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My great uncle Aaron was the youngest of the six children born to Aaron and Sheine Gitel Burak. He immigrated to the United States in January of 1921 and became a citizen seven years later. He met his future wife Celia in New York in the 1930s, and they married in Brooklyn in 1936. Eventually Aaron opened a kosher butcher shop in Brooklyn. Aaron and Celia had four children -- Martin, Annette, Francesca and Suzanne -- all of whom were deeply devoted to their parents.
From an interview
with our cousin Roz, whose parents were Max (Flora's brother) and
Fannie nee Gusiacki: Sam (far right in photo below, on the right) Sam Burack left Poland in the early 1920s, having spent some time in Cuba until he was able to immigrate to the United States in 1926. Sam and Fannie married in 1951, sometime after the passing of Fannie's first husband Max Burack, Sam's brother.
"Sam was very good (to us.)
He used to take us to Radio City. We used to go over there, my
sister and I. He took us to the circus. He was very good to my
mother, excellent to my mother. He took care of her ...When I
went away (as a soldier to Korea), when Marilyn (Aaron's wife)
used to come to the house, Sam used to escort -- that's what a
gentleman he was -- he used to escort (her), take her home, to
make sure she got home safe. Sam used to work in a factory
cutting meat ... I know Sam took the subway because it was early
in the morning, you know. He used to leave for work at
three-thirty or four o'clock."
-- son Aaron (Max and Fannie's son)..
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Max Burack (pictured below) was the first of four of my grandmother's four brothers from Jedwabne to immigrate. He somehow first found his way to England from Russian Poland, and then left from Liverpool, arriving in the United States in January 1913. He arrived barely one year before his sister Flora's wedding.
"I remember as a little girl, when I
knew he was going to come home, waiting at the corner for him to
come ... I didn't care if I had to stand there a half-hour, until
I saw him, and I would run (to him), because he was very
affectionate. He was very affectionate to my mother, and we was
very affectionate to him." |
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Max Burack at his
daughter Roz's wedding
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Fannie lived across the street from her husband Max while both were living in Jedwabne. It is said that they were childhood sweethearts. She immigrated in the summer of 1921, and they were married one-and-a-half years later. They lived in the East New York section of Brooklyn, and raised two children, Roz and Aaron." "I'll tell you a story about my mother and father ... You gotta picture this. My father, you know, working these numerous hours schlepping furniture. My mother used to come home, and she was like a seamstress, you know, working piecework with gloves (sewing on pearls) ... She used to do the work in the house ... But their biggest achievement, for all the work they did ... They went to Thomas Jefferson High School to learn to become a citizen, and that's the biggest thing I remember, that to become a citizen of this country was the biggest challenge that they, you know, could do ... My mother spoke in the house -- they spoke Yiddish -- but to us they all spoke, you know, broken English, whatever English they (knew). They used to go (to school) at night together ... They had a tremendous pride that they were now a citizen of the United States ... (They felt that) even though you may live in poverty, let's say, compared to our standards today, you have the freedom of religion, which they always said they were persecuted for. And what my mother used to say to me was, she never had to look over her shoulder.." -- son Aaron.
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