cemetery was destroyed during the last war. Polish communist authorities later decided to build a town swimming pool in its site.

Currently, there is no memorial commemorating the Jewish community in Brześć.

According to the official town website:

http://www.brzesckujawski.pl/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=73&Itemid=117

and websites:

http://www.brzesckujawski.republika.pl/dzieje_brzescia.html

http://www.kirkuty.xip.pl/brzesc_kujawski

http://www.jewishinstitute.org.pl/pl/gminy/miasto/201.html

http://sasiedzi.zsel.edu.pl/strony/wloclawek/getto/getto.html

plus remarks in a few other websites