ONLINE NEWSLETTER (No. 3/2001 - 2. February 2001)

Editor: Elsebeth Paikin, Copenhagen, Denmark
The editorial staff: Jack Blagman, Lori Miller, Estelle Nemoy

My Vissotsky Family Of Pinsk

by Micheline Gutmann

Photo taken after Mosche came to Paris
(Click on photo to enlarge)

My great grandfather, Mosche VIS(S)OTSKY

My great grandfather, Mosche VIS(S)OTSKY, lived in Pinsk. He was a carpenter. He was not certain of his exact age, which was common in that time. Even his daughter, my grandmother, did not know her date of birth. Years ago, when I began to do research, I paid a professional to search the Minsk archives. I was sent an extract of the Pinsk census of 1894 in which Mosche was said to have been born in 1836, listed as Mosche Peisachov (son of Peisach).

A photo of the quarter where Mosche lived in Pinsk
(Click on photo to enlarge)

Mosche was married three times. The first wife was Dobrushka BREGMAN (probably a nickname for Doba). She died about 1883 after having given birth to five children. Mosche married his sister-in-law Leia BREGMAN, who was the widow of Moshe JASELMAN; who had previously borne several children. Together they had a son, Simon. The third wife was Sheina-Feigla VISOTSKY. I found her name in the census of 1894. They both died in Pinsk in 1917 having starved to death.

A marriage in 1911 in Pinsk, Mosche is at the first line on the left, with the white beard
(Click on photo to enlarge)

There was another VISOTSKY family in Pinsk, related to ours, but we don't know how. Perhaps Sheina Feigla came from that branch

• Rivka Sara, born in 1868, married her first cousin, Morduck JASELMAN. They had at least 9 children. She died in 1936.
• Morduck, became Maurice, in France (b. 1871 Pinsk Karolinsk - d. 1935 Paris). The Pinsk, census of 1894 noted that Morduck was dead. But he was not, he ran away to Paris. I guess he was not willing to be drafted into the Russian army. By 1891 he was married to Elise MOCH, an Alsatian girl who was ten years older and a descendant of a well-known family. In a recent study of her genealogy, I found that she had common ancestors with my husband. Elise died when their 5th child was born. He remarried, to Frieda KAUFMANN, and had two sons more.
• Dobrushka died at age 15 (b. 1873 Pinsk - d. circa 1885 Pinsk).
• Esther (b. 1876 Pinsk - d. 1951 Paris) was a young widow of Aron GOLDMANN, she came to France with her three children, Simon, Yvette and Marcel. Simon married Denise GASCA. They had 3 children: one a dentist, one daughter the director of a model agency, and they have many grandchildren.
• Basia, who became Berthe in France (b. 1877 Pinsk - d. 1964 Paris), was my grandmother. When she was 8, Maurice asked her to come to France. I think she arrived with a distant BREGMAN cousin; She went to school in Paris. Berthe married Joseph KREKOVITCH in 1898 ( b. 1775 Paris - d. 1948 Paris), son of Isaac SHAEKOWITCH who came from Suwalki, Poland. They had 3 children.

• Shimon (b. 1883 Pinsk - died in the USA) married Rebecca STAROVINSKI (born in Turov). They, with their five children, immigrated to the USA in 1923. Figuel Fay (died 1997) married GORDON; Ann (died 1960); Louis; Shirley married Nat POST; Mosche Morris (b.1922 Pinsk) married Mirna CRUZ.

• Felix JASSELMAN had two children: Henriette and Maurice. Both married and had children.
• Henri JASSELMAN, born 1888, was the first to come to Paris, (1905). He was terribly beaten by Cossacks and was obliged to escape. In Paris my grandmother helped him, then helped all his brothers and sisters to come to Paris. As a successful furrier he lived on the luxurious Avenue Victor-Hugo. Henri married Berthe JARACHEWSKI and had two daughters, Simone and Janine.
  • Simone JASSELMAN married the viscount Gilles de MONBRISON, and had three sons.
  • Janine married Pierre WORMS, had one daughter and two sons. One of sons had children.
• Simon JASSELMAN (b. 1894 Pinsk - d. 1939 Paris) married Leonor MALESKEVITCH; they had a little girl who died at the age of two.
• Jean JASELMAN a furrier married Pauline GLASS, and had a daughter Monique, who married Felix LULLIN. They had three sons, one of them is a lawyer; the other two are doctors.
• Mindle JASELMAN (born 1895 - died in 1929 in Pinsk), her husband (ALPER) died in France in 1940. Several children were assassinated in Pinsk after the war. Two other children came to France.
• Paul Wolf JASELMAN (b. 1898 - d. 1965)
• Basheve JASELMAN (b. 1902 Pinsk - d. 1980 Sartrouville) married Velvel FRIDMAN (b.1898 - d.1943 Auschwitz). They had five children, one of whom, Monique, lives in Argentina.
• Basia (b. 1908 Pinsk - d. 1965 Sartrouville)
• Denise (b. 1909 Pinsk) married Israel KAMIENSKI (b. 1901 - d. 1943 Auschwitz). They had two sons, Marcel and Jacques. As her husband was deported, she has been very alone and had a difficult life for many years. Both sons married and are now grandfathers. Denise just died.

• Therese-Olga VISSOTSKY born in 1892, died one year later because of croup.
• Jacques VISSOTSKY, born in 1894, died in 1915 in WWI. My grandmother often spoke of this misfortune. She loved all her nephews, and especially this one.
• Simon VISSOTSKY was born in 1895. He was a graduate of the famous school "Ecole Centrale des Arts et Manufactures" (as was my father). He had been an officer during WWI and had been gassed and suffered from this constantly. He was a prisoner for two years during WWII, was decorated and became a "Chevalier de la Legion d'honneur". He was married to Marcelle Vernouillet, called Mimi, a milliner, and they had three children. Simon was a very clever and pleasant man, full of humor. We all loved him very much. He died in 1973.
• Georges VISSOTSKY (b. 1896 - d. 1911), died while trying to save his sister, Suzanne, from drowning.
• Suzanne VISSOTSKY (b. 1898 Paris - d. 1960 New York) married George KAPLAN, a brother of Rabbi Jacob KAPLAN who became Chief Rabbi in France. Both were able to escape to New York in 1942. George KAPLAN was a well-known furrier on 5th Avenue. They had four children born in France. Nicole and Monique married in the USA and are now grandmothers. Jacques also has grandchildren. We still are in contact with them.
• Marguerite VISSOTSKY (b. 1901 - d. 1968), a furrier on Avenue Victor Hugo in Paris never married.

• Paul VISSOTSKY (b. 1906 Paris- d.1942 Cannes) had three children. He had twin sons and a daughter. Michel also died young; he was the only one with children.
• Leon VISSOTSKY (b. 1908-d. 1958). He was a furrier as his brother.

• René RENEL was born in 1902. He chose this name for commercial reasons when, as the first in the family, he began to make and sell furs. He became wealthy; his shop was one of the most famous in Paris. He married in 1936, had a daughter and was later divorced. He had another daughter during the war. Both are married and are now grandmothers. René died in 1976 in Paris.
• Elise-Lisette KREKOVITCH (b. 1905 - d.1996) worked with her brother. She was an important support for everyone in the family, helping all who needed help, and especially caring for her aged mother. In 1946 she married Charles RIVELINE, a lawyer. Their daughter Sylvia also born in 1949 is a lawyer, married, with two children.
• Georgette KREKOVITCH (b. 1906 Paris - d. 1978 Paris) was my mother. She married Robert MARCUS, my father (b. 1907 Paris - d. 1977 Paris), who had been an engineer in the "Ecole Centrale des Arts et Manufactures". As an officer, he fought against the Germans in 1939-1940, was decorated and later became a "Chevalier de la Legion d'Honneur". He was a prisoner in Munster, Colditz and Lübeck for five years. He wrote his war memoirs, which are going to be published by our association, GenAmi. The crisis of 1930 made it difficult to find a rewarding job in industry, so Robert helped my mother sell furs. After the war, he returned to the shop until his death in 1977. They had three daughters. I am one. I had a twin sister who died of cancer in 1988. I married Philippe GUTMANN in 1961 and we have 3 children and 4 (soon to be 5) grandchildren. We are both engineers but now I only do genealogy, while Philippe is an engineering consultant. Our children are Sophie, a doctor; Thierry, a computing engineer and Caroline, an artist who created the logo and poster for GenAmi, in addition to posters for Avotaynu.

This information has been sent to me by a person who is a professional genealogist, or at least a person who has access to information in Pinsk and asked some money to do this research. He faxed me the result of his research in Russian some years ago. It is only recently that this information was translated by my correspondent Irene KUDISH in Canada who came and visited me last Summer in Paris.

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