Anna Eidenbom and her husband Isak came to Norway around the year 1900. They were in many ways representative of the Jews who left partitioned Poland for Norway at that time. Both in Rajgrod and in Bergen, historians have found interesting information about Anna and her family.
Historian Per Kristian Sebak has written extensively about the family in his book on the Jewish history of Bergen.
Anna Goldfarb and her four brothers, Leopold, David, Josef and Salomon, grew up in a spacious house on Rajgrod’s Warszawska Street, where their parents ran a guesthouse. In her teens, Anna worked in the guesthouse, while her brother Leopold moved to Scandinavia. Isak Eidenbom, Leopold’s friend who had always held a special place in Anna’s heart, also left Rajgrod and went to Bergen, Norway.
The Goldfarb family’s home on Warszawska Street. The house was identified by local historian Janusz Sobolewski.
Photo: Oslo Jewish Museum.
When Anna was 19, in 1902, she met Isak again in the nearby town of Prostken, which was located on the German side of the border. Isak was visiting briefly from Norway, but as he was still a Russian citizen, he did not dare to visit Rajgrod across the border in Russia. If he were discovered there, he could be forced to join the Russian army for several years.
Isak Eidenbom, ca. 1903 og Anna Eidenbom, 1915.
Photo: Per Eidenbom / Ole Philipson og Kirsten Nielsen.
Isak had to return to Norway, but the couple braved the distance and got married in Prostken the following summer. Anna joined Isak in Norway, and together they started their new life in Bergen. Several acquaintances from Rajgrod had by then settled in Bergen, and eventually Anna’s four brothers all came to live there.
Bergen around the turn of the century.
Anna was especially close to her brother Leopold, with whom she had both social and professional relations. Leopold and Isak both ran clothing stores in Bergen, and Anna was the formal owner of several of their businesses.
Isak Eidenbom and Leopold Goldfarb, Bergen, 1903.
Photo: Kirsten Nielsen.
Though Isak could not cross the Russian border, the young family kept in touch with their relatives in Rajgrod. In the spring of 1904, Isak’s mother Rena came to visit them in Norway.
In 1922, Anna and her brother Leopold visited their hometown, Rajgrod. The previous year, Leopold had been granted Norwegian citizenship. For Isak, this process took longer – he and Anna only became Norwegian in 1936, 33 years after Isak had filed the application.
(The thorough documentation required by the citizenship process is one of the reasons we know so much about this family’s background, explains historian Per Kristian Sebak, who has written extensively on the Eidenbom family in his book about the Jews of Bergen.)
The thorough documentation that Isak had to provide when applying for citizenship is one of the reasons why there is so much information available about the family and their background, according to historian Per Kristian Sebak.
Anna with her daughters Dora and Berta in Bergen in the 1920s.
Photo: Kirsten Nielsen.
The period after the Nazi invasion of Norway in April 1940 was a dramatic one for the Eidenbom family. Their son Alexander was active in the resistance movement and managed to leave for England in 1941. There, he joined the Norwegian air force and flew bombing raids over Germany.
Alexander Eidenbom in the 1930s. Photo: Per Eidenbom.
At the time, Anna, her daughters and four grandchildren were in Denmark. Isak, still in Norway, was taken in at the Luster Sanatorium. To prevent him from being arrested and deported by the Nazis, the Norwegian doctors claimed that he suffered from tuberculosis and falsified his x-rays. The doctors produced false medical records of his condition until Germany had lost the war.
Luster sanatorium
In the fall of 1943, the year after the Nazis had arrested and deported Jews from Norway, the same thing was about to happen in Denmark. This time, however, the Jews were thoroughly warned, and comprehensive rescue missions were organized. Anna and all her family members in Denmark were brought across the Øresund Straight by boat and into safety in Sweden.
Photo taken by a Danish Jewish refugee during the escape to Sweden.
Photo: The Museum of Danish Resistance during World War II.
In June 1945, one month after the war ended, the Eidenbom family reunited in Copenhagen.
Dora and Alexander Eidenbom reunited in Copenhagen.
Photo: Oslo Jewish Museum.
After the war, Anna and Isak remained in Denmark. Their daughters lived in Copenhagen, while their son Alexander returned to Bergen, reopened his shop and named it «Eidenbom». Isak died in May of 1956. Anna passed away the same fall.
POLISH CONTACT
Museum of the History of Polish Jews
6 Mordechaja Anielewicza St.
00-157 Warsaw
Poland
polin@polin.pl
www.polin.pl
NORWEGIAN CONTACT
Oslo Jewish Museum
Calmeyersgate 15 B
NO-0183 Oslo
Norway
post@jodiskmuseumoslo.no
www.jodiskmuseumoslo.no
WEBMASTER
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