Daniel Abraham

Aron Katz - family tree.

Michel Katz H.W. (Henry William) Katz Saul Katz

Aron Selig Katz was born April 30, 1882 in Sokal, the son of Herz Wolf Katz and Sara Cheine Gruber.

Note that the house seems to be #9, which doesn't match the location of the other births in the family (#23 and #34).

Aron married Golda (Goldy) Fern from Rudki, a small sthetl about 80 miles (130kms) from Sokal, with a population of about 2500 in 1880, 50% of it Jewish.

It was common practice at the time for the groom to move to the home of the bride's parents, explaining why Aron moved from Sokal to Rudki. It is assumed that they lived in Goldy's parents' home, at least initially. Her parents were innkeepers and belonged to the shtetl's middle class.

Aron and Golda's legal marriage (1907)
Source: AGAD (Central Archives of Historical Records in Warsaw)
(Via Yossi Mund)

Aron Selig Katz, born in Sokal, merchant in Rudki, son of Wolf Katz et Sara Chajny, née Gruber, married Golda Fern*, born and living in Rudki, daughter of Daniel Fern and Malka, née Teicher, innkeeper in Rudki.

(* In the death record of Josef Katz, the couple's third child, she is listed as "Jenny Fernc".)

The civil marriage is dated March 23, 1907. At the time, Aron was 25 and Golda 23. The actual marriage could have taken place up to six or seven years earlier. However, since religious records from Jewish communities have not survived, we can only guess when the marriage actually took place.

In Rudki, Aron owned a furniture store.

Aron and Golda's son Herz Wolff was born on December 31st, 1906, in Rudki. He was named after his grandfather, Herz Wolf Katz. (He would later change his name in the USA to Henry William Katz.)

A second son, Michel, was born a year and a half later in July 1908.

In 1910, another child, Hersch, was born. Aside from his birth record, nothing else is known about him. It is assumed that he died as an infant, sometimes before 1914.

Hersh Katz birth record, 1910.
Source: AGAD (Central Archives of Historical Records in Warsaw)
(Via Yossi Mund)

The New World, briefly

According to the ship manifest, his final destination was Montreal, where he had an acquaintance named Josef Zunand (?) (Zuirand?). It is assumed that he hoped to settle in the New World and planned to later bring his wife and two sons. However, he either did not find the opportunities he was seeking or simply did not succeed, and he returned to Europe after a few months.

S.S. Amerika manifest, 1913. (full-size image)
Source: www.myheritage.com

List or Manifest of Alien Passengers for the United States Immigration Officer at Port of Arrival
Third Class

SS Amerika
Sailing from Cuxhaven* 5 Feb 1913 (* Cuxhaven was the ship registration point for Hamburg)
Arriving at port of New York - March 1913

Family Name: Katz
Given Name: Aron
Years: 31* (* = DOB ~ 1882)
Married
Occupation: Merchant
Read: yes; Write: yes
Nationality: Austrian
Race or People: Hebrew
Last Permanent Residence:
Country: Austria
City or Town: Rudki* (* handwriting is unclear but what looks like "Ruthki" must be a misspelling)

The name and complete address of nearest relative or friend in country whence alien came:
Wife: Golde Katz, Rudki

Final Destination
State: Queb* (* Quebec)
City: Montreal

Non Immigrant Alien

Whether having a ticket to such final destination: yes
By whom was passage paid? self

Whether in possession of $50*, and if less, how much? yes (* $50 = $1500 in 2024)

Whether ever before in the United States, and if so, when and where? No

Whether going to join a relative or friend: and if so, what relative or friend, and his name and complete address.
Acq(aintance): Josef Zuirant (? illegible)
Montreal xxx 91 xxx ave xxx

Place of Birth
Country: Austria
City or Town: Sokol (= Sokal)

I was told about Aron's aborted attempt for a new life in America by my mother and her friend, Siegmund Spiegel. Both had read H.W. Katz' fictionalized account in Die Fischmanns, where Yossel goes to the U.S. and then returns to his family in Europe, and both mentioned the novel when describing the event. According to Spiegel,

"(He came to the US) in the early twenties... for a short time, and (he) came back to Gera. He liked it better in Gera. He had another brother here, (i.e. Max Katz) ... but... he went back!..."

Over time, the combination of fiction and hearsay resulted in several inaccuracies: instead of 1913, the date became the 1920's; the destination was now the USA instead of Canada, and his return had been to Gera instead of Rudki. (For this last discrepancy, Spiegel may have been partially correct when he stated that Aron "liked it better in Gera" than in America. As for the presence of his sibling there, this too was partially incorrect - his brother Max would immigrate to the USA six months after Aron, in September 1913.)

Germany

In 1914, sometime after his return from America, but presumably before the war, Aron came to Gera where his brother Mathes lived.

Following the outbreak of World War 1, Goldy and her two sons fled the advancing Russian army and came to Gera.

Her son Bill would later write:

"Escaping from the front line with a frightened, exhausted mother [...]. I cannot forget that I was a dirty, hungry refugee child on the country road."

At first, Aron Katz supported his family as a traveling salesman, peddling a variety of goods including ironmongery and later of furs. (Pedersen)

The earliest documented address for the family was Arndtstraße 3.

On November 6, 1916: Goldy gave birth to a third son, Josef, and died of childbirth fever. She was thirty-two years old. Her son Josef died shortly afterwards at the age of five months.

19??: Aron Katz wed in a second marriage Gitla (Gusti), née Katz. At a time when mortality rates were high, it was common for parents to remarry soon after the death of a spouse in order to raise and support their children. The alternative for those who did not remarry was to send their children to an orphanage.

Gusti Katz was born in Krakow, the daughter of Saul Nuchem Katz and Ester Lea Rosenberg Katz. (Her birth name was Gitla, also spelled Gitel, Gitl. Gusti, or Gustl, was her secular name, short for Augusta.) She came from a very religious family which included several rabbis, although a sister of her mother converted to Catholicism. ¹

Eve:

"Aron was 'talked into marriage' with a woman from Munich named Gustl, née Katz. She was extremely orthodox and [Bill] was not happy in that home. He moved out to a furnished room."

"[Bill] moved out of his home as a teenager, something almost unheard of. He spent much time in Mary's home and often ate in Leo and Frida's home. Saul was much younger and I do not think they ever came to know one another well."

Aron Katz
Source: Yad Vashem (Submitted by his son Michael Katz)

Siegmund Spiegel:

“Gustel was a hard woman. A very ambitious woman. Constantly running. Her husband (Aron) walked around with a cane, very slowly…”

The family lived at Hospitalstraße 12, in Gera. (Now Karl-Liebknecht-Straße; Gera's Orthodox synagogue was nearby at Hospitalstraße 4.)

At the end of 1924, Aron and his brothers opened a shop together, with Leo acting as the manager. The joint venture was registered under the name "Katz Brothers" ("Gebruder Katz OHG") on December 8, 1924. The store sold linen and clothing articles ("Wäscheversand und Handel, Bekleidungsartikel") and was located in 6c Margarengasse, on the ground floor of the building where Leo's family lived.

The partnership lasted officially until December 31, 1933, at which point Leo continued to run the business on his own. Aron and Mathes then registered a separate business on January 20, 1934.

Registration of Aron and Matthis Katz's business on January 20, 1934.

(Gera City Archives)

Poland

During the "Polenaktion" of October 28th, 1938, Aron, Gustl and Saul were deported to Poland, along with 17 000 Polish Jews. They managed to get to Lwow and stayed, at least in the beginning, with Aron's sister Zlate and her husband Chaim Teenenbaum.

Less than a year later in September 1939, Lwow was invaded by the Soviet Union. The city would remain under Russian control until 1941. Then, on June 30, 1941, the Germans invaded Lwów, and violence against the Jewish population began immediately. In early November 1941, the Germans established a ghetto.

Death of Aron

After the war, his son H.W. Katz learned that Aron Selig had been shot in Lwow "in the summer of 1941" because he had refused to enter a lorry taking Jews to a concentration camp.

It is likely that his death actually occured in the spring of 1942. An entry in a burial registry from Lwow records the death of an Aron Selig Katz on March 21, 1942, at the age of 60. While Aron Selig was still one month and nine days short of his sixtieth birthday, the odds of more than one 60-year-old Aron Selig Katz dying within the city of Lwow around that time - as opposed to being deported - are so low as to make it hard to conceived that it could have been a different person.

(According to a list derived from a census taken in Krakow in 1940, there were about 22,000 Jews in that city. Out of this total, only 140 were named Katz. Since the Jewish population in Lwow in 1941 was estimated to be between 130,000 and 150,000 - 7 times more than in Krakow - we can assume there were about 1,000 (140 * 7) Jews named Katz in Lwow at the time. Half, approximately 500, would have been men. Provided the age distribution was roughly equal between the ages of 1 and 60, there could have been at most ten 60-year old men named Katz in Lwow. The odds of more than one Katz being called Aron Selig - an uncommon name - are extremely low. Finally, since most Jews from Lwow were killed in deportation and not in the city, it is extremely unlikely that this was a different person.)

According to en.wikipedia.org, the Germans deported approximately 15,000 Jews from the Lwow Ghetto to Belzec between March 16th and April 1st, 1942. This aligns with the circumstances of Aron Selig Katz's death.

Burial entry for Aron Selig Katz
Source: collections.yadvashem.org

Aron Selig Katz was buried two days later, on March 23.

Assuming that this was indeed the Aron Selig Katz, the burial entry shows that he lived on 7 Pod Debem street, a small street in the north of Lwow, presumably in the Jewish quarter.

Death of Gusti and Saul

Following the deportations of 15,000 Jews in March-April 1942, another Aktion was carried out in August 1942, during which 40,000 to 50,000 Jews were rounded up and deported to Belzec. In January 1943, another 15,000-20,000 Jews were shot outside of the town. The Germans liquidated the ghetto in June 1943.

According to my mother's testimony, Gustel and Saul were deported to a death camp [Belzec]. According to Michael Katz's Yad Vashem page of testimony, Gustl and Saul were killed in the 1942 Lwow massacre. While it will most likely never be possible to know the exact circumstances of their deaths, it is assumed that they were murdered some time in 1942 or in the middle of 1943 at the very latest when the Lwow ghetto was liquidated.