Stephen T. Falk is a first generation American born to parents who got out of Nazi Germany in 1936. Over the last forty years, Stephen has become, progressively, a  more avid genealogist. With both parents from Breslau, that has always been the focus of his research. But, he has also followed family lines from towns in Silesia, Posen, West Prussia, and Poland, Moravia and Bohemia. Rabbinic ancestors include Zwi Hirsch Kalischer, Ezekiel Landau, Mordechai Jaffe and the MaHaRaL of Prague.

In 2013, after over 20 years as an intellectual property attorney in Philadelphia, Stephen and his wife moved to Point Roberts, Washington.

GER SIG Luncheon*: “The Three Cemeteries of the Breslau Jewish Community” (Weds-115), 11:45 A.M. – 1:15 P.M.

This presentation to the GerSIG Luncheon will provide information about the three Breslau Jewish cemeteries: (1) the destroyed Claassenstrasse cemetery (1761-1856), (2) the Lohestrasse cemetery (1856-1941), now part of the Wroclaw Museum system, and (3) the Breslau-Cosel cemetery (1900-present), managed by the Wroclaw Jewish Community. There will be discussion of the cemeteries themselves and related archival materials.

Topics: Ashkenazic research, Cemetery research

*Note: Attendance at SIG luncheons requires registration for the event and an additional fee of $44 (non-Kosher meal) or $54 (Kosher meal) per person.  The date for registration for this event has passed. If you have not registered for this event, consider catching Stephen’s talk discussed below.

“Archival Resources on the Jewish Community of Breslau 1791-1941 (Breslau, Germany, now Wroclaw, Poland)” (Weds-111), 4:30 – 5:45 P.M.

This presentation reviews archival resources created or maintained by the Breslau Jewish community or about Jewish families or individuals from Breslau, primarily over the period from 1791 to the Community’s destruction in the 1940s and records now dispersed around the world.

Breslau, the capital of the German province of Silesia, was the home of the third largest Jewish community in Germany before the War. Its Jewish population grew throughout the 19th century as Jews from elsewhere in Silesia, from towns in Posen Province, and from elsewhere in Germany and neighboring countries (Russian Poland, Austrian Galicia, Moravia and Bohemia) migrated to this dynamic city, considered a trade and cultural crossroad between West and East.

Archival resources in Wroclaw, Poland (modern day Breslau), Warsaw, Berlin, Frankfurt, Jerusalem, London and New York will be discussed.

Topics: Ashkenazic research, Cemetery research, Jewish history and culture, Repositories, Breslau