Konig and Bressler families collection

Klara Chaya Bressler was born on April 18, 1940, daughter of Josef Bressler (b. January 20, 1911) and Chana König Bressler (b. August 2, 1908). Chana’s brother, Majer Max, immigrated to the United States before the war. After the German invasion and forcing the Nadworna Jews into the ghetto, Chana obtained Ukrainian birth certificate for the name Anna Chopta from her maid, in return for her house. In June 1942, after Chana and her sister Giza knew that their parents and siblings were murdered, they escaped together with little Klara to Lublin. They met Josef Bressler who was with a partisan group in nearby forest. He arranged for a Polish couple, Karolina and Stanislaw Klimek, to take Klara in. Chana and Giza volunteered for forced labor in Germany as Ukrainian and Polish women. In 1946 Chana returned to the village to reunite with her daughter. Chana found out that her husband Josef was killed in the area. Naturally Klara regarded the Klimeks as her parents. After a few weeks Chana took her daughter to Germany. She managed to locate her older brother in the States. In January 1949 they immigrated to the United States to be with her brother.

In 1940 Chaim Nieswiecki was mobilized by the Soviet Army. His wife, Elka Bitenska was murdered by Germans in Baranowicze in September 1942. He repatriated to Poland in 1957 and two years later he immigrated to Israel. Soon after he married Chana Bressler.