On 22 January 1907, Franciszek Frischman married Wanda Maria Grochowicz, the daughter of Judge Teofil Grochowicz and Aurelia Placyda Lorek.

Marriage record of Wanda, nee Grochowicz, and Franciszek Frischman, 1907.

Their marriage brought them four children:

1. Zofia, born in 1907 in Dynów, died on 14 January 1908, also in Dynów.
2. Kazimierz Stanisław Adolf, born on 27 February 1909 in Dynów, died on 17 July 1995 in Warsaw.

Kazimierz Baraniecki, 1925.

Kazimierz Baraniecki, 1930.

3. Barbara Maria, born on 21 October 1911 in Dynów, died on 16 July 2002 in Łódź.

In 1947, she emigrated with her husband Karol and their two sons.

4. Stanisław, born on 4 March 1922 in Dynów, died on 27 January 1941 in the Auschwitz concentration camp.

Stanisław (Staszek) Baraniecki

Back row: Barbara Baraniecka, Kazimierz Baraniecki and Franciszek Baraniecki.

Even before his marriage, Franciszek began building a new house in Dynów.

Around 1890, a long series of business dealings began, culminating in the demolition of the old, two-hundred-year-old house in 1902 and the start of construction of a new one.

The building work was carried out in three stages:

1. 1903 — the pharmacy section, with living quarters upstairs.
2. 1909 — the addition of a matching section on the southern side.
3. 1923 — the addition of a section on the northern side, housing a shop. Nearly fifty years later, this section was bought by a certain Kazimierz Majda.

It was an enormous investment, for which the money was somehow found.

The documents show that Grandpa Franio took out mortgage loans, but not enough to cover the construction. After all, what was a loan of 8,000 crowns from the local savings and loan institution compared with a building valuation of more than 40,000 crowns?

During this period, in 1911, Wanda Salomea also transferred her entire estate — all the Baraniecki family’s real property — to her son Franciszek.

The transfer obliged Franciszek to pay out his siblings’ shares. The sum came to 28,000 crowns.

To meet this obligation, Franciszek borrowed substantial sums from his uncle Władysław, who agreed to accept the same rate of interest as he received at the bank.

A few years later, Franciszek decided to add a matching section to the house.

To do so, he had to purchase the adjoining plot.

This plot had long belonged to the Jewish Kalter family, specifically to Leiba Izaak Kalter, who became its sole owner in 1906 through a series of family agreements.

That same year, under a contract dated 8 August 1906, he sold it to Franciszek Frischman.

The matter was not quite so simple, however, because the legal work of “clearing” the Kalters’ title continued until the very last moment.

I give a detailed account of these transactions in Appendix VII.

By 26 October 1917, Franciszek had paid off all the debts associated with the construction, and the property was free of debt.

One might call that impressive. Besides meeting the cost of building what were effectively two houses, and settling with his mother and siblings — 28,000 crowns for Zofia’s daughters, Wanda and Zofia, as well as Stanisław and Filip — Grandpa also managed to clear the debts secured against the property.

I find Franciszek’s energy quite extraordinary.

Building two houses was not enough for him.

Both then and later, he also lent money to people all around him, registered claims against their properties, and received promissory notes. Eventually, on the plots purchased from Chana Mindla, he decided to build the third section of our house on the Market Square.

This third section housed a shop and was later bought by Kazimierz Majda.

Building the house — or rather, the houses — was the most important of the many investments Grandpa undertook during the first twenty-five years of the century.

Through these activities, the Frischmans grew in strength.

In 1918, Franciszek, along with millions of others, lived to see an independent Poland!

Enthusiasm, boundless joy, entirely new challenges, a new way of life — everything!

It was a new country!

It was then that he decided to give up his German surname and take his mother’s.

On 4 October 1989, my Father explained the circumstances to me in a letter:

“In one of your letters, you ask about the change of surname. Grandpa Franio was a great Polish patriot. As soon as Poland regained its independence, his German surname no longer suited him.

He wanted to take his mother’s surname.

The name that had been associated with the pharmacy from its beginnings.

In his heart, he considered himself a Baraniecki.

To make everything legal and proper, it was done through adoption.”

In those days, a person without children of their own could adopt.

Franciszek’s uncle Władysław Baraniecki — the brother of his mother, Wanda Salomea — was a childless bachelor, so he was eligible.

At the same time, Franciszek’s brother Filip, encouraged by Franciszek’s actions, decided to do the same.

He was adopted by his aunt, Felicja Baraniecka.

I include all the documents concerning this matter in Appendix VIII.

Franciszek’s grandfather, Feliks Baraniecki, had engaged in various property dealings, lent money, registered claims against properties and increased his holdings. Franciszek, and his mother before him, did all this on an incomparably greater scale!

Between 1895 and 1938, Wanda Salomea and then Franciszek carried out so many property purchases and sales, and so many related financial transactions, that merely listing them would be quite a challenge.

Buying building plots and farmland, lending money against mortgages, and, in addition — though this was really a minor matter — continually buying paintings: it was a never-ending round of activity.

My Father often took a sceptical view of his own father’s actions, but he thought very highly of the adoption and the change of surname:

“Yes, it is true that some of Grandpa’s decisions were misguided and old-fashioned. But in this decision — changing from his father’s surname to his mother’s — he showed just how progressive and far-sighted he could be!

It was an enlightened decision, made with an eye to the future!

The name Frischman was perfectly suitable in Austrian times, but in the new Poland it was becoming unpopular.

And for that we owe Grandpa our gratitude!”

My Father, Kazimierz, the eldest son of Franciszek and Wanda, followed a path that seemed almost natural in our family.

He became a pharmacist.

He was yet another member of the family to enter this profession. Wojciech Okoński, Feliks Baraniecki, August Frischman, Franciszek Frischman-Baraniecki — and now he.

And, like his father and grandfather, he studied at the Jagiellonian University.

On 29 September 1927, he began his studies in the Pharmacy Division of the university’s Faculty of Philosophy.

Three years later, on 20 October 1930, he completed them, receiving the degree of Master of Pharmacy.

After graduating, following the custom of the time, he began a series of practical placements to prepare himself more thoroughly for taking over a pharmacy of his own.

I list these places of employment in Appendix XIII.

On 8 February 1945, Franciszek Baraniecki and Kazimierz Baraniecki applied to the District Administration in Brzozów for permission for Kazimierz to manage the pharmacy in Dynów.

Permission was granted.

Franciszek also transferred to Kazimierz his druggist’s shop at 7 Mickiewicza Street in Dynów.

The shop had been his since 12 September 1913, when the Imperial and Royal District Administration in Brzozów granted him a licence to operate it.

On 3 December 1938, the District Administration in Brzozów also authorised him to sell poisons and products containing poisons in the shop.

This authorisation was granted under a ministerial regulation dated 21 April 1876.

Later, on 9 February 1944, during the German occupation, the district governor in Krosno — Der Kreishauptmann, in the Kraków District of the General Government — confirmed the licence.

Following Franciszek Baraniecki’s transfer of the pharmacy and the druggist’s shop to Kazimierz Baraniecki on 24 January 1945, the licence was transferred to Kazimierz on 22 March 1945.

On 6 May 1940, Franciszek Baraniecki’s second son, Stanisław, was arrested by the Germans in Dynów. He was taken to Tarnów and then sent, on the first transport, to the newly established Auschwitz concentration camp, where he was assigned prisoner number 208.

Before the outbreak of war, Stanisław had attended the private Jesuit secondary school in Bąkowice near Chyrów.

He died on 27 January 1941, tortured to death by the Germans, but the news reached Dynów only later.

Here is a recollection of him written by my sister, Maria Baraniecka-Witkowska.

A secondary-school graduate, not quite nineteen, a cheerful “life and soul of the party”, a carefree boy.

He was the youngest son of Wanda and Franciszek Baraniecki, born on 4 March 1922.

After a rather unsuccessful stay at the Jesuit boarding school in Chyrów, now in Ukraine — Staszek disliked its strict discipline — he went to live with his Grochowicz grandparents in Przemyśl. It was there, probably at the Słowacki Secondary School, that he passed his school-leaving examinations in 1939.

We do not know what his plans were.

He spent the summer before the war going on outings, socialising and playing sports. In one of the surviving photographs, he is standing with friends beside the ship Batory.

We know nothing more about Staszek during the first year of the war.

In May 1940, the tragedy began.

Staszek, together with several other boys from educated families in Dynów, was arrested by the Gestapo and taken with the others by lorry to the prison in Tarnów. From there, on 14 June, they were sent to the newly established Auschwitz concentration camp and placed in the “care” of brutal German prisoners. Staszek was given number 208. This was the first transport of prisoners.

Then began the ordeal described by the few who survived…

But the Germans kept up appearances. Staszek sent his parents a few letters, naturally in German, saying that he was healthy, that he had received the parcel (??), and that he lacked nothing. I have included one of these letters.

With virtually no information available — radios had been confiscated at the beginning of the war, and the newspapers were Nazi propaganda sheets (??) — receiving such letters offered a little hope and eased their fears. But no one had any idea what this Auschwitz concentration camp was…

Then came the terrible, freezing winter of 1940–41. Staszek worked in the electricians’ work detail, as Cardinal Adam Kozłowiecki mentions in his book Ucisk i strapienie, on page 146.

What had he “done wrong”? How had he angered the kapo? According to the accounts of Władysław Fuksa and Tadeusz Krupiński, held in the archives of the Auschwitz Museum, he was savagely beaten, doused with water in the freezing cold, and died in agony. It was 27 January 1941. His parents received a telegram two days later. Horror, despair, unanswered questions…

And that was how things remained. No one spoke about Staszek. Only a large photograph on the dining-room wall recalled him. His parents remained in mourning until their deaths in 1955 and 1971. They never knew the full truth, saying only: “He died of cold and hunger.”

Staszek’s older brother, our Father, learned the details from a fellow prisoner, Mr Wyszatycki, who had survived the camp. Thank God he kept them secret until his parents had died.

To us, his nieces and nephews born after the war, Staszek was an unknown figure whose fate, like that of so many others, had been sealed by the war. With the adults remaining silent, we felt we must not ask.

Stanisław (Staszek) Baraniecki – photographs from the family archive.

Staszek Baraniecki’s letter from Auschwitz, sated 28 July 1940 – original.

Auschwitz, 28 July 1940

Dear Mother!

I am writing to let you know that I am healthy, and I hope this letter finds you in the best of health. I am here in the camp at Auschwitz and am feeling well. Please note that money can only be sent in German currency, and letters must be written only in German. When sending letters, please follow the regulations printed on the envelope.

I send warm greetings and kisses to you and everyone at home.

Stanisław

8 September 1940

Dear Mother!

I have received your second letter. It made me very happy. I am pleased. Your second letter crossed with my last one. Money can only be sent here in RM. Write only about what is happening at home.

Please have everyone sign at the end of the letter. That gives me great joy. I am healthy and am getting along quite well. Warm greetings to you all. Until we see each other again.

Staszek

Telegram

German Post East

Telegram sent from Auschwitz
31/29 — 29 January — 20:02

Telegram received
30 January 1941 — 08:07
in Reichshof [Rzeszów]

Franciszek Baraniecki
Dynów
Rynek 10
Brzozów district

Your son Stanisław died today in the concentration camp at Auschwitz, as confirmed by the command of the Security Police and Police (?) of the Kraków district (?).

Camp Commandant

The remaining letters Stanisław sent from the camp, together with further information about him, are included in Appendix IX.

During the German occupation, the Pharmacy continued to operate as usual. But besides the terrible tragedy of the imprisonment and killing of Franciszek and Wanda’s youngest son, Stanisław, three other events shook our Home.

Here they are, as recorded by Franciszek Baraniecki.

The first incident:

30 September 1943. At 7:30 in the evening, while we were sitting at supper, two masked thugs came in with revolvers in their hands. They robbed us of two watches and two rings, and took Basia’s cash. They took everything from the safe. Present at supper were Wandzia, Basia, Mrs Kamińska, Wojtuś, Andzio, Kazio and myself. The robbery lasted forty minutes. I was forced to open the safe. One of these two thugs was — this has been established — Józef Koczyło [or perhaps Koryto — Grandpa’s tiny handwriting is difficult to read] from Pawłokoma, who was shot dead some time later.

The second incident:

16 November 1946. At about half past ten in the evening, Ukrainians burst into the pharmacy. In three successive raids, there were about a hundred thugs each time [this part of the sentence is very difficult to read]. They completely stripped three (?) rooms in the pharmacy of all medicinal preparations, [illegible word], and several dozen pharmacy vessels. Among these robbers were two doctors and one Master of Pharmacy. About ten to fifteen shops were also completely looted, and several people were shot dead. They also took our books, records kept over many years, and ten volumes of the Encyclopaedia. They smashed a window in the pharmacy and destroyed the blinds. There was very heavy rain and mud at the time.

The third incident:

During the night of 23–24 August 1948, robbers broke into seven tombs in the new Cemetery, including ours. They moved my late Mother’s coffin aside. An iron bar above the coffin (?) prevented them from opening it. Aunt Fela’s coffin remained in its place but had been disturbed. The perpetrators were never found.

A detailed account of the UPA attack on Dynów is included in Appendix XI.

I should add that before the war and into the early 1940s, besides his regular work in the pharmacy, our Father was also a co-owner of a factory producing shoe trees and shoemakers’ lasts, known as the “Kopyciarnia”.

The factory had been established in the 1920s and continued under that name until the 1960s, when it became “Zakład Drzewny”, and later “Respan”.

Father sold his share in the factory in 1942.

In return for the Pharmacy and the druggist’s shop, which had been given to him, my Father undertook to support his parents, Franciszek and Wanda Baraniecki, for the rest of their lives.

On 21 January 1945, Kazimierz married Małgorzata Paygert, born on 10 June 1922, the daughter of Józef Kalasanty Paygert and Józefa, née Trzecieska.

The Prus I coat of arms of the Paygert family. The Strzemię coat of arms of the Trzecieski family.

Kazimierz Baraniecki owned the Pharmacy until 8 January 1951, when it was nationalised. Almost exactly six years.

What happened to the druggist’s shop — I do not know. Whether Father sold it or whether it was seized, like his Pharmacy — I do not know.

Kazimierz’s younger sister, Barbara, who was married to Karol Kaszycki, left Poland in 1947 with her sons, Wojtek and Andrzej. They went first to Germany and then to England. From there, on 18 January 1952, the entire Kaszycki family sailed to the United States to begin a new life.

On 5 September 1948, Father was called up for military service and left for Łódź.

Kazimierz Baraniecki, 1949.

On 14 November, he returned for three days, and on 17 November he left for Lublin.

He served in Lublin from 17 November 1948 to 17 June 1949. From 26 June to 23 December, he served in Oksywie, Gdynia.

On 18 October 1948, my Mother received a notice from the Municipal Administration in Dynów stating that, as the wife of an officer in the Polish Army, she was entitled to a Category I ration card. The children — Maria, born on 10 April 1946, and Marek, born on 31 March 1948 — were entitled to ration cards in Category “I.R.D3”.

During his approximately fifteen months of military service, Father worked for nine months as a pharmacist, three months as an accounting clerk, and three months as a dispatch clerk.

When he received his first officer’s rank, that of second lieutenant — I do not know. In any case, when his military identity card was issued on 1 January 1949, he was already a lieutenant.

My Mother, Małgorzata Baraniecka, née Paygert, had been employed at the pharmacy since 21 January 1945, preparing labels. She also prepared prescriptions.

In October 1951, she was nominated by the Central Administration of Public Pharmacies for a pharmacy assistants’ course. But on 10 April 1953, the Administration decided not to admit her to the correspondence course for prospective pharmacy technicians.

The realities of those days are well illustrated by the notes my grandfather, Franciszek Baraniecki, made at the time.

Here they are:

On 16 November 1950, the pharmacy was robbed once again. Two tax officials came. They carried out a thorough search of the pharmacy. They took all the money Kazio had in his private home. They ordered me to open the Wertheim safe. Fortunately, they found nothing.

And another entry, about the nationalisation of the pharmacy:

9 January 1951. At about eight in the morning, while I was at church, four tax officials from Brzozów descended on the pharmacy with the news that it was being nationalised. After making a detailed inventory of all its stocks and equipment, they left at about three in the afternoon. One can imagine the effect this bolt from the blue had on us. Whether we shall be able to remain in our private living quarters is unknown. As Kazio, until now the owner and manager of the pharmacy, will henceforth receive only a monthly salary, the substantial (?) income I had been receiving has been brought to an end.

My Father remained at the pharmacy as its manager until 4 March 1980 — twenty-nine years.

On 26 March 1955, Grandpa Franio — Franciszek Baraniecki — died.

Even before Grandpa Franio’s death, the confiscation of the pharmacy through nationalisation was accompanied by other forms of harassment.

One of these was the state’s seizure of the forest in Bartkówka, which Grandpa had held since before the war.

It is an interesting example of the post-war confusion.

On 6 August 1945, acting on an application by Franciszek Baraniecki, the local court in Dynów ordered the restoration of his possession of the thirteen-hectare forest in Bartkówka, which he had owned since 1933.

Under the decree issued by the Polish Committee of National Liberation on 12 December 1944, all forests covering less than twenty-five hectares — including the forest in Bartkówka — were exempt from takeover by the State Treasury.

Nevertheless, probably after the court had issued its ruling, the authorities discovered that Grandpa owned another forest in Wara. Its area, combined with that of the forest in Bartkówka, exceeded twenty-five hectares, so both forests became state property.

They had failed to read that the decree referred to twenty-five hectares within a single forest tract.

Something must have held the matter up, however, because it was not until 8 February 1949 that the State Forests Directorate in Tarnów sent a decision ordering the return of the forest in Bartkówka. As though the court’s ruling of 1945 had never existed.

The forest was restored to Grandpa, but at the same time it was stipulated that:

Since the forest had been administered by the state from 12 December 1944 to 31 December 1948, Franciszek Baraniecki must reimburse the State Treasury for the costs of that administration (!) in the amount of 24,960 złoty.

Grandpa must have paid the sum, because the forest remained ours. In later years, we harvested timber there and had it sawn into boards — naturally, with the required permits, which were by no means easy to obtain.

Franciszek Baraniecki died, and proceedings to settle his estate began soon afterwards. But the matter was not straightforward, because various plots, ownership shares, farmland and forests remained from before the war.

The Jews of Dynów had perished or had managed to leave. There were no witnesses, and above all there was the constant fear that the family would be accused of possessing “riches” and burdened with an enormous tax bill.

That was also when the much-discussed fear arose that tenants would be assigned to live with us. Under the new regulations, our living quarters — on the ground floor and upstairs — were too large.

Nevertheless, there was an estate, and three people had a claim to it:

Franciszek’s widow, Wanda Baraniecka, and her two surviving children:

Kazimierz Baraniecki

and

Barbara Kaszycka, née Baraniecka.

On 9 July 1957, before a notary in Houston, Texas, USA, Barbara Kaszycka signed a declaration stating that she made no claim to her father’s estate, as he had already provided for her during his lifetime.

The original declaration is in my possession.

On 27 February 1962, she also signed a notarised deed of gift, transferring her shares in Franciszek Baraniecki’s estate — particularly her joint ownership interests in the plots of land — to her mother and brother.

In addition, on 9 April 1962, Barbara Kaszycka signed another notarised document granting Małgorzata Baraniecka, née Paygert, power of attorney to represent her in all matters relating, among other things, to Franciszek Baraniecki’s estate.

This power of attorney was extraordinarily broad. It authorised my Mother to manage all of Barbara’s movable and immovable property in Poland, to make all decisions, and to represent Barbara in all matters concerning her.

There is no doubt whatsoever that Grandpa Franio’s death was a tremendous shock to the whole family, both close and extended. Many friends and acquaintances also sent letters of condolence which seem to have been truly heartfelt. Grandpa was widely liked. He was quiet and unassuming, yet a source of strength and support for everyone.

With him, the spirit of a passing era was also disappearing — the era of the privately owned pharmacy that had been his workplace for fifty years.

Settling his estate involved all sorts of complications. From before the war, besides the house containing the pharmacy, Grandpa owned seven plots of land, two forest tracts, a considerable area of farmland, and many movable possessions, including the paintings already discussed at length.

Then came the taxes to be paid, and all this gradually set off a fever of selling things.

During the 1960s, more and more dealers, swindlers and people hunting for all manner of old objects began to appear.

There was also a certain Mr Aleksander Rybicki, who, unlike the others, was a genuine collector, a curator at the museum in Sanok, and a man of considerable merit.

He began visiting us. Our house, still overflowing with old things at the time, was a tempting prospect for Mr Rybicki.

Whether all these sales made sense is difficult to judge today.

Money was needed — that is certain. But Mother was also eager to get rid of the unnecessary burden that was “all on her shoulders”!

She was simply tired of the great, old-fashioned “machine” that was the house in Dynów, its lack of any modern comforts, and its vast accumulation of old clutter.

It all weighed her down.

She was the only person able to manage the building and “do battle” with the Housing Management Fund, which, on behalf of the Presidium of the National Council, administered the “financing of repairs and the restoration of housing stock”.

These were no small matters!

In those days, dealing with government offices was a challenge!

So we sold whatever we could. And since Mr Rybicki always put cash on the table and bargained only modestly, he was always welcome.

Today, looking back over the years, I regret the loss of many of those objects. They could still delight the eye and remind us of “the days of former glory”. But “this is no time to mourn the roses” — what is past is past…

During the proceedings to settle Grandpa Franio’s estate, quite unexpectedly, like a ghost from the past, out of nowhere, the famous Chana Mindla Fränkel, née Weinberger, surfaced once again!

The matter concerned recognition of ownership acquired through long possession of a plot which had belonged to Chana before the war and against which Grandpa Franio had registered his claim.

That claim arose from the $1,000 Grandpa had lent Chana.

In two instalments.

The first on 3 September 1928, and the second on 3 July 1931.

The agreement concluded before the court on 18 December 1935 clearly stipulated that the plot served as security for the loan, which was due for repayment on 31 December 1935.

The debtor — or, rather, the registered owner of the property — Chana Mindla Fränkel, was unable to repay the debt, which, incidentally, considerably exceeded the value of the property. Consequently, in January 1936, the two parties agreed that Franciszek Baraniecki would take ownership of the plot.

Ownership through long possession was eventually recognised, but further difficulties kept arising, because the complicated division of the land on which our house stood created additional problems.

On 17 October 1971, Franciszek Baraniecki’s widow, Wanda Baraniecka, née Grochowicz, died, leaving two heirs: Kazimierz and Barbara.

Barbara Kaszycka, represented by Małgorzata Baraniecka, gave her shares in the estate to Kazimierz.

On 18 September 1971, a conditional deed was drawn up for this purpose, described as a conditional agreement of gift.

The question was whether the National Council would exercise its right of pre-emption.

Such was the law: the state had the first right to purchase any property offered for sale.

The gift took effect, and Kazimierz Baraniecki became the sole owner of the property.

By then, his children had moved to Warsaw, and he himself was approaching the end of forty-three years of work at the pharmacy in Dynów and exactly fifty years as a pharmacist.

On 4 March 1980, Kazimierz Baraniecki ended his professional career and retired.

At the same time, the Municipal National Council in Dynów expressed an interest in purchasing the entire property.

In accordance with the valuation report, the price was set at 458,484 złoty.

The actual value of the property was much higher — 2,439,351 złoty — but its deterioration was taken into account, reducing the price to one-fifth of that amount. This was hardly surprising: more than sixty years of only sporadic maintenance had taken their toll on the building.

After the sale, our Parents moved to Warsaw, bringing the Baraniecki family’s 142 years in Dynów to an end.

After completing their studies, Kazimierz and Małgorzata’s children began working in Warsaw.

In 1969, Maria Baraniecka settled with her family in Michalin, near Warsaw.

In 1980, Marek Baraniecki emigrated to Canada with his family.

In 1984, Marcin Baraniecki also left for Canada with his family.