A space for reflection
If you’re interested in Pittsburgh, the blog Father Pitt offers a wide-ranging collection of photographs of my hometown.
The author remains anonymous, but the site is maintained with care and updated regularly. Each photo is accompanied by thoughtful descriptions, and the entire collection is released to the public domain under a CC0 dedication—making it both a visual resource and a gift to the community.
Abram Enzel was born in Częstochowa, Poland, on June 18, 1916, to Chaim and Faigle Enzel. Chaim worked as a kosher butcher. They had five children — three boys and two girls — with Abram as the firstborn. In 1939, there were 28,500 Jews living in Częstochowa, about 124 miles (200 km) southeast of Warsaw.
The Germans entered Częstochowa on Sunday, September 3, 1939, and persecution of its Jews began immediately. More than 300 Jews were killed the following day, in what became known as “Bloody Monday.” On December 25, 1939, a second pogrom took place, and the Great Synagogue was set on fire. The family survived both pogroms.
On the morning after Yom Kippur in September 1942, Abram was separated from his family. One brother, Nathan, had previously been taken by the Germans to a concentration camp. The rest of Abram’s family was gassed and cremated three days later in Treblinka.
Abram was sent to work in a munitions plant operated by HASAG (Hugo Schneider Aktiengesellschaft-Metalwarenfabrik, Leipzig), one of the largest German industrial companies using concentration camp prisoners to manufacture armaments. HASAG was the third largest such company after I.G. Farben and the Hermann Göring Werke. It operated four camps in Częstochowa, the largest of which — HASAG-Apparatebau — held 7,000 Jewish prisoners. The wages of these forced laborers were paid directly to the SS. Those unfit for work were killed under the policy of Vernichtung durch Arbeit (“extermination through work”). From July 1944 to early 1945, HASAG moved most of its equipment and Jewish workers to Germany. No HASAG personnel were tried by the Allies at Nuremberg.
In 1944, Abram was transferred from HASAG to Gross-Rosen, then to Flossenbürg, and finally to Dachau. One of his most haunting memories was the transfer from Flossenbürg to Dachau with 500 prisoners. In a 1973 Pittsburgh Press interview, Abram recalled: “They made us march at first. But later they herded us like cattle on some old freight cars.” Only 18 of the 500 survived to reach Dachau — Abram among them.
On April 29, 1945, the 42nd and 45th Infantry Divisions and the 20th Armored Division of the U.S. Army liberated Dachau. The next day, Adolf Hitler committed suicide. Abram weighed just 78 pounds at liberation, compared to a healthy 130 pounds before the war.
By June 1946, 2,167 Jews had returned to Częstochowa, but Abram chose not to. He recovered in Germany, ran a grocery store in Bayreuth, and emigrated to the United States in 1951, settling in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
In Pittsburgh, Abram met Dora Weiss, a survivor from Munkács, Czechoslovakia (now Mukačevo, Ukraine). Her parents were murdered in Auschwitz. They married on June 8, 1952, and had one son, David, born January 21, 1955.
Dora died of cancer on July 30, 1958, at age 35. Abram never remarried. He worked at H.J. Heinz before joining the Concordia Club, where he rose from busboy to maître d’. He considered his 30 years there the happiest of his life.
David moved to Washington, D.C., in 1979. Abram retired in 1981 and soon followed. He died on May 10, 1994, in Washington, the capital of the country that had liberated him.
Abram’s oral history is available from the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum and the American Jewish Committee Oral History Collection at the New York Public Library, part of the Dorot Jewish Division’s archive of over 6,000 hours of interviews.
The Concordia Club was a cornerstone of Jewish life in Pittsburgh from the late 19th century until 2009.
In 1874, about forty Jewish men, primarily of German origin, met to form an association “to promote social and literary entertainment among its members,” according to its charter. The first president was Josiah Cohen, a respected teacher, lawyer, and judge. Jacob Eiseman served as president in 1884, the year the club was chartered. Most of its early members — and nearly all of its early officers — belonged to Rodef Shalom Congregation.
Social clubs like the Concordia sprang up across the United States at a time when Jews were routinely denied membership in prominent social and business clubs. In Pittsburgh, for example, the Duquesne Club did not begin admitting Jewish members until 1968. The Concordia Club was sometimes referred to as the “Jewish Duquesne Club.”
The Club’s first home was a rented house on Stockton Avenue in Allegheny City (now Pittsburgh’s North Side). In the late 1870s, a dance hall was added to the building. The Club purchased the property in 1890, later replacing it with a new clubhouse on the same site, built at a cost of about $75,000. Membership at the time numbered 175.
Over the next two decades, the Club grew into a leading social institution for the Jewish community, even as the community shifted eastward toward neighborhoods such as Squirrel Hill. By 1913, more than 95 percent of members lived in Squirrel Hill. That year, the Club moved to a new home on O’Hara Street in the Schenley Farms district of Oakland. Designed by prominent Pittsburgh architect Charles Bickel, the clubhouse was dedicated on Christmas Day, 1913, with a gala banquet. It featured a banquet hall, ballroom, library, lounges, sleeping quarters, billiard rooms, and bowling alleys.
When the building opened, it was considered one of the city’s most opulent, with elegant china, crystal, linens, and lavish floral arrangements. A 1915 Jewish Criterion article described it as “entirely complete with billiard rooms, banquet hall, rest and lounging parlors, reading quarters and sleeping accommodations.” In 1967, the Club added elaborate dark oak paneling salvaged from the Fort Pitt Hotel after its demolition.
The Concordia Club hosted themed dances, vaudeville shows, musical revues, amateur theater productions, and holiday celebrations. It was also the venue for countless private events, remaining a central gathering place for Pittsburgh’s Jewish community. At its peak, membership approached 300. My father worked at the Club for many years, and as an awkward teenager I took ballroom dance classes in its elegant ballroom — shown above in its restored state.
After 135 years, facing declining membership and financial strain, the Club sold the building to the University of Pittsburgh. It closed on December 14, 2009.
Pitt undertook a $5.8 million restoration and renovation, completed in April 2011. The project preserved much of the historic character while creating nearly 35,000 square feet of space to ease shortages in student meeting, event, and office facilities at the William Pitt Union.
Upgrades included a new roof, modernized heating and cooling, improved lighting, and reconfigured interiors. The first floor now houses the oak-paneled lounge and a dining/meeting room. Upstairs, the 450-person ballroom — with its balcony, arched windows, and small stage — was restored, including gold leaf trim, reopened balcony access, and refurbished chandeliers by their original Pittsburgh maker. The basement is used for student organization storage, and the building also houses the Math Assistance Center, the Freshman Studies Program, and the Writing Center.
Pitt’s renovation was remarkably respectful of the Club’s history. The building’s signature oak paneling and elegant ballroom continue to be enjoyed — now by the university community that dominates the Oakland neighborhood.
“My earliest memories of the Concordia Club are of me as a little girl going to family dinners and parties, excited to know that upon entering the foyer I would be greeted with the warmth and safety of a place where the best of memories would be made.”
— Rochelle Sufrin
Sources:
Wikipedia | Historic Pittsburgh | Pittsburgh Jewish Chronicle | RSH Architects | Saying goodbye to the Concordia Club | Father Pitt
In 1954, Giovanni Mineo came to Pittsburgh from Sicily where he had worked as a baker. Riding a street car down Murray Avenue, he found a rental space for his pizzeria at the original location of 2130 Murray Avenue. On September 13, 1958, he introduced pizza to the primarily Jewish Squirrel Hill neighborhood. In the 1970’s, Mineo’s moved next door to the current location of 2128 Murray Avenue and his teenage sons Dominic and Giovanni Jr (“John”) began working with their father. Although Giovanni died in 1996, sons Dominic, John, and manager Gary Robinson hold true to his traditions and recipes.
I grew up eating Mineo’s pizza at least once a week. I loved it as did most students at Taylor Allderdice High School, the local high school.
Now that I live in Washington, I go as often as I can to Giuseppi’s Pizza in Rockville, Maryland for a similar Pittsburgh experience, including lots of Pittsburgh Steelers paraphernalia on the walls.
