Introduction: My Family’s Immigration Story is not one, but several stories about moves from country to country and continent to continent.
I have spent many years learning about my family and where we came from, going back further than I ever imagined. There are gaps in my knowledge where I can only guess at the facts. In those cases I write, “It is possible…” Otherwise, everything written here is true, as far as I can tell.1
This section describes my grandfather Zwickel’s experience immigrating to America at the beginning of the 1900s. It includes descriptions of some of the agencies that were available at that time to help new immigrants to the US.
The next section traces my family history of migrations before they came to the US and goes farther back in time before the written record.
The final section is a description of my own immigration experience moving from the East Coast to the Midwest.
About names
The earliest records of Zwickels in Eastern Europe only go back to the early 1800s. Before that, Jews were identified by patronyms—as the son or daughter of their fathers. Men were given at least one Hebrew/Biblical name that was used when they were called up to the Torah (Old Testament) in the synagogue, during official religious ceremonies, and on a marriage contract.2 A second name, Hebrew or Yiddish, was often added to help identify a particular individual.
A family legend has it that one of our Zwickel ancestors, desperately trying to avoid serving in the Russian Tsar’s army, slipped across the border from the Russian Pale of Settlement into Galicia in Austria-Hungary.3 He is supposed to have been hidden in a wagonload of beets (or to have had a shock of dark red hair). In either case, when he emerged from his hiding place, someone called him a “Zwickl” and the name stuck. Zwickel was a common local term for “beet”. There may be some truth to that: the Russian (and the Ukrainian) word for beet is свёкла pronounced “Tzv’kl”.4
About Yiddish, Hebrew, and English
The everyday language of Eastern European Jews was Yiddish, derived from Aramaic/Hebrew and German. Hebrew was reserved for prayers and for studying the Torah.
Hebrew is the language of the bible and of modern-day Israel. Jews in Roman Judea spoke Aramaic, which is similar to Hebrew.
Yiddish is the language that evolved from Aramaic and German roots in Europe in the 800s. Jews in Eastern Europe used Yiddish as their everyday language, but many could also speak to their neighbors in Polish, Russian, Ukrainian, or German.
Many transliterations from Polish/Yiddish are inconsistent. For the sake of consistency, I have followed the YIVO system of Yiddish transliteration.5 Place names may be given in several different languages with different spellings. The Zwickels lived in an area that, at various times, was part of Poland, Russia, Ukraine/Ruthenia, Galicia6, and Austria-Hungary. Consistency is elusive.
➢Translation: converting the meaning of words from one language to another {for example, Zev in Hebrew means Wolf in English}
➢Transliteration: writing or printing a letter or word using the closest corresponding letters of a different alphabet or script: {for example, זאב in Hebrew is written as Zev in English}
1. My Zwickel Family’s Immigration story
My parents were second-generation Americans. Both had advanced degrees and both were teachers. My father, Arthur Lawrence Zwickel, served in the US Navy during World War II and remained in the Navy Reserves until he retired.
► Arthur Lawrence Zwickel (1915-1989) was the youngest child of Sam Zwickel (1866-1946) and his second wife, Anna Groshaus (1882-1962)7
►►Sam Zwickel was the seventh child of Isaac Kalonymos Zwikel (1819-1897) and Tsirl Khana Orgel (1813-1890). Isaac’s father was:
► ► ► Isaac Kalonymos Zwikel was the son of Wolf and Rosa Zwikel. He lived in a town called Założce.
► ► ► ► Wolf and Rosa Zwikel reportedly lived in Dubno, Ukraine. That is as far back as the official written records of Zwickels in Europe go.
From Austria-Hungary/Galicia to Brooklyn
My grandfather Sam Zwickel was born and grew up in a town called Założce, which was then part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire and is now in Ukraine. Sam lived in nearby Milno (Myl’ne), his first wife’s hometown. The nearest city of any size was Złoczów (also called Zolochiv, or Zolochev (Ukrainian: Золочів, German: Zlotsche), between Lwow and Tarnopol in the west of modern-day Ukraine.8 <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zloczow>
Leaving Galicia
A combination of “push” and “pull” factors led Sam Zwickel to emigrate to the US. Major factors pushing people like Sam to leave Galicia were food shortages, poverty, overpopulation, disease, discrimination, and lack of opportunity. The pull of the US came primarily from the information Sam received in newspapers and in letters from his siblings, who had already emigrated to America. He also lived near a road taken by a steady stream of Russian Jews passing by on their way to a better life.
Food shortages, overpopulation, disease, and poverty
Most people living in Galicia were subsistance farmers and nearly all of the crops or livestock raised were used to feed and care for the farmer’s family. People had almost no cash to buy tools or other items. Because they used primitive farming techniques, unchanged since the Middle Ages, agricultural productivity in Galicia was the lowest of all the provinces of Austria and one of the lowest in Europe.9
Making it worse were a lack of good land and a growing population, resulting in the steadily shrinking size of the farms. Over 70% of Galicia’s population were farmers and about 40% of Galicia belonged to one of the latifundia.10 Some land was cleared and some marshes were drained, but not enough to support the growing population. In the second half of the 1800s, the amount of farmland increased by about 7% while the number of people doubled. In 1899, 80% of the farms had less than 5 acres, and many farmers were not able to grow enough food on their plots to support their families. Overpopulation in Galicia was so severe that it has been described as the most overpopulated place in Europe and there was no way out. The farmers were said to be stuck in lives of “illiteracy, usury, and alcoholism”.11
The Jews of Galicia lived under very difficult housing and health conditions. Famines in Galicia, resulting in 50,000 deaths a year from malnutrition, were frequent and have been described as endemic.12
Cholera epidemics spread to Galician towns in 1873 and 1894 and the people, already weak from lack of food, died by the thousands.13
City life in Galicia wasn’t much better. About 60% of eastern Galicia's Jews lived in cities and towns.14 Neighborhoods were often dirty, crowded, and dark. With their immune systems weakened by an unhealthy diet, diseases like tuberculosis, scarlet fever, diphtheria, measles, whooping cough, typhoid fever, and dysentery spread and killed people. Modern medicine—with its understanding of infection, sanitation, nutrition, and hygiene—didn’t reach Galicia until the late 1800s. It wasn’t until the beginning of the 1900s that the health service eliminated smallpox by vaccinating infants.15
Even in the capital city of Lwow there were only a few paved roads and streets by the late 1860s. A majority of city streets were paved with dirt, sand, and, when it rained or snowed, sticky mud. Country people, unaccustomed to city life, were choked by the stench of open sewers and gutters.
Life in Austria-Hungary was hard, and life in Galicia was worse, so many thousands decided to leave. Between 1881 and 1910 most of those emigrating from Austria came from Galicia, including 236,504 Jews (about 85% of all Jewish emigrants from Austria and 30.1% of all emigrants from Galicia).16
Discrimination and Anti-Semitism
Full citizenship rights were given to Austro-Hungarian Jews in 1867, but anti-Semitism was widespread in the Austro-Hungarian Empire, especially toward the end of the 1800s when people started believing “scientific” ideas about superior races.17
Many non-Jews had a hostile view of Jews as heartless exploiters and servants of the Polish nobility and landowners, even though most Jews lived in poverty, just like their Ukrainian neighbors. Anti-Semitic ideas became part of politics, and Jews were excluded from social life. Nationalism, racism and anti-Semitism led to anti-Jewish aggression and to riots against the Jewish population.18
In 1893, an economic boycott of the Jews in Galicia was proclaimed at a Catholic convention in Cracow. The boycott lasted until the First World War. The Galician authorities tried to create a Polish middle class by keeping Jews out of trade and industry. Jews had to get special licenses for peddling, old-clothes trade, transportation, running an employment agency, or owning pharmacy. If one sold imported goods and spices, oils, and paints he had to get “proof of capability” from the local administration. Another law regulating veterinarians limited Jewish participation in the cattle business.19
Things were bad in Austrian Galicia; however, compared to conditions on the Russian side of the border, the Jews of Galicia were treated fairly well.20
The Pull to America
Probably the storngest pull that drew my grandfather to America was the success of the four of his siblings who immigrated before him. His siblings were:
► 1838-1915 Wolf Zwickel (Zwicker) immigrated to US; Wolf was a tailor. He fathered 7 children
► 1842-1920 Yudah Hirsch Zwikel did not immigrate; 5 children
► 1844-1896 Majer Zwikel did not immigrate; 2 children
► 1851-1902 Abraham Zwickel immigrated to US; 9 children
► 1858-1931 Jüte Ruchel Zwikel Lind immigrated to US; 4 children
► 1858-1940 Leyzer ‘Louis’ Zwickel immigrated to US; 9 children
► 1867-1937 Oizer ‘Abe’ Oscar Zwickel immigrated to US; 7 children
► 1871 -1939 Zelig Yussel ‘Berisch’ Zwickel did not immigrate; 12 children21
Those who went before undoubtedly wrote letters to family members back in Galicia. The letter writers played up the positive aspects of immigration and downplayed the negative. They probably included a request for the recipient to emigrate and join the writer in America, “if you were here, then joy would be complete.”22 Hansen writes, “The arrival of a letter was a community affair. Neighbors assembled, the schoolmaster was pressed into service, and the letter was read. Often copies were made & sent to other communities.”
Not only did the letters contain information and advice, but some included tangible evidence of the more abundant life in America: a bank note, an order on a commercial house, or a ticket—prepaid—for passage. These gifts gave birth to a mythic figure in the history of immigration, that of the “rich uncle in America” who could take care of everything.
Letters from America were overwhelmingly positive and encouraging, partly because it was hard to admit just how difficult life was, and partly because the immigrants usually put off writing until they had overcome the initial difficulties of adjusting to life in America.23
It is possible that Sam knew about one of his brothers who’d emigrated and now lived in a tenement on Rivington Street in New York, a street of brothels, gambling halls, and drug houses. Maybe Sam also knew that the son of another brother had gotten in trouble with gangsters and gamblers in New York and had to flee to Canada. Even if Sam did get negative news from his brothers and sister, it didn’t prevent him from emigrating himself.
The Journey Begins: On the Road to Bremen
Sam Zwickel’s hometown was Założce.24 It is about 23 southwest of the town of Brody, where, in the 1880s, thousands of emigrating Jews crossed the border from Russia into Austria on their way to the west.25
Założce is a very small town. In 1890 there were 988 houses and 6,928 inhabitants in Założce, of which 2,502 (36%) were Jews.26 Between 1890 and 1910, many in the Jewish community emigrated and the number of Jews decreased by 435 while the number of Christians increased by 782. In 1899, Sam Zwickel lived in another town to the east of Założce called Milno (Myl’ne), the hometown of his first wife, Züssel Knopfholz (1871–1905?).
It is 850 miles by road from Milno to Bremen. Even if his brother Leyzer in America sent him some money for the trip, Sam probably didn’t have enough to take the train27 part of the way, so it is likely that he walked.28 The trip would have taken him west to Lwow (Lviv) and Krakow, then northwest to Wroclaw. He then left Poland and entered Germany, either going via Berlin or via Dresden and Leipzig. He would have followed the River Weser north to the harbor at Bremen, where it empties into the North Sea.29
Few roads in Europe in the late 1800s were paved and some may have been little more than cowpaths. Sam Zwickel left Bremen in February, so he was probably on the road during the winter months, dealing with snow or freezing rain. With luck, he may have traveled 20 miles per day so it would have taken him 42 days to get to Bremen.30
In Bremen, Sam would have tried to buy a ticket on the first ship going to New York, so he could avoid having to pay more than he had to for lodging in the seaport. A number of dormitory-style buildings in Bremerhaven were operated by the shipping lines just for passengers waiting to leave.31
From Europe to America
Sam Zwickel sailed to New York on Feb 14, 1898 from Bremen, Germany32 on the SS Friedrich der Grosse and arrived on Feb. 25, 1898 at 12:30 p.m. He gave his name as Zwickel, Sam. Abrah. age 32, from Milno, Galicia, and said he planned to stay with his brother (probably Leyzer) in Brooklyn, NY.
He traveled in steerage.33
Sam’s wife, Züssel Knopfholz Zwickel, sailed from Bremen, also on the SS Friedrich der Grosse, on June 17, 1899 with her three daughters—my aunts Tsirla (Celia) age 7, Sara (Sophie) age 3, and baby Rosa (Rose). They arrived in New York on June 28, 1899. Züssel had married Sam when she was 16. When she arrived in America, she was 28 years old; she would live to be 34.
SS Friedrich der Grosse (Friedrich der Große), was a Norddeutscher Lloyd liner built in Germany in 1896 and designed to carry freight and, in a separate area, as many as 2,400 passengers.34
Many people today have sailed on cruise liners, so it is interesting to compare the SS Friedrich der Grosse with the popular modern-day cruise ship Carnival Liberty:
Crossing the Atlantic in mid-winter was a risky business. Fog, snow, and ice made the trip hazardous. Photos of SS Friedrich der Grosse appear to show seven lifeboats hanging from davits on either side of the ship. It seems unlikely that there were enough lifeboats for all the passengers and crew. In 1912, HMS Titanic sank after hitting an iceberg in April and 1,500 people died because there weren’t enough lifeboats.
Culture Shocks
Założce and New York City in 1900
Założce in 1900 was home to 7,315 people, of whom 2,397 (33%) were Jews. Sam Zwickel and his family were living in Myl’ne, which today has about 900 residents. It is difficult to say just how large it was in 1899, because records are hard to find and because the population of Ukraine as a whole has changed so much.35 Both Założce and Myl’ne were, and still are, small farming towns.
When Sam Zwickel arrived in New York City it had a population of 3,437,202, about 470 times as large as Założce. Nearly 37% of those living in New York in 1900 were foreign-born immigrants. For a young man like Sam, from a small farming community, it must have been a shock to find himself among so many people.
Before the immigrants got off a ship in New York, U.S. Customs officers would come on board to check bags for dutiable goods or contraband. Then the passengers went by small steamboats to Ellis Island. Sam’s papers, assuming he had some, would have been checked by an officer who spoke Yiddish and could read German36 (the language of Austrian passports and visas) to see that the information matched the ship’s manifest. In the Registry Room, Public Health Service doctors examined the passengers to see if any of them wheezed, coughed, shuffled or limped. The doctors checked each immigrant for 60 symptoms of disease, looking for signs of cholera, favus (scalp and nail fungus), tuberculosis, insanity, epilepsy, and mental impairments. The disease most feared was trachoma, a highly contagious eye infection that could lead to blindness and death. Sick immigrants went into quarantine, and those with chronic conditions were sent back to their home countries.37 For most immigrants, the whole process took only a few hours. Then they took another boat to a pier in Manhattan.
After his release from Ellis Island, Sam would have found his brother Layzer in Manhattan and gone home with him on the subway to the Brownsville neighborhood of Brooklyn, home to 1,167,000 people.38
The Language Barrier
Sam Zwickel’s mama lushen, or mother tongue, was Yiddish and like nearly 75% of Jewish immigrants, he was literate.39 In the Jewish neighborhoods of the Lower East Side of Manhatan and in Brownsville, Brooklyn, Sam would have been able to read the signs written in Hebrew characters and to understand the Yiddish that was spoken all around him. In New York he would have found stalls and shops selling Yiddish newspapers and books.40
Everywhere else, people spoke English, Spanish, Italian, German, Chinese, and dozens of other languages, none of which Sam Zwickel knew. Learning English was critical for new immigrants if they wished to become naturalized citizens, especially after The Naturalization Act of 1906 required that all immigrants speak English to become naturalized citizens of the U.S.41
I don’t know if Sam was one of the many new immigrants seeking citizenship who attended night classes to learn English, civics, and American history. These classes were given at institutions (some of which still exist) such as the Educational Alliance https://edalliance.org/ and the University Settlement https://www.universitysettlement.org/us/ on the Lower East Side.42 Sam Zwickel became fluent enough in English to be naturalized in 1904.
New technology in the big city
Photos of New York City in 1900 show busy streets filled with people, carriages, cable cars, and horsecars. New technology was evident everywhere. Modern, overhead, elevated trains carried passengers uptown, downtown, and crosstown. Plans were underway in 1900 to operate trains underground in a subway system that would connect the entire city. In Brooklyn, electric-powered streetcars called trolleys were carrying passengers across the borough to the entertainment center and beach at Coney Island.43 By 1900, electric lights had replaced gaslights and lit the streets and buildings at night. Theaters, in English, Yiddish, and other languages, presented live shows and “moving pictures”.
It was a far cry from the small towns of Eastern Europe.
New Foods
The nutrient-poor diet of Eastern Europeans revolved around potatoes, cabbage, and root vegetables plus bread and some dairy products. Meat was expensive and rare. Many Jewish families ate meat once a week—they may have had chicken for the Sabbath dinner. By 1900, Americans in cities like New York were eating more meat, poultry, and fish, thanks to refrigerated railroad cars and a good transportation system.
New York, as a major international port, received food from all over the world and immigrants were able, should they choose to do so, to taste imported delicacies. In fact, New York was one of the first American cities to have shops specializing in fine, unusual, or foreign prepared foods—the delicatessen. Because the Zwickels kept a kosher home, they did not buy foods that were not in accordance with Jewish religious law.
Sam Zwickel: becoming an American
When he landed at Ellis Island, Sam was 32 years old, married, and he reported having no money in his possession. He was apparently counting on his older brother Layzer to take care of him until he could get on his own two feet.
Layzer44 Zwickel came to the US in 1884. He and his wife Breina “Betty” had eight children when his brother Sam arrived. He Americanized his name to Louis and worked selling dry goods. A few years later he owned his own butcher shop in Brooklyn.
Brownsville, Brooklyn, New York
Unlike many Eastern European Jewish families, the Zwickels did not spend any significant time living on the Lower East Side of Manhattan. The Zwickels made their homes in the 1890s and 1900s in the newly-developed section of eastern Brooklyn called Brownsville, “looking for ‘lower rents and a more healthful country environment”.45
Brownsville, before it became an urban area, was a rural town. It was too far from Manhattan for wealthy people, but developers found it a good place to put up large housing projects for those of lesser means. The opening of the subway from Manhattan to Brooklyn, of the Williamsburg Bridge in 1903 and the Manhattan Bridge in 1909 all made Brownsville attractive to people who wanted to live in Brooklyn and work in Manhattan. After the subway reached the area, convenient transportation, new multi-family housing, storefronts, and garment factories attracted newcomers. In 1890, about 4,000 Jews lived in Brownsville; by 1910–1920, the Jewish population soared to 250,000-300,000.46
Brownsville had more than 70 Orthodox synagogues, several Yiddish theaters, and many competing groups of pro-labor, socialist, communist adherents trying to out-shout one another in the streets.
Brownsville was not heaven. Originally an area of flood-prone marshes, it was tough on the nose: the area had been used as a dump and awful stenches wafted north from nearby glue factories. The streets were crowded with wagons and pushcarts and often covered with horse manure. Brownsville’s wooden structures were prone to fire and the streets flooded in heavy rains.47
Sixteen months after Sam came to the US, his wife Züssel48 and three daughters arrived.
One year later, the 1900 United States Federal Census showed Sam and “Sarah” Zwickel [Swickel] living at 238 Powell Street in Brooklyn, New York. Sam had been working as a “Pedler - hats for 3 months”. Both Sam and “Sarah” told the census taker that they could read and write, but not English.
In the 1902 New York City Directory, Sam was still living with his brother Louis and is listed as an awningmaker, probably for the new shops in Brownsville that wanted awnings to protect their wares and for advertising.
By 1904, Sam had moved to Belmont Avenue and was in the business of selling hardware. In the 1905 New York State Census, Sam and his wife “Sala” were living on Belmont Avenue in Brownsville and they had 6 children—the three girls who arrived with Züssel and two sons and a daughter who were born in Brooklyn.
That same year, Züssel died.49 The oldest daughter, 15-year old Celia, took charge of her siblings and continued to do so until Sam married Henche Groshaus a few years later.
Naturalization
Sam Zwickel applied for naturalization in 1904, just 5 years after he entered the US. Although the ship’s manifest shows he landed in New York on Feb. 25, 1898 , on his Petition, he claimed to have arrived in 1897, he may have altered the date to meet a requirement that he had been in the US long enough to become a citizen.
Sam Zwickel’s family
Sam married Anna Henche Groshaus after the death of Züssel. Sam and Anna had six children—four died in infancy, one died at five years old, and my father was the only one who survived to adulthood.
Sam bought a building in Brownsville and opened his own housewares store. He made enough from the store to support his family and remained an observant Orthodox Jew until the end of his life.
Help for Immigrants
My grandfather had brothers and a sister who had immigrated to America before him, so he had a support network when he arrived and probably didn’t need a lot of help from social service agencies. In the early 1900s, the government did not provide social security, medical care, unemployment insurance, pensions for widows and orphans, or other social services. People in need had to rely on private charities for help.
Had Sam Zwickel needed assistance, there were places he could turn to for help, such as the Hebrew Educational Society, the Landsmanshaft association of immigrants from his hometown, and the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society.
Hebrew Educational Society (HES)
One organization had deep roots in Brownsville and would have been helpful to a new immigrant like Sam Zwickel. Jews living in New York and Brooklyn started the Hebrew Educational Society (HES) in 1899 to help poorer, more recent arrivals assimilate. HES offered lessons in English and citizenship, with the goal of “teaching [Jewish immigrants] valuable lessons in thrift, manners, and citizenship.…Despite the condescending intentions behind many of the programs, Brownsville participants responded favorably.”50 HES also gave 7,000 volumes to start the first public library in Brownsville in 1905, which was an important source of information and recreation.
HES today https://www.thehes.org/ continues to serve “more than 1,200 people daily, which accounts for more than 300,000 annual visits. We are the area’s major source of educational, recreational, cultural, fitness, sports, and social-service programs for area residents and we annually provide services to more than 8,500 participants. The H.E.S. serves the diverse populations living in Southeast Brooklyn including Jewish and African- American families and a large population of immigrant families from the Caribbean, Asia, Israel, and the former Soviet Union.”51
Landsmanshaftn
Landsmanshaftn were associations formed by Eastern European Jewish immigrants from the same hometown.52 Many synagogues in New York developed around landslayt (groups of Jews from the same Eastern European towns) and often operated as mutual-aid societies. Over time, groups of Jews from the same town in Europe formed officially registered landsmanshaftn and most were connected to synagogues, unions, extended family circles, or fraternal orders.53
Considering that one quarter of the Jews in New York belonged to a landsmanshaft, it is probable that Sam did, too.54 In New York, at least two landsmanshaftn were started by men from Złoczów. One was the Zloczower K. U. V.55 It had 192 members in 1918 and was located on the Lower East Side of New York. The Secretary was Jonas Zwickel, a distant cousin.56
The landsmanshaft offered help learning English, finding places to live and work, connecting to family and friends, insurance, disability and unemployment insurance, and subsidized burial. For immigrants coming from European monarchies, the landsmanshaft was an introduction to how a republican democracy works. At landsmanshaft meetings the immigrants learned about as voting for officers, holding debates on community issues, and paying dues to support the society. Meetings were often conducted and minutes recorded in Yiddish, a language all members could understand.57
Members paid regular dues, and, if they lost their jobs, became too sick to work, or died, the society paid the member or their family a benefit to keep them afloat. When the funds were not needed to support members, landsmanshaftn frequently invested the money in funds that supported the Jewish community in others ways, such as Israel Bonds.
Jewish immigration slowed and stopped almost entirely after 1924, so most landsmanshaft functions declined. One role they continued to play was maintaining ties to life in Europe. For example, the Złoczów landsmanshaftn often sent money to relatives left behind in Galicia.58
One non-religious landsmanshaft that was active in Brownsville became The Workmen’s Circle, or Arbeter Ring in Yiddish. It was started in 1892 as the Workingmen’s Circle Society by a group of progressive-minded immigrants from Eastern Europe. The group was a socialist, mutual-aid society that promoted Jewish community, Yiddish language, Jewish education, and Ashkenazic culture.59 The Workers Circle, as it is now called, continues to fight for social justice https://circle.org/who-we-are/our-history/.
Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society (HIAS)
The Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society, according to its website at https://www.hias.org/, started in 1881 to help Jews fleeing pogroms (anti-Semitic riots) in Russia and Eastern Europe.60 HIAS offered meals, transportation, and employment assistance to new immigrants.
As the influx of Russian Jewish refugees grew, HIAS “stationed a representative on Ellis Island, starting in 1909, in order to assist arriving Yiddish-speaking immigrants. These people were guided through the immigration process, were represented by HIAS in cases where they were denied entry to the U.S. on grounds of illness, insanity or were liable to become a public charge and finally, were put in contact with relatives or sponsors in the U.S.”61
More than 140,000 Jews from the former Soviet Union were helped by HIAS in 1979 and in the late 1980s and reunited with their relatives.62
HIAS today offers assistance to non-Jewish refugees, including people from Afghanistan, Bosnia, Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, Ethiopia, Haiti, Hungary, Iran, Morocco, Poland, Romania, Tunisia, Vietnam, and the successor states to the former Soviet Union. Most recently, HIAS attorneys have been helping refugees from Latin America seeking asylum in the US.63
Educational Opportunities
Sam Zwickel enrolled his children in the public schools in Brownsville, where a new curriculum stressed learning English, civics and citizenship, science, physical education, and mathematics. The three older Zwickel girls were among a huge number of children of immigrants who arrived in New York between 1880 and 1900. The New York public schools in that era were terribly overcrowded and poorly prepared to teach children from poor, non-English-speaking families.64
Before 1898, when William H. Maxwell became school superintendent, all immigrant schoolchildren who entered speaking no English were automatically placed in first grade regardless of age (Kindergarten was one of Maxwell’s innovations).
By the time the younger Zwickel children enrolled, a reform movement had begun to change the public schools for the better and they became a major resource for helping immigrants assimilate. Maxwell started a special program (called "steamer classes," named for the immigrant passenger ships) to teach English to immigrant children as soon as they enrolled in school. The program featured English-only classes. Children who could already read and write in their native language seemed to learn English faster. After about six months in a "steamer class," immigrant children were moved into a regular grade level class.65
The reforms didn’t solve all the problems in the New York public schools. A report in 1913 found serious overcrowding, half-time classes, and widespread truancy.
Sam’s children did better than many. On the whole, Jewish children were less truant, less likely to be held back a grade, more likely to earn high grades, and more apt to remain in school through the eighth grade than children of other immigrant groups. (8th Grade was the last year of grade school; high school was not mandatory and there were few of them available) One reason for the success of Jewish students in school was a cultural tradition of literacy and learning. The Jewish newcomers had a saying: “Land on Saturday, settle on Sunday, school on Monday, vote on Tuesday.”66 The pressure to help support the family, as well as the availability of many unskilled jobs, made work, not school, the route to success for many in America.67 Education was important to the Zwickels and two of Sam’s children grew up to become schoolteachers.
In addition to attending public school during the day, many Jewish children were expected to learn Hebrew and to study Jewish law. Jewish boys attended after-school and Sunday Hebrew schools to prepare them for participation in religious rituals and in the synagogue. Girls got some religious education, but not as much as the boys; they focused on preparing for their future adult roles as keepers of kosher homes and parents.
The end of the written record
The farthest back I can trace my Zwickel family in Galicia is the record of the death of my great-grandfather, Eizik Yitzhak Kalonymus Zwickel.68 His parents were listed as Wolf and Rosa Zwickel who resided in Dubno69, in Russia, about 45 miles northeast of Załośce. This is the only reference I found to Wolf and Rosa. The record of Eisik’s death indicates he was born in 1819, about the time that Jews living in Galicia and Russia were ordered to take family names and before they kept written records of births and deaths.
It is possible the Zwickels may have originally come from Russia, but while the name Zwickel can be found in many towns around Załośce and Zolochev, it does not appear in any of the records of Dubno.
Eisik (1819–1887) and his wife Tsirl Chana Orgel (1813–1890) lived in Załośce, Galicia, an area both Zwickel and Orgel families were already established. Tsirl Chana’s parents were Abraham (1797–1848) and Chaya Orgel from Załośce.
