Marysia is 101. Unbelievable!!

Simchat Torah 2024 !

Happy birthday to our dearest Mum and Nana and great Nana - who is either 101 or 100 years old!

You are going to be 101 years old!!

ME??

Perfection = A rose

Chazak ve' amatz!

Be strong & of good courage (brave!)

26.10.24

Mum at Silent Disco party in Melbourne city, 2015

Mum & Dad, 1946

Mum & her mum, Cela (Cecilia). 1933

The following is an excerpt where Mum talks about her family in Poland before the war. It is very hard to follow!

I was born on Simchat Torah in 1923 in Zgierz, a town in central Poland, just to the north of Lodz. I was an only child, the daughter of Polish Jews, who came from very different worlds.

My mother, Cecilia (Cela) Messing was born in 1896 in Warsaw, around 75 miles away from Zgierz. Cecilia was the youngest of Moshe Aharon and Tsura Hendel Messing’s eight children. The oldest was their only son Gedalia, followed by Miriam, Chaya, Fela, Lodzia, Franya, Eva (Yetta) and my mother, Cela.

Uncle Gedalia and all my aunties played important roles in my early life.

My grandparents lived in Warsaw and we visited them on school holidays.

My father Jakob Wojdyslawski was born in 1894 in a small town called Łęczyca, close to Zgierz. I don’t have much information about my father’s family, but I believe one of his sisters and her husband were cattle dealers in Łęczyca. His other sister Yetta Trojanowski, her husband and their children, Rafael, Louis, Morris, Leon and Luba, moved to France in 1935 before the outbreak of World War II. My father visited them in 1938 and when he returned, he suggested we emigrate to Paris. My mother was upset and exclaimed, ‘Why’? Are we bankrupt? Did we do something wrong that we need to run away from Poland? He backed down and we didn’t leave.

Tragically, my mother’s parents died when she was a teenager. Her elder sister Lodzia was married to Avraham (Avram) Messing and they lived in Warsaw. I think Avram was a cousin because he was also a Messing. The young couple decided to adopt my orphaned mother Cela, so she became the oldest of their five children. It was confusing that my aunty and uncle were also my grandparents and that their children Henryk, Moniek, Fela (Felicia) and Roman were my cousins as well as my aunty and uncles. I felt more comfortable calling Lodzia and Avram my grandparents and calling their children my aunties and uncles, rather than my cousins.

My mother’s brother Gedalia and her oldest sister Miriam moved to the United States in the late 1890s in search of a better life and to escape the pogroms that were rampant in Poland (more about this later).

My grandfather Avram was a successful furrier, importing furs from Russia, where I think he was born. My mother was adopted into his well-to-do, musical and cultured household. However, that all changed when the family was away holidaying and their son Henryk was swayed by the housemaid and her boyfriend to help them steal the furs from his family home. The robbery forced my grandfather to close the business, which was a heavy blow as he had a young family, now including my mother, to support.

But he was able to recover quickly thanks to his business skills. He started a fashion school in Warsaw, teaching subjects such as patternmaking and clothing design and he also trained women to become fashion models.

My parents met at Avram’s fashion school. My father showed much talent as a designer. My mother, who had grown into a beautiful young woman, worked as a fashion model and my father noticed her straight away. They courted and were soon married.

To be continued....

AND THE PARTY!!!