Haskel LANDAU’s Second Family (Part 12 of 6)

Since writing about my speculation as to when my great great great grandmother Nesche LANDAU geb. LANDAU died, and about Haskel LANDAU’s possible second marriage (in order to be the father of Icek, father of R. Ezechiel LANDAU (1888-1965)), a few new pieces of information have come to light.

One helps fix the likely date of Nesche death.  I previously thought that Nesche had died in the late 1850s, but there was one data point that seemed to call that into question.  Nesche’s son Israel Jonas LANDAU (1827-1900) named a daughter Nanny.  From her 1885 marriage record, I first thought that this Nanny was born in 1851.   This date was too early, based on when Israel Jonas’ sisters were having daughters and naming later ones Nanny.

Last week, when I re-reviewed that 1885 marriage record, I could see that Nanny’s birth year was not “ein und funfzig” as I had earlier thought, or “vier und funfzig” as the Ancestry.com indexer thought, but rather was “neun und funfzig” — 24 February 1859.

So, based on the dates when Nesche’s four granddaughters named Nanny were born, and the earlier dates when the last granddaughters not named Nanny were born, it seems very likely that Nesche LANDAU geb. LANDAU (b.ca.1804) died between the dates of December 1856 and February 1859.  That pretty much narrows her death date down to some time in 1857 or 1858.

That sets the stage for re-considering Haskel LANDAU’s putative second marriage.

The other new pieces of information came from Przyrow Jewish community vital records which I first learned about through the indexing work of the Czestochowa-Radom Area Research Group (CRARG), an 1860 marriage entry and an 1863 birth entry, most helpfully translated by almost-cousin and good friend Halina in Lodz:

1860 marriage of Haskel Landau and Frymeta Zeligman, dated 1 August 1860 (13 August 1860):
On that date they appeared at the office (at 2 pm) accompanied by the Rabbi and two witnesses and they announced their marriage. He was a widower, aged 55, living in Przyrow, making his living selling grain. She was a widow, from Przyrow, aged 36, making a living in ‘small trade’. The pre-marriage  banns had been announced in the Przyrow parish on the following dates:  16, 23 and 30 July  (28 July, 4 and 11 August).  There were no impediments for their marriage, nor were they related to each other.  They had not signed any prenuptial agreement, due to their poverty.  The document was signed by the newlyweds, witnesses and Rabbi Szloma Altman.

1863 birth of Icyk Landau:
In Przyrow, on 18 February 1863 (2 March 1863), at 8 am. Haskiel Landau, field worker, aged 50, living in Przyrow, appeared, accompanied by witnesses Gdula Altman (48, stallholder) and Ankel Kasztersztajn (58, flour trader), with a male baby, born to him and his wife Frymeta nee Kasztersztajn, aged 38, on 10 February 1863 (22 February 1863). The child, during the religious  circumcision ceremony, was named Icyk.   The document was signed by the father Haskiel Landau and the witnesses.

From these two documents, with a few assumptions thrown in, one can conclude that Haskel LANDAU (b.1805), whose first wife had died before 1860, married Frymeta ZELIGMAN geb. KASZTERSZTAJN (b.ca.1824), whose first husband, presumably Mr. ZELIGMAN, also died before 1860, and they had a son Icyk in Przyrow in 1863 who was the Isak (Isyk) LANDAU (b.1863, Przyrow) who later lived in Berlin, was deported to Theresienstadt in 1942 and died there in 1943.

Other than his name (which is not so uncommon), his age and his status as a widower, there is nothing in these records which directly suggests that this Haskel LANDAU was the widower of Nesche LANDAU geb. LANDAU.  And one could question how Haskel of Kempen, Prussia came to be remarrying in Przyrow in Russian Poland, and why he seemed to of a lower station (compared to having been Kaufmann in Kempen).

But the factor that trumps the seeming unlikelihood of these being the same Haskel LANDAU, is the family memory among the descendants of Isak (Icyk) LANDAU of a connection to the BACH family of my mother’s mother, including the meeting(s) of Isak’s son, the orthodox rabbi Ezechiel LANDAU and Sanitätsrat Dr. Josef Hirsch BACH of Breslau, characterized by Ezechiel’s half sister Anni SHREM geb. LANDAU as “ein deutscher Staatsbürger jüdischen Glaubens” (a German citizen of the Jewish faith).  Ezechiel and Josef Hirsch would have been half first cousins, explaining why they knew of each other and had a connection despite their different religious outlooks.

So, with apologies to R. Zwi Jecheskel MICHELSON, I have concluded that Jecheskel (Haskel) LANDAU, son of R. Isaac LANDAU of Wlodawa, was first married to Nesche LANDAU (ca.1804-ca.1858), and then, in 1860, married Frymeta ZELIGMAN geb. KASZTERSZTAJN.  He was not married to a daughter of R. Joseph Samuel LANDAU of Kempen, but to the rabbi’s niece Nesche.