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Photo,
above left: Leopold Gelbart and his sister Sarah, mother of Joseph Gelbart.
Photo, above right: Shlomo Brenner (father of Joseph Gelbart), Leopold
Gelbart, and unknown man.
Sarah
Gelbart and her husband, Shlomo Brenner, both born in Zloczew, Poland, immigrated
to Munich, Germany.
Sarah was an unusual person, particularly for those days. She and Shlomo
Brenner were married for only a short time, with a young baby boy Joseph, six
months old, when they divorced. Shlomo and Joseph never knew one another.
Sarah loved humor, comedy, living, a little irresponsibly and had little
patience for married life and bringing up her child.
Shlomo had a
clothing factory in Munich, but later moved to Antwerp, Belgium where he
remarried and had a young son. Shlomo’s factory was still standing, spared by the
bombings during World War II, in 1959 when Joe visited Munich. It is
supposed that Shlomo, his second
wife and their child were all victims of the Holocaust.
Joseph,
whose surname was actually that of his mother, was raised by his grandmother on
his Gelbart side until the age of seven, when his grandmother died. At which
point, he was sent to live in an orphanage until the age of thirteen. In
his teen years, Joseph was accidentally reunited with his mother in Poland
(supposedly in Lodz) and from that point on the two renewed their relationship.
In the handwritten account of his life, he tells of his travels from Lodz
to Israel, accompanied by his mother and several friends.
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