Student Profile: Hesia Tintpulwer

Hessa may have family relations in the ghetto that she lived, given that they lived in the same area as the apartment complex as she, Alexhof. It seems that she had an older sister, Krause Mirla Tintpulwer, who was 17. Two men who were most likely related to her also lived in the same complex, although in a different home: Abram Tintpulwer, Lajbus Icchok Tintpulwer, and Nachman Tintpulwer, who appears to be the father of Lajbus.

When I googled Hessa Tintpulwer or her other relatives, nothing was shown in the search. However, when I googled just the last name, Tintpulwer, I found an article that mentioned Jakub Tintpulwer. He was the deputy of Salomon Hercberg, who was the chief of the Order Service precinct in Marysin. Marysin was the precinct in which most of the schools, including school #7, Hessa's school, was located. Salomon Hercberg was arrested for hoarding food, money, and valuables from the Jewish residents' homes. He was arrested and deported, along with his family. Because Jakub Tintpulwer was aware of Salomon's actions, he was also arrested. If Tintpulwer was related to Hessa and her family, or the Germans believed they were related because of their shared last name, one can make an educated guess that his family was also arrested. Because a search shows no change of address in the Tintpulwer family, they may have been executed in the Lodz ghetto.

I'm quite interested in the story you found about Jakub. When was he arrested? A further search in the database brings up a Jakob Tyntpulwer, who died on March 18, 1942. The "Chronicle of the Lodz Ghetto" (there's a copy at Gelman) tells the story of Hercberg, and mentions Tyntpulwer, saying that he died of a heart attack. There is no record of his family's having been arrested; moreover, even if they were, his address is quite different from Hessa's, suggesting they were not immediate family.

How did you determine that Moszek is Hessa's father?


Researching this history helps us to discover what we can and cannot know, based upon the records that we have available to us. Attempting to draw any conclusions based on a lack of records is a fallacious path--a lack of records does not necessarily mean that Hessa and her family were executed in the ghetto, it might just mean we don't have those records available to us yet. Information is still coming out of Europe; records are still being found in abandoned apartments, for instance, as they were in Vienna only a few years ago. A lack of known change of address does not mean one did not take place, but instead perhaps that the records taken for the Tintpulwer family did not reference their address because of the reason the records were taken. We strive to make "educated guesses" based on the information we have, not upon speculation and assumption. I cannot confirm this entry because we simply don't know that Hessa and her family were executed.