By Donald H. Harrison

SAN DIEGO—Is it possible that Joseph Trajman, born in Warsaw on  September 15, 1941, is still alive, perhaps having grown up in Poland believing his name was Jurek? Or, was he one of the six million Jewish victims of the Holocaust?  His mother, Renny (Grynblatt) (Trajman) Kurshenbaum of Chicago, has never given up hope that he might somehow have survived.  

Joseph's half-brother, Dr. Howard Kurshenbaum of San Diego, has commissioned a one-woman play about his mother's life.  He has arranged to have a performance of the play videoed, and plans to put the video up on the internet in the hope that someone will recognize either his mother, aunt, or  brother, and be able to answer the family's questions about what happened to Joseph.


Joseph Trajman, about 2 in 1943;  his mother, Renny (Grynblatt) Trajman and her sister-in-law Brakha (Trajman) Fruman. While Renny worked at a farm,  she left Joseph in the care of Brakha, who in turn  placed Joseph with a Jewish woman named Chunka, who because she was blonde, had been  able to pass as a Pole. The fates of both Chunka and Joseph are mysteries that Renny and her second family hope can be resolved by circulation of a one-woman play.

Kurshenbaum, a dermatologist, said even if Joseph is not found, the play written by Janet S. Tiger will serve  important purposes. Renny's Story portrays tragedy, struggle, and the human capacity for recovery from even the most difficult of situations, he noted. Additionally, it  presents one Holocaust survivor's life in dramatic fashion, providing a vehicle for the personal side of the Holocaust to be presented on stage again and again, even after the last of the Holocaust Survivors dies.

In an as-told to book by Tiger, which later became the basis of the one-woman play,  Renny recounted what was known of Joseph's  fate. Tiger spelled names phonetically accounting for a variation between Renny's account and records at Yad Vashem listing her as a witness.

Said Renny:  "I left her with my sister-in-law, Bronka (Brakha), because her husband, Alek, was a big shot!  The Germans needed her husband—to help round up all the Jews. But at least Bronka and her family were safe because of him. And he helped me get the fake passport, so he did have some influence. Friends are very important—Bronka's husband had a friend, a high German official. On the day of the deportations, his friend told Alek to run, run away...and so he did, and as Alek ran his friend shot him in the back.  We found a home for my baby with a Polish family, but when they found out Joseph was circumcised, they didn't want him. You couldn't blame them, if the Germans caught anyone hiding a Jew, they killed the whole family. 

"So Bronka was looking for another place for my son.  She gave my son to Chunka who was blond and didn't look so Jewish. I was in Warsaw for two days. When I came back to Stazow, the deportations were over!  They had collected the Jews early!  Rumors and information were often wrong in those days. Unfortunately, they were often right. I looked everywhere for Joseph, I asked the people--Did Bronka have a baby with her? Was my Joseph on the train?  The people said, "All the women and children were on the train."  Did you see my Joseph?  They couldn't be sure. ..Did he die in a gas chamber? I don't know. There was no record of a Joseph on any of the lists after the war. I went back and looked for him, but I could never find him."

Bronka (Brakha) survived the war and went to Israel, where she filed a report with the Yad Vashem Holocaust Museum and Memorial about her brother Aaron's murder by the Nazis in 1943.  But she was unable to provide no details about the final fate of Joseph.

Tiger whose Holocaust  play The Affidavit is included in Norman Bert's One Act Plays for Acting Students, and who has a long list of other dramatic works to her credit, was introduced to Kurshenbaum by her brother.  Originally, he simply wanted a book written, but she persuaded him the story was well-suited for a play. Tiger recruited as the director Diane Shea, a San Diegan with whom she had previously collaborated on The Waiting Room, a play about the invasion of Austria; The Second Battle of Hobson's Choice, about the murder of a bully, and Transfusion, about AIDS.

They advertised in The San Diego Jewish Times for an actress, eventually selecting Kimberly Kaplan for the role.  Kaplan, herself a private drama teacher, practiced Renny's Polish accent by watching Meryl Streep in Sophie's Choice.  When she read for the part, Tiger and Shea enthusiastically told her, "the only way you won't get the part is if Meryl Streep herself comes through the door." 

Tiger said she is arranging for a San Diego-area venue for the play to be shown within the next few months. She and Howard Kurshenbaum have been double-checking facts with Renny, aware that the more specificity she can provide about Joseph, the higher the chances that someone's memory will be triggered.

During the war, Renny survived by passing herself off as a Polish farm girl, using the alias Vincintina Glodek.  She called her son "Jurek" instead of "Joseph" and spoke to him in Polish rather than in Yiddish.  Through an intermediary, she obtained a job as a servant to the Prokopowicz family in Warsaw.  While Renny worked, her son remained in Radomsko with her sister-in-law—until that day when, for safety's sake, he was placed in another's care. The child may have been given a new name, or perhaps been referred to by  the alias Jurek Glodek.

So many years later, Howard Kurshenbaum realizes he may never learn what happened to Joseph.  Yet, there is the slimmest of possibilities that a man who is his half-brother may be alive in Poland.  

Besides providing the details about the mystery of Joseph Trajman's whereabouts, the play retells Renny's story of survival. Notwithstanding the grimness of the overall tale, the play has its moments of bittersweet humor.