Helene Holzer née Ullmann

Hudes Holzer
Hudes was born on 14th June 1903 in Zakliczyn which is in present day Poland. She was the second youngest of ten children born to Aron Wolf Ullmann from Kasna Gorna and Sara Ryfka Riegelhaupt from Jamna and was known to the family as Helene. Helene had three brothers, Jakob (1886), Abraham Isaak (Isy) (1888) and Towia Gutman (David) (1895) and six sisters Amalia (Manja) (1885), Gitel (1892), Cypora (1893), Blima Ruchel (Bertha) (1897), Pesel (Paula) (1900) and Lieba Scheindla born in 1906, although sadly, both Gitel and Cypora died as infants in 1894.
Zakliczyn began as a market settlement, called Opatkowice, on the right bank of the Dunajec River. In 1557 a man named Spytek Jordan established a town in the area of the settlement and named it
Zakliczyn. In 1772 the town was annexed by the Austrian Empire and remained part of Galicia until 1918. Jewish settlement in the town began in the mid-19th century and by 1921 Jews accounted for 25% of the population of about 1200 people. At the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century, there were several antisemitically motivated riots in Zakliczyn, which reached a peak after the end of the First World War in November and December 1918, when Zakliczyn was ceded to Poland and numerous Jewish communities in Western Galicia repeatedly became the target of pogroms. Probably as the result of increasing social, economic, and political disadvantages, and later, the destruction caused by the war - Zakliczyn was destroyed by heavy Austrian -Russian fighting, from 1906 onwards the family began to leave their homeland.
Jakob was the first of the family to emigrate to the USA in May 1906, and he was followed by Isy in June 1907, David in June 1911, and Bertha in September 1913. Manja had moved to Berlin by 1911 and she was later joined by Isy who settled in Berlin after marrying Jenny in 1917 . The rest of the family stayed in Zakliczyn where Aron Wolf was employed firstly as a labourer then later as a Religious teacher. Unfortunately, Aron Wolf died in 1918 and it is probably after this that Helene, along with her mother Sara Ryfka and sisters Paula and Lieba, moved to Berlin.
Helene met her husband Adolf in Berlin although they may have known each other from childhood as he was born in Wesołów, the neighbouring village to Zacliczyn. Adolf was born Abraham Leib Holzer on 15th March 1890 and was one of ten children born to parents Isaak Holzer and Chaje Flugeizen. Helene and Adolf were married on 28th May 1929 in Weiport in Bavaria. At the time they got married Helene and Adolf were living at Hohenstaufenstrasse 63 but by 1931 they had moved to Beuthstrasse 10 in Berlin SW19. The couple made their next move in 1933 to Neanderstrasse 11 and to their final home together at Neue Friedrichstrasse 3 in 1936.
Helene and Adolf had no children and worked together as upholsterers which sadly led to Adolf’s early death from industry related tuberculosis on 1st June 1936 at the age of 46 years. Helene continued to live in Berlin, moving at first to Brauner Weg 9 in 1938 and then finally in 1939 to Weinmeisterstrasse 6, her last home in Berlin. Sadly, Helene’s mother, Sara Ryfka, died on 15th March 1939 and shortly after, on 4th September 1939 Helene returned to Poland and tragically her fate remains unknown.
On 3rd March 1943 Helene’s sister Lieba together with her husband Isaak, and another sister Pesel Majerowicz (known as Paula) were all deported on transport 33 to Auschwitz Birkenau. Paula’s husband Robert Majerowicz was also deported to Auschwitz Birkenau the following day. Helene’s brother Isy died of natural causes in May 1943 and only thirteen days later his wife Jenny was deported to Theresienstadt, only to also die in Auschwitz Birkenau in September 1943
Helene’s siblings Jacob, David and Bertha survived the war in the USA and Manja managed to flee to Buenos Aires in May 1941 to join her son. Manja’s daughter avoided being deported to Auschwitz Birkenau on 24th August 1943 by going into hiding but sadly died on 21 May 1945 from pneumonia few days after the end of the war.



References
Berlin Address Directories 1799-1970 - Digitale Landesbibliothek Berlin (zlb.de)
Local history | Virtual Shtetl (sztetl.org.pl)
Zakliczyn - Wikipedia
Zakliczyn Jewish Military Cemetery (esjf-surveys.org)
Stumbling Stones in Berlin | Places & Biographies of the Stumbling Stones in Berlin (stolpersteine-berlin.de)
Hudes (Helene) Ullmann - Facts (ancestry.co.uk)
Hudes Holzer née Ullmann (mappingthelives.org)