The Garnek family photo album, which survived in Russia and the Soviet Union. The donor, Helena Aronow, née Mazower, took the photo album to Israel during her aliyah in 1990. It is an extraordinary artifact: the album contains 53 photographs, mostly from the early 20th century, coming from areas not only in Poland (but also from Finland, Ukraine, and the United Kingdom). Many of the prints are pasted on, typical of the era, cardboard cutouts with vignettes of photographic studios (the prints themselves are extremely interesting as decorations and as carriers of information about the photographic studios). The portrayed individuals are dressed in various costumes, indicating their professions (servicemen), wealth, attitude towards Jewish tradition, and simply their preferences. They assume different poses – conventional ones in indoor photographs, while more casual ones in photographs taken outdoors. It is a pity that for the most part the names of the people portrayed are not known. However, even without this information, the photo album still serves its primary function: it is a memento of these people, a trace of their existence, now no longer a family memento but a social and historical one. In addition to the commemorative aspect, it is a wonderful research material in the field of customs or the story of photography (the appearance of interiors, props used; positions of the portrayed; cardboard cutouts), and beyond that – it is simply a beautiful object. Such photo albums of Polish, Ukrainian, also Russian Jews have not survived much, similar objects in public collections are a rarity.
This is an album of the family on the side of the donor's mother, Estera (née Garnek), who married Albert Mazower. Helena was born in 1937 in Moscow. She recounted the story of her family at the time of the donation of the photo album to the POLIN Museum's collection (an oral history recording in the museum's resources), at the end of the second decade of the 21st century.
Estera Mazower's father, Zachar (Suchar) Mojsze Garnek, was born at the turn of the 1860s and 1870s in a poor family. When he was 6, his parents sent him to learn shoemaking, but he eventually apprenticed with a tailor. As an adult, until 1915, he lived in Warsaw (the exact starting point is unknown). He had eight children with his wife Lea. The Garnek family likely resided in the northern district, as indicated by the addresses of the photographic studios where the album's photographs were taken (ul. Nowolipki [Nowolipki Street], pl. Krasińskich [Krasińskich Square]). In one photograph from 1910, sent as a postcard to Izaak Garnek (Zachar's relationship to Izaak is unknown), the address reads: Nowolipki 9. In the summer of 1915, upon hearing that Warsaw would fall under German occupation, Zachar Garnek decided to move his family deeper into the Russian Empire. He, Lea (known as Liliana in the Soviet Union), and their four young children, including three-year-old Estera, travelled by train to Russia. The other four older children set out on foot (likely using various means of transport for part of the journey). The family reunited in Yekaterinoslav (now Dnipro). In November 1917, the city fell to the Bolsheviks, followed by Ukrainian forces in alliance with the Austrians. Pogroms against Jews occurred but the Garnek family survived thanks to their Christian servant who, during the riots, ran into the street proclaiming that there were no Jews in that house.
In 1920, due to the instability in Ukraine, the Garnek family left and moved to Moscow. Throughout their time in Moscow, the Garnek family maintained correspondence with their remaining relatives in Warsaw and Łódź. They received photographs from them, with which they completed the family photo album. In Moscow during the 1920s, synagogues were still operational, allowing religious gatherings — an essential aspect for a traditional Jewish family using Yiddish at home. Zachar Mojsejewicz worked as a sought-after tailor, sewing uniforms. The oldest son, Moryc, completed a commercial school (possibly the Kronenberg School), while still in Warsaw. The younger siblings received their education in Moscow. For example, Estera pursued a career in architecture.
When the German-Soviet War broke out in 1941, Estera and four-year-old Helena left on the last train to Kuibyshev (now Samara). At that time, Kuibyshev was an important administrative centre in the USSR during this stage of World War II, serving as a place of evacuation for diplomatic missions threatened by the Germans, including the Polish one. It was also an industrial centre, and its name appears in descriptions of various legacies in the collection, such as the Kaczman family and the Terbiler family, the Ratz family. In Kuibyshev, Estera and Helena were accommodated with a man in the final stages of tuberculosis, from whom the young Helena contracted the disease. Later, they moved to the Saratov region, which had been previously occupied by the Volga Germans. The flooding of the Volga led to the spread of malaria, and Helena Mazower also contracted malaria. Subsequently, Estera and Helena travelled to Sverdlovsk (now Yekaterinburg) in the Urals. Helena's mother ended up in the hospital, and Helena was placed in an orphanage, where she underwent treatment. During a leave, her father Albert Mazower took her to distant relatives.
Helena last saw her father in 1944. In 1946, repression intensified in the USSR. Men returning from the front for minor offenses were sent to labour camps. Albert Mazower, among others, faced this fate (it wasn't the only case in the family; Estera's brother, an engineer, was sent to Kazakhstan). He died in a Gulag camp in Siberia in 1951.
Helena reunited with her mother in Moscow at her grandfather Zachar's apartment, who had not left the city during the siege. The winter of 1941/1942 was extremely harsh, and in order to keep warm, her grandfather burnt the piano and a significant part of the book collection. However, he spared the ten-volume edition of the Talmud (1908 edition, published in Warsaw) with a dedication from members of the synagogue community to which he belonged in Warsaw. He received it in 1910 on the occasion of his fortieth birthday. The family preserved these volumes despite the danger during the period of deep Stalinist anti-Semitism (Estera Mazower hid the Talmud deep in the attic).
After the end of World War II, the family received a letter from a surviving relative in Łódź. However, they decided to sever all ties with their Polish relatives because maintaining contacts with foreigners was dangerous (especially during the period when Albert Mazower was sent to the Gulag).
Estera Mazower lost her job due to an anti-Semitic campaign. At that time, she began creating large portrait enlargements from small photographs of war victims so that the families of the deceased could hang them, framed, on the walls of their homes. She collaborated with one of the photographic studios and sought clients by travelling to villages in the Moscow region. It was during this period that she also made copies of old family photographs for her own family. When Estera Mazower went to pick up the photographs, she discovered that the man managing the studio had once received support from the Garnek family. As a sixteen-year-old boy, he had found shelter in their home in Dnipropetrovsk, and now, looking at the photographs, he recognised his benefactors.
After the death of her grandfather (1947) and her mother (1967), Helena restored the memory of her family and the items left by her ancestors. When Helena's daughter and son-in-law, Eugeniusz Aronow, decided to emigrate to Israel around 1990 with her grandchild, the Aronow family also made the decision to leave . In order to take the Talmud with her, Helena Aronow had to obtain permission from the Lenin Library, which had a special commission for Jewish literature. Initially, she received a refusal – the Talmud was considered a national heritage that could not leave the country. However, the rabbi – the commission's chairman, eventually agreed to issue a permit for export (with a high customs fee) when Helena Aronow told him the story of the Talmud, emphasising that possessing it could lead the entire family to the Gulag. The books, like the photo album, were transported to Israel as personal baggage and eventually donated to the POLIN Museum.
Ewa Małkowska-Bieniek
