The Reiner and Goldberg families

Our paternal grandparents, Ephraim and Rachel, lived in Kraków, Poland. They had two sons and three daughters. The first-born son died as an infant; on the same day my father, Yosef (Jo), and his twin sister, Luisa, were born. After grandmother died (when Father was about ten years old), Grandfather married a woman who was also called Rachel. They had two daughters.

In Dutch, Yosef being pronounced ”yo”, as my father was called his whole life.

Our maternal grandparents, Avraham Shmuel Goldberg and his wife Sarah, [also] lived in Kraków. Avraham Shmuel was known as a rabbi, but in official documents, he declared himself a merchant. Family tradition tells that Sarah was a rich bride, but her husband did not know how to keep the dowry she brought with her.

The couple had five daughters and a son. Gusti, Eva, (Sol Kimel’s mother), Leah (my mother) Ronka, Erna, and an unknown son.

Avraham Shmuel died on an unknown date and his widow, Sarah, died in 1930.

My mother’s brother and all her sisters perished in the Holocaust.

Our father, Yosef (Jo) Reiner/ Szaja (Sha-ya), was born on 20 June 1897, in Kraków, Poland. He was born the day his baby brother died, and his father, out of confusion and shock, registered him as “Szaja”, the name of the deceased brother, instead of his name Yosef. So, all his life, we would call him Jo, but in official documents, he remained Szaja.

At that time, Kraków was part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Father could live wherever he wanted in the empire, and he chose Vienna, where there was a vibrant cultural life and economic opportunities. In Vienna he studied leather processing.

Our mother, Lea Goldberg, called Lou, was born in 1903, also in Kraków. During their childhood, Mother and her sisters attended a regular non-Jewish school in the Polish language, which was also their mother tongue. She told us about the good life in Poland. They spent vacations in the Zakopane resort town. Their economic situation was good but declined over the years. Mother was not enthusiastic about Amsterdam and told us how beautiful Kraków was. She wrote letters in Polish in beautiful curly handwriting to people we didn’t know. After graduating from high school, she worked as an office clerk. She wanted us to attend a good school that would set us on a path towards a good education and success. Before Mother immigrated to the Netherlands, she was a member of Po’alei Tsion, a Marxist-Zionist Jewish workers movement.

Father and Mother met, fell in love, and about four years after Father had immigrated to Amsterdam and had found work, Mother joined him, and they were married.

I was born on 3 June 1929 and was the first child of Lou and Jo.

My brother, Marco, was born in 1932.

The doll that was brought home to us was not a toy. He arrived and did not stop crying and demanded Mother’s full attention.