Roberta Sheps of the Colchester and District Jewish
Community, UK writes that her synagogue has a Torah
scroll, >from either Pisek or Strakonice, Bohemia; they
wish to commemorate the Jews of these communities who
were killed in the Holocaust ..... and are interested
in gathering as many individual names as possible.
Roberta asks if we have any members who know that they
had family members living in either town at the
outbreak of WWII .....

Firstly, I am a bit puzzled as to why Roberta searched
the Discussion Group Archives and not the SIG
archives! They are totally separate. I got 20 hits for
Pisek on the Austria-Czech message archives, including
this very relevant message >from Susan Boyer - 18 Feb
2004 Subject: Klatovy, Domazlice, Pisek/Strakonice

"A synagogue in Fullerton, CA has 3 scrolls >from the
Scrolls Memorial Trust in London... >from Klatovy,
Domazlice, Pisek/Strakonice. ... why are the towns of
Pisek and Strakonice listed as one town? They are
close by but not one community .... do any of you know
survivors >from these towns that might want to be a Yom
HaShoah speaker in April for a very short service.

There are also 8 hits for Strakonitz/Strakonice and we
do have descendants on our SIG >from this town. However
the links may be historic. Does this matter?

In this work, one must think laterally and explore all
avenues - looking for these survivors and relatives is
a very long task and the deadline is Jan. 2006 for
this year's commemoration.

However there is, sadly, the vast database on Yad
Vashem:
http://names.yadvashem.org/wps/portal/IY_HON_Entrance

Just enter the word *Pisek* [with no names] as a
location and up come 174 names. The first, for Hermine
KOHN, has a testimony >from her nephew in NY, Gustav
FREUD dated 1998, with an address.

Otto BROK also has a page of testimony dated 1999,
with a clearly; legible address - so has Mathilde
HIRSCH. Many pages are in Hebrew and help may be
required in reading them.

You can also search for Strakonice/Strakonitz records:
383 names appear. Amongst them, for example, you will
find Emil EHRENFREUND - a lawyer. Testimony was
submitted on 13/04/1999.

Hopefully the people who gave testimony are still
around and can be contacted. One has to go through all
the victims to see what one can find. Then one has to
decide how to contact the people. Speed is obviously
of the essence. International calls these days are
very cheap and online directories are also available.

Then to cross-check for victims who lived in Austria
go
to: http://www.lettertothestars.at/cms/

Born in Pisek: Hugo BERGER 03.05.1889; Rosa BLAU
30.09.1878; Josefine FANTL 19.05.1861; Malwine KAUDER
20.07.1876; Leontine KLAUBER 03.09.1877; Leo KRUGER
22.02.1865; Helene MANDEL 03.04.1876; Leo STRANSKY
22.06.1878.

Born in Strakonitz [no hits with Strakonice]: Helene
Viktoria ENGELSMANN 16.07.1883; Hugo KIRSCHNER
02.09.1883;
Olga LOSCH 11.05.1878.

If you enter *Strak* you find more victims and the
spelling of the place name differs and may represent a
transcription error or a similarly-sounding place
name. If you enter one of these names on the Yad
vashem database you see the victims was >from Lodz and
Strakowitz presumably is a place in Poland. It is
important to compare databases.

There is a lot of work to be done on the internet to
complete a list of victims and the internet as always
provides many, many clues to trace survivors and
relatives.

Celia Male [U.K.]