A new genealogy mystery we’ve been trying to solve in the Strauber/Strober/Struber line: how do Eitan Shimko’s ancestors tie in?
Eitan contacted me a few weeks ago and said his grandmother’s maiden name is Strauber, and her father Herman Strauber was from the area around Buczacz and Jazlowiec, Galicia (now Ukraine).
Given the fact that the shtetl wasn’t all that big, we’re assuming they are related. But how?
A preliminary family tree for Eitan Shimko's ancestors
This is what we know from Eitan about his lineage. His great-grandfather Herman was born in Jazlowiec, but later moved to Vienna, where Eitan’s grandmother Elfi was born in 1931. Herman’s wife, Elfi’s mother, was Sala or Susan “Suzanna.” The family emigrated during World War II, leaving Italy in 1944 for the Emergency Refugee Shelter in Fort Ontario in Oswego, NY. In 1946, the family was formally admitted to the United States and reunited with a relative, S. H. Strober, then living in Brooklyn, NY.
A wedding photo of Sala or Susan "Susanna" Sternklar and Herman Strauber, circa 1930, presumably in Vienna, Austria.
Herman Strauber's father, Shimon Strauber, and mother (name unknown), unknown date and place.
Herman Strauber, unknown date and place.
Eitan obtained some family photos from his grandmother and sent them along. Two are unidentified. They are presumably relatives.
Unidentified relative
Unidentified relative
There have been a number of theories about how Shimon Strauber may have been related, but none yet wins the day. It seems odd to me that no one in the Yoinaton Folic branch—which would include descendants of my great-grandmother Surah Henya, Groinem, Max, Schmeel Hirsch, or Sruel “Israel”—would have known of the plight of refugee relatives in Lake Oswego and not done something to help them resettle. Some of this would have been passed down to us, wouldn’t it?
Jim Ostroff suggests that Yoinaton Folic likely had siblings who survived into adulthood, and that Shimon may have been a son of one of his brothers. Yes, mathematically, it’s likely, but still not a shred of evidence to connect Shimon.
Perhaps Shimon was in the Berl Strober line, a branch of the family that includes many who stayed in Europe and died in the Holocaust. Maybe Herman was a lucky one in this line, who because he lived in Vienna was able to escape the horrors of the 1940s and ultimately make it into the tiny American relief project during the war.
All genealogical mysteries awaiting answers.