Thursday, March 31, 2016

Yizkor Books, Yad Vashem Pages, a Photo, and other Information about Baruch Tzvi Hirsch Rutner

Baruch Tzvi/Hersch Rutner was the older brother of my great grandmother Esther Rutner Joshowitz.  He was a Rabbi and shochet (Jewish ritual slaughterer) and was well-respected in the area and lived in the same general area until the time of the Holocaust.  I recently found a (labeled!) photo of him.
Baruch Tzvi Rutner

But what do we know about my grandmother's uncle?
Birth registration, Burech Hersch Ruttner
Burech Hersch Ruttner registered his own birth in 1906, stating that he had been born in Taraczujfalu (today's Novoselytsya in Subcarpathian Ukraine) to Mozes Ruttner and Ruchel Fuchsz.

As discussed earlier, he was married to Kreindel (Steinmetz) Fuchs, who was also his Fuchs first cousin, and he had at least eleven children, only four of whom lived to adulthood, and only two of whom survived the Holocaust.

Baruch Hersch is mentioned in the Sefer Maramaros Yizkor (Remembrance) book, on the first page of the article about Novoselytsya:
From Sefer Maramaros
The article mentions "In the last generation, there was the shochet Baruch Hersch Fuchs (according to another source: Rutner).  He is a Dolina Chasid, a scholar and one who feared heaven and who was also a teacher."  So it seems that even people who knew him weren't sure if he was a Rutner or a Fuchs!  And this is the only source I know of that gives any insight into the person who was Baruch Hersch Fuchs.

Yad Vashem has two pages of testimony about Baruch Hersch:
Baruch Tzvi Rutner, Page of Testimony
The first was filled out by his granddaughter Miriam Gedalyovich Gewirtz-Gaz, daughter of Baruch Hersch's daughter Rochel.  She has Baruch Hersch born in Kolodne (he actually only grew up there, having been born in Novoselytsya), a son of Shmuel Moshe and Rochel Rutner.  She said that he was in the Matei Szalka Ghetto before he was sent to Auschwitz, where he died in the gas chambers.
Baruch Tzvi Rutner, Page of Testimony
The other was filled out by an acquaintance, Yaakov Fixler who also had a birthplace of Kolodne, and also confirmed his death in the Auschwitz gas chambers.  He lists one child under 18, Dovid, who died at age 14 in the gas chambers as well.

So far as I'm aware, of Baruch Hersch's children, only Efrayim and Ruchel survived.

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