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GITA BAJGELMAN, HENRY BAJGELMAN UNITED STATES
NEW YORK

DRZEWKO NR 222 DRZEWKO NR 632
TREE NO. TREE NO.
Henry Chaim Bajgelman belonged to a musical family which was highly impor-
tant in Łódź. His father, Szymon Bajgelman, came from Ostrowiec Świętokrzyski.
He was a clarinettist and often performed with orchestras. The eldest brother
of Chaim, Dawid Bajgelman (born 1888), was a composer and conductor
known in the interwar period, and two of his elder sisters: Chaja (Helena,
born 1898) and Ida (Ita, born 1900), were also born in Ostrowiec. Subsequent
brothers and a sister were born in Łódź, to where the family had moved at the
beginning of the 20th century. They all became musicians: Szlama Lajb was a
violinist, Abraham played the piano and was also a member of the popular
jazz band, “The Jolly Boys” as well as other jazz groups; his sister Róża was
also a pianist. The youngest of the brothers, Chanan, known as Hilek (born
1916), was an accordionist and a saxophonist. Cousins and brothers-in-law
of the Bajgelmans also played music. Together they performed in various
compositions and orchestras, including the Symphony Orchestra of Łódź, from
which today’s Arthur Rubinstein Philharmonic in Łódź originated.
Chaim (Heniek) Bajgelman, the penultimate child of Szymon and Rywa, was
born in 1911. Since childhood, he had learned to play several instruments. He
was a violinist and a saxophonist. In the 1930s, he performed at the Ararat
theatre and jazz nightclubs. During the war, his brother, Dawid hired him to
play in the ghetto orchestra created by him and played in revues performed
at the Community Centre at 3, Krawiecka Street. The whole Bajgelman family
lived in the ghetto close to each other, in Krawiecka Street and Zawiszy Street.
Chaim, like other family members, was deported from the ghetto to Auschwitz
in August 1944. He went through several camps: Kaltwasser, Flossenbürg,
Altenhammer (Ruda Śląska). In the last camp, he received extra portions of
bread for playing the violin. On 20 April 1945, the Germans forced the inmates
to move west in the so-called death march and three days later, those who
had survived were liberated by the Americans. Chaim, along with several
other survivors from Łódź, found himself in a camp for displaced persons and
deportees in Bavaria. He started to look for his family.
It turned out that he and the youngest of the brothers, Chanan (Hilek) were the
only survivors of all the siblings. Chanan had returned from the camps to Łódź,
but died in August 1945 of tuberculosis. He was buried in the Jewish cemetery.
Also Chaim’s brother-in-law, Abraham Bajgelman (Róża’s husband) returned
from Russia to Łódź for a short time. He found instruments hidden by Dawid
Bajgelman in the Glazer factory building, which had not been given to the
Germans for purchase in the spring of 1944: two violins and a saxophone. He
took them to Germany. He kept the violin of Dawid Bajgelman and left Chaim the
remaining instruments. In the USSR, Pinchas, Dawid’s son, also survived the war.
Chaim, who was already going under the name Henry, although his friends

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