| reginaldosouza: Szmuks 2 | Hi, Marian !!
I´m Reginaldo Souza, brazilian bankworker and teacher... Sorry may bad expression in english, because I am learning still (and I am a very bad student!!)
I like so much the european history, and the jewish people history, mainly the Romanian, Polish and Hungarian.
I am a "websurfer", and two years ago I´ve found Helga Szmuk, a jewish Hungarian-Austrian immigrant which arrives in Brazil on 1956. Her husband, Imre Szmuk (died 1986) was born in Maramaros-Sighet, then Hungary -- now Sighetul Marmatiei, in the Maramaros county of Romania.
She is 84 years old, and lives today in Florianopolis, Brazil -- 1600 km from my hometown, Belo Horizonte. Since then, we became "virtual friends", but I love her as if I knew decades ago.
It happened thus: some day, searching at the web, I read her autobiography posted in portuguese in a Brazilian website... the text gave me great emotion.
Some months later, I have worked in a Word version, illustrated and with footnotes, and I´ve sent to her as a gift, in a book format, with hardcover.
We change e-mail all day; through our conversation, she have found three old jewish relatives and friends, from Israel, USA, Canada and Austria.
I´ve sent to your e-mail an english version in the attached file; it is the translation of the text which I´ve found in internet on 2004: the translation was made one month ago by a friend of Helga´s son, which lives in USA.
The text also can be seen at
http://discovirtual.uol.com.br/disco_virtual/helgasz//helga
password: helga510
her e-mail: helgasz -k-u-k-a-c- uol.com -p-o-n-t- br
Long life for all Szmuks spread around the world.
Best regards and Shalom !!
NOTES:
Many Szmuks and other Jewish and non-Jewish families has roots in germans speakers from Saxony, Swabia, Rheinland and others that has moved to the area of the former Austrian province of Galicia and the neighbour Carpathian Mountains area (now southern Poland, western Ukraine, and northern Hungary and Romania) -- mainly also moved to Maramaros and Transylvania coutines in the 18th and early 19th centuries.
In old statistics one finds data concerning the population, arranged by Poles, Ruthenians, and Jews. The Jews of Galicia and Transylvania-Maramaros belonged to the Aschkenasim, which had immigrated in the Middle Ages from Germany. Where Germans are mentioned, in fact usually Austrians is meant. German-speaking people were more commonly referred to by the region of Germany where they originated, e.g. Pfaelzer Saxony or Swabia. Inhabitants who had a clear difference in language, as with Poland and Ruthenians, identification was less problematic, but wide-spread multilingualness blurred the borders again.
When Poland was first partitioned in 1772, eastern Galicia, together with the territory to the west, between the San and the Vistula, was attached to Austria; and in 1795 further lands, both west and east of the Vistula, passed also to Austria.
In 1773, Galicia had about 2.6 million inhabitants in 280 cities and markets and approx. 5,500 villages. There were nearly 19,000 noble families with 95,000 members (about 3% of the population). The "non-free" accounted for 1.86 million, more than 70% of the population. A small number were full farmers, but by far the overwhelming number (84%) had only smallholdings or no possessions. There were over 4,000 Catholic churches, 244 synagogs and nearly
From 1786 to 1849 Austria administered the territory of Bukovina as part of Galicia. After the adjustments of 1815 (Congress of Vienna), Austria's Polish possessions were called the Kingdom of Galicia and Lodomeria; and the 1815 Republic of Cracow was added to them in 1846. Bukovina (in present-day Romania and Ukraine) is an eastern European territory consisting of a segment of the northeastern Carpathian Mountains and the adjoining plain. Settled by both Ukrainians (Ruthenians) and Romanians (Moldavians), Bukovina acquired its own name and identity only in 1775, when it was ceded to Austria by the Turks, who then controlled Moldavia. Austria, which regarded Bukovina as a strategic link between Transylvania and Galicia, administered it first as a part of Galicia (1786-1849) and then as a duchy and a separate crown land.
You must try to see also some others mailing lists and foruns for those interested in researching their Jewish roots in this areas.
Additional information can be found on the Gesher Galacia SIG website and
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Galicia_Poland-Ukraine/
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