Notizen zu dieser Person
Birth:
She was born in the village Mikstat, which is near Ostrzeszow in the province Kalisz in Poland at 3 a.m. on the 12th of January 1890. Her parents were Antoni and Marianna Joks. (D1)
Teresa Mierzchala (a daughter of Bronislaw Kaszubowski) told me that she was born in her parents' farmhouse at No. 17 Grabowska Street (ul. Grabowska 17) in Mikstat.
Whilst under German control Mikstat was called Mixstadt, Ostrzeszow was called Schildberg and the province was called Posen (Poznan).
In early times, this village was called Komorowo. The earliest document in which it is mentioned, is from the 14th century. Later the village was renamed to Mikstat. This name is an old form of the German word Mückenstadt. It appears that later its name was wrongly translated from the word Mikstat into the modern German word Mixstadt. In 1590 Zygmunt II gave Mikstat the right to hold four markets a year. The catholic Sw. Trojcy church was built there from stone in 1599 and dismantled in 1913. In 1619 its citizens built a hospital. In 1788 the wooden Catholic church Sw. Rocha was built in the cemetery. In 1871 Mikstat had 1437 inhabitants. 1249 were catholic, 152 were Jewish and 36 Lutheran. In 1910 it had a court, a registry, a police station, two catholic churches, a synagogue, a library, a bank, an abattoir and horse, cattle and general markets. It also has an elementary school. The Sw. Trojcy church was rebuilt in 1918.
Prior to 1793 Mikstat was a part of Poland. From 1793 until 1807 it was Prussian. From 1807 until 1815 it was French under the control of Napoleon. From 1815 until 1918 it was Prussian/German. After 1918 it became part of Poland again.
Hence Veronika Joks had German citizenship.
Childhood and Youth:
Danusia Matysiak from Grabow in Poland wrote to me that Veronika Joks grew up on her father's small farm in Mikstat.
In 1900, according to court records in Ostrzeszow the German administration forced the Joks family of their property and auctioned the land. See notes under Lucja Siankiewicz.
In the early part of the 20th century, several factories were built in Blumenthal, which is now a suburb of Bremen. The sons and daughters of the local farmers did not want to work there. The managers of the factories sent envoys to the Konitz area in what was then West Prussia (Konitz is now called Chojnice; that part of West Prussia is now the Polish province Bydgoszcz) and the Ostrowo area in what was then Posen (Ostrowo is now called Ostrow; that part of Posen is now the Polish province Kalisz), to recruit workers.
Julianna Moska wrote to me that her brothers Ignacy Joks and Wenceslaus Joks (he was called Max in Bremen) moved, when they were young men, to Blumenthal to work. Veronika Joks and here sister Pelagia followed soon afterwards.
Veronika Joks probably arrived in Blumenthal in 1910.
First Marriage:
Veronika Joks met a man named Peter Kaszubowski.
She married him in Blumenthal on the 22nd of October 1910. She was 5 months pregnant. He was working in a dockyard there. He was born in the village Lubnia in the Brusy parish near Chojnice in the province Bydgoszcz in Poland (then part of West Prussia) on the 28th of April 1889. His parents were Johann and Anna Kaszubowski. (B3)
Veronika Kaszubowski gave birth to her first child, Bruno (Polish: Bronislaw) on the 1st of February 1911 in Blumenthal.
The couple separated in the middle of 1911. (B1)
Teresa Mierzchala, who lives in Ostrow in Poland and is a daughter of Bronislaw Kaszubowski, wrote to me that Veronika Kaszubowski took her son to her parents in Mikstat soon after the separation. Bronislaw was three months old. It was the middle of 1911.
She returned to North Western Germany on the 21st of April 1912 and settled in Bremen. (B8)
According to the Address Books of Bremen, Veronika Kaszubowski lived in No 3, Brand Straße in Bremen in 1912 and 1913.
De Facto Relationship:
According to a 'Meldeamt' record in Bremen, a man named Ludwig Rachfalak arrived in Bremen from Poland on the 13th of September 1913. Veronika Kaszubowski gave birth to Johann on the 27th of December 1914 in a flat in No. 53, Zwingli Straße in Bremen. Stephan Rachfalak told me that he recalls Ludwig Rachfalak saying to him and Johann Kaszubowski, when they were boys, that Ludwig Rachfalak fathered Johann Kaszubowski.
It is possible that Veronika Kaszubowski nee Joks had met Ludwig Rachfalak earlier. They grew up in villages in Poland that are only 20 km apart! It is possible that they met in their youth, even before Veronika Kaszubowski married her first husband. It is also possible that she met Ludwig Rachfalak at the end of 1911 or early 1912 when she took her son Bruno to Mikstat. Perhaps Ludwig Rachfalak followed her to Bremen.
World War I broke out in July 1914.
In June 1916 they moved into a flat in the top storey in a building at Münchener Straße 64. (B8)
Veronika Kaszubowski had three more children from the de facto relationship.
Second Marriage:
On the 22nd of July 1920 Veronika Kaszubowski was granted a divorce from Peter Kaszubowski in the civil court in Verden near Bremen. (Note on their wedding certificate in the Bremen-Nord registry)
On the 21st of May 1921 Ludwig Rachfalak married Veronika Kaszubowski in Bremen. (B1)
Veronika Rachfalak had four more children. (B1)
In September 1939 World War II broke out.
The war ended in May 1945.
After the war ended, most people in Bremen had very little to eat and no or little wood or coal for heating.
Retirement:
In August 1954 Ludwig Rachfalak retired.
Death:
Veronika Rachfalak died at 3.10 a.m. on the 29th of January 1970 in the nursing home in 156 Schwachhauser Heerstraße in Bremen. She was 80 years old. (B1)
She left behind eight adult children.
Julianna Moska wrote in the 1980s that Veronika Joks was a very gentle woman.
Other Information:
Teresa Mierzchala from Ostrow Wielkopolski wrote to me that Franciszka Dombek had told her that Peter Kaszubowski was a sea captain and that he died when the ship sank. I believe that Teresa Mierzchala is a modest and trustworthy woman. I think little of the Dombek family.
Guenter
Koerner
