Stuart Shaw
(Australia, Sydney)
SHROOG FAMILY IN GORI-GORKI
Shroog Family in Gori-Gorki approx. 1912.
Back Row Standing: Raizel Shroog, Avraham Sloutzky, his wife, Marussia (Shroog), Sima Shroog.
Front Row: Mischa Shroog, Hannah Shroog, baby Alexander Sloutzky, Joshua Shroog ,Samuel Shroog, Paul Shroog.
My great grand parents were Joshua Shroog b: 1860 & Hannah Peseck, b.1864.
Joshua was a grain and flax merchant in Gori-Gorki.
He had a produce store in Ulitza Orshanskaya, which was a street in Gorki where a lot of Jewish stores were located.
Joshua and Hannah had 10 children:
1. Firstborn was Leon (Leib Yehuda).
2. Jacob
3. Rebecca
4. Paul (Pinchus)
5. Marussia
6. Michael (Mischa)
7. Raizel
8. Sima
9. Aharon
10. Shmuel (Mulia)
Leon (My grandfather) b. 25 Dec 1882, in 1908-1909, travelled across Siberia to Kamchatka, then to Harbin in China.
Mischa Shroog with his army unit.
Mischa Shroog.
He stayed nine months in Harbin before coming to Australia, arriving in Brisbane QLD on 1st May, 1910.
He started off as a hawker going from door to door, then saved enough money to open a drapery store in a small town in outback Queensland.
he went on to open other stores in a number of country towns in NSW.
Jacob, b. 22 August 1884. Left Gorki in 1895 at the age of 11 to go to Baku to try & find work on the oilfields there. After being in Baku for a few years, he became involved in politics & joined the local Bund.
In 1906, a limited strike was called by some of the workers in Baku. When the workers took to the street, they were fired on by Czarist soldiers from the local garrison. Jacob was shot in the leg & fell to the ground. Some of his comrades were able to smuggle him away & he was taken to a port on the Black Sea, where he boarded a ship bound for America.
Marussia aged 19.
Samuel Shroog, Sima Shroog,
& Aharon Shroog in Gori-Gorki.
He stayed in America for five years before coming to Australia in February, 1911, to meet his brother Leon, who had arrived the previous year. Started off working in Sydney as a boilermaker, then with his wife Sara, went into the hotel business, at which he was very successful.
Rebecca b.1886
Went to America in 1909 to join her brother, Jacob. There, she met her future husband, Jacob Bogin from Minsk. They travelled together to Australia, along with Rebecca's brother Jacob, arriving in Brisbane in February, 1911.
Pinchus b. 1888. Was an engineer, moved to Baku to find work & join other members of the family. For a while, he was the station master on the railway. He also ran a vodka distillery. Left Baku in 1924 to join other family members in Australia.
Michael (Mischa) b. 1891 Served in the Russian Imperial army in the First World War. Was killed by a sniper's bullet, 14 September, 1916, while serving on the eastern front.
Marussia b. 17 June 1889. Wanted to train as a midwife at a teaching hospital in Gorki, but was refused entry because of anti-semitic laws in force at the time. after buying false identity papers, she was able to enrol at a hospital in Odessa to train as a midwife.
Later, in 1911 she married Avraham Sloutzky, a wealthy engineer from Mogilev. They settled in Baku. They left Baku in 1924 to travel to Australia with some other members of the family. They arrived in Sydney, Australia on 19th March,1925.
Raizel b. 1895 Left Gorki in 1922 to travel to Australia with her father, Joshua & younger brother Shmuel.
Samuel Shroog.
Samuel Shroog with his class at the Goretski Agricultural Institute in 1921.
Sam is standing in the back row, second from the right.
Sima b. 18 April, 1897. She also went to Baku to help her sister Marussia look after her children. She married Jacob Manevitch from Mogilev in Baku & her first & only child, Evgenia, was born there. They also left Baku in 1924, to travel to Australia with some other family members.
Aharon b.1898 Was an electrician. Travelled to Baku to join his brother Paul. Later, in 1920,. he travelled to Tashkent where he worked as a film projectionist. He met his wife, Paula Green, there & they married in 1920. Their first daughter, Hannah, was born in Tashkent 1922.
They left Tashkent in 1924 to travel to Australia with the rest of the family.
Shmuel, b.10 July 1899.
Studied at the Goretski Agricultural Institute in Gorki in 1921.
Hannah & Joshua Shroog.
In April 1922, he was given permission by the institute to travel to Australia to study local conditions in agriculture, as well as cattle & horses, with special attention to sheep & wool. He travelled to Australia in 1922 with his father, Joshua & sister Raizel.
He later became a successful wool buyer & exporter in Australia.
On 21 August 1921, Joshua Shroog wrote a letter (in Yiddish) to his eldest son, Leon, in Australia about the hard conditions in Gorki at the time. He said potatoes & butter were very expensive, as well as boots.
There had been no rain for a long time & people were afraid for their crops. Times were not good, there were many bandits & many people were getting killed.
|
|
ENG 
