I went recently to the archives from Antwerp where I do collect from time to time files and other information for my family research.
During my research I usually try to understand and focus on several topics which I do come across and about which I do tend to post from time to time some articles on this website.
One of the topics I am currently focussing on, and about which I hope to post in the near future, is the district distribution in the city of Antwerp.
As part of this research I did request to have a look in the file about the reconstruction of the sewers. This interesting file contains a few (more…)
Ustrzyki-Dolne in current Poland (source: wikimedia)
I mentioned already in an earlier post (see “Where to look for old newspapers in Flemish-Belgium“) that my great-grandfather and the children were were stateless citizens before they naturalized as Belgians. The reason for their statless status was that when my great-grandfather Gerschon Lehrer was born in Ustrzyki-Dolne, it was Austrian and after the First World War it became Poland.
My great grandfather lived since 1919 in Dresden (Germany) and Poland took away the nationalities from all citizens that were not in the country for a long time, hence my great-grandfather and grandfather automatically became stateless (source: naturalization file 21875N).
That was a short explanation about the stateless status from my great-grandfather and his children.
I am subscribed to a few mailinglists with an interest in genealogy. One of these lists is from the “Gesher Galicia SIG” (see http://www.jewishgen.org/galicia for more information about that group).
Recently there was a discussion on the stateless status of Galician Jewish refugees who moved to GERMANY after WWI.
I’d like to post these discussion in this post because I believe that the information in that discussion goes a bit deeper on the background of my ancestors’ stateless status after the First World War, then what I wrote before.
In my opinion the last post from Rivka Schirman which you can read below, provides us with the most complete answer. It is mainly the following paragraph which interests me:
Once the Conference of Ambassadors legally attributed East Galicia to Poland, it also based it on the articles of the Treaty of St Germain en Laye regarding nationality and citizenship (full text available at http://www.forost.ungarisches-institut.de/pdf/19230315-1.pdf). This time, those who opted for Polish citizenship, because it was possible, had, according to article 78, 12 months to move to Poland.
The (paying) members of the one of the two Jewish communities, the Machsike Hadass, did vote on November 29th and 30th for the then candidate Rov Rav Ahron Schif.
From the 593 votes, 93.4% were in favour of Rav Ahron Schif as the new Rov.
Last Sunday, April 3rd, the ceremony took finally place in the packed main synagogue of the Kehille in the Oostenstraat.
All members of the kehille received two books. One book with the history on the kehille, its founding and an overview with the history on almost all shuls of Antwerp. And the second book has got a collection of essays by Rav Schiff.
Both books did cost together €10 (only) for non-members.
You can enjoy the photos I made or read some articles which I did collect from different sources. (some articles and/or photos may have שמות, please handle with due respect)
During my research in the Belgian archives, I came across a few files in which a document had the following acronym “A.A.C.B.”:
Source: Antwerp Immigration File no.175159 (Dorf Wolf – Kapelna Frieda)
I, as curious as I am always, was wondering about the meaning of that acronym.
During genealogy research (and I assume that this is true for each research), each small part, can have a significant meaning with implications for the outcome of research. Therefore I try to understand as much as possible of each small element. Thanks to this approach I do learn quite a lot new things about history, culture, politics, etc.
To get back on topic; I did receive the explanation from the very helpful employees at the Antwerp archives (www.felixarchief.be).
They told me that A.A.C.B. stands for “Ambtelijke Afschrijving College Besluit” which roughly translated into English means cancelling the citizenship by official decision of the authorities and the file was closed for the person in question.
The reason for a A.A.C.B. can be one of the following:
Someone left the city without announcing to the authorities. If they later on returned after their file was closed, it became harder to get an approval for a second residence permit.
Many Jews who fled during the World War, had to have their closed (more…)
I went recently to the archives from Antwerp where I do collect from time to time files and other information for my family research.
The (paying) members of the one of the two Jewish communities, the Machsike Hadass, did vote on November 29th and 30th for the then candidate Rov Rav Ahron Schif.
