Forum | PolishOrigins :: View topic - Orawski/Boburka/Jarockzo Ancestry

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Sophia
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Joined: 05 Oct 2014
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Posted: Wed Apr 08, 2026 10:50 am Post subject:

Seruca wrote:

Hi everyone, I hope you all had a good Easter! Since Daniel (Polish Genealogist) can't look more into the family right now, I started following another lead. So, I mentioned in one of my previous posts that Aline is also related to a Walter Tiazkun and Michael & John Boburka. I believe that Michael and John are siblings or closely related cousins of Walter. I have looked into each of Walter's sibling's obituaries (He has a brother named John, which is why I think John Boburka could be Walter's brother, but used his Mother's (Mary) maiden name. John could just be a cousin though) and it has Mary Boburka listed as their Mother as well as Theodore "Frank" Tiazkun as their Father. I believe that Trish listed Theodore "Frank" Tiazkun and Mary Boburka's obituaries in a previous post.

In Mary's obit, her Father's name is listed as Michael Boburka and her Mother is listed as Pauline Boburka. When researching Mary Boburka, I found something on Ancestry that is a ship manifest. I can't read it very well, so I asked AI to help decipher the document. AI said "Historical records for Michael Boburka indicate he was indeed traveling with family members, specifically his wife and daughter. While they do not appear on page 96 of the S.S. Rhein manifest you provided, a Michael Boburka (often listed by the Polish name Michał) is documented arriving in the United States during this era with the following companions:
Mary Boburka (Marya): His wife, recorded as approximately 28 years old at the time of travel.
Pauline Boburka (Paulina): His daughter, recorded as approximately 3 years old.
Journey Details
Origin: The family came from Butla (also known as Bitlia), a village then located in the Galicia region of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. This area is now part of modern-day Ukraine but had a significant Polish-speaking population at the time.
Michael's Role: He is typically listed as a Laborer (robotnik) on these manifests."

My issue with this "translation" is that it states Mary as his wife and Pauline as his daughter, which we know that Paulina is his wife and Mary is his daughter. It does mention the region Butla. I am attaching it in this post, if someone wants to review it and see if they can decipher it better than I can.

Also, I have been in contact with one of Aline's very distant cousins who has been helping since the start. She does not know how they are related, so we have been working together to see what we can come up with. She said they have a relative in Poland that knows a bit of family history, so she reached out to her yesterday to see if any of the discrepancies, ie. Jarockzo vs Jacejka, etc. mean anything or if some names got lost in translation. I will update once I hear back from her.

Thanks for reading!

-Sera Rocks

Sera, the manifest you just posted is one that Trish already posted on March 14 and which I already helped decipher the handwritten notations on March 15.
Sophia

Seruca

Joined: 09 Mar 2026
Replies: 19
Location: Cullman, AL
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Posted: Mon Apr 13, 2026 9:57 pm Post subject:

Sophia wrote:

Seruca wrote:

Sera, the manifest you just posted is one that Trish already posted on March 14 and which I already helped decipher the handwritten notations on March 15.
Sophia

Okay, since the last few things I have posted had already been discovered (sorry. My brain is fried from tax season and I really don't come close when it comes to investigations, compared to y'all lol.) I do actually have brand new information about Mike's stay in the Mauthausen Concentration Camp. I received the documents from the Arolsen Archives this morning. I have just been able to dive a little deeper into them since coming home this afternoon. There is record of vaccine experimentation enclosed, and out of respect for Michael and family, I don't want to share his most vulnerable documented experiences on a public forum. Sophie, Trish, and Debra--I will share with you in an email, if you are interested for information/knowledge about Mike. This could be helpful for the search. It does mention he was married to a woman named Katharina previously. Below I will list his timeline from birth to 1951 - this is just what I gathered from using Google Translate, so this will probably have some inaccuracies/discrepancies. I am omitting the more sensitive topics for the forum.

I. Early Life & The Move to Germany (1918–1940)
November 11, 1918/1921: Born in Bitla (also recorded as Bitlab/Belta), Poland.
Note: Nazi records consistently used 1918, while he personally used 1921 in all post-war applications.
1939 – October 15, 1940: Worked as a farmworker for Farmer Aschinger in Lüben, near Hannover.
October 16, 1940 – March 31, 1941: Moved to Berlin to work as a Kitchen Helper/Cook at the prestigious Hotel Kempinski (Kurfürstendamm 27). He lived on-site during this period.

II. Arrest & The Civilian Prison System (1941–1942)
1941 – June 1942: Lived at Ritterstrasse 32 in Berlin-Kreuzberg.
June 12, 1942: Arrested by the Berlin police.
June 17, 1942 – December 16, 1942: Served a six-month sentence at the Berlin-Tegel Prison (Seidelstraße 39) for a charge of "Grand Theft."
December 16, 1942: Upon completing his sentence, he was not released. Instead, he was taken into "Preventive Detention" (S.V.) by the Gestapo and held at the police prison at Alexanderplatz.

III. Mauthausen Concentration Camp (1943–1945)
January 26, 1943: Arrived at Mauthausen Concentration Camp as part of a transport from Berlin. He was assigned Prisoner Number 22509.
February 5 – March 5, 1943: Subjected to medical experimentation by SS Dr. Karl-Josef Groß.
June 30, 1943: Underwent surgery at the camp infirmary (Krankenbau) to drain an abscess on his right face cheek.
August 30, 1943: Transferred to the Wiener Neudorf sub-camp. Initially assigned as an unskilled laborer for an aircraft engine factory.
September 30, 1943 – May 1945: Reassigned as a Cook in the Wiener Neudorf camp kitchen, a position he held until the camp was liberated at the end of the war.

IV. Post-War Migration (1945–1951)
1945 – 1946: Lived in Enns, Austria, and Reims, France, as a Displaced Person (DP).
September 14, 1946: Married Lucy Dulski in Ste. Marie aux Chênes, France.
September 29, 1951: Emigrated to Canada, departing from Marseille and arriving in Halifax aboard the ship "Billiton." He officially adopted the name Mieczysław Orawski.

V. The Search for Reparations (1954–1965)
January 1955: The Bavarian State Compensation Office in Munich officially opened an investigation into his history of imprisonment to evaluate his reparations claim.
March 19, 1963: His Canadian lawyers (Maleyko, From & Lyons) filed a formal compensation application under the Federal Compensation Law (BEG).
September 5, 1963: The International Tracing Service issued the definitive Certificate of Incarceration, proving his stay at Mauthausen and his identity as "Nikolai Boburka."
March 10, 1965: German archives released the clinical medical records of the 1943 experiments to the government in Cologne to finalize the assessment of his injuries.

Summary Table
Period Location Status
1940-1941 Hotel Kempinski, Berlin Worker (Cook)
1942 Tegel Prison, Berlin Convicted Prisoner
1943-1945 Mauthausen/Wiener Neudorf Concentration Camp Prisoner (#22509)
1943 Mauthausen Infirmary Victim of Medical Experiments
1951 Halifax, Canada New Immigrant / Survivor

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