We do not know where the earliest-known Nejmans were born, but it is likely that the family came to Poland from either East Prussia or Lithuania shortly after the Prussian conquest of 1793. Wherever he settled at that time, and wherever his son Lejzor was born, Lejzor married into the Suralski family of Wasosz and resided in that village thereafter, and there his children were born. Lejzor is the only known child of Zawel, and the ancestor of all our Nejman/Newman/Goodman branch; but it is unlikely in the extreme that he was an only child; Any Nejman persons in the vicinity who cannot be connected to Lejzor's descendants are quite likely to be those of his unknown siblings.
Click for a short history of Wasosz and its Jews.
Like most other villages of the vicinity, Wasosz has a central square, planted with large trees. Around this square are small cottages (in the U.S. they would be called "Cape Cods"); the only large building in Wasosz, save for the two churches, is a medical clinic and pharmacy. Some of the houses in streets radiating from the square have kitchen gardens and small sheds for animals -- a cow or two. A resident of Wasosz, now or a century ago, would feel quite at home in an Israeli moshav of the first years after independence or earlier.
Residents of Wasosz are very suspicious of visitors, and fear that a Jew coming to the village can only have one possible motive, namely the reclamation of property that belonged to forebears murdered in the Shoah. Strangers are not a familiar sight; when I arrived there, my first act was to stroll around the perimeter of the central square, which caused a female physician to emerge from the clinic building and ask my motive in visiting.
When I was in Wasosz, I enquired about the presence of anything that might have remained from the pre-Shoah Jewish Community, and was told clearly that there was nothing of the sort. More recently, I have been informed that the Jewish Cemetery still exists, though I have no idea of its condition; see above for one possible reason for the denial. I will try to try again next time I am in the area.
Coming from Szczuczyn, after passing the usual sign marking the boundary of Wasosz, the first building on the left is the roadhouse seen at left below. I like to call it "Rancho Wasosz". This is quite isolated, the only other structure visible is the log-built cottage across the road.
The pictures are at three corners of the central square. That seen straight ahead in the first photo at the left is the standard "Cape Cod" cabin. This one is log-build, and the corners are dovetailed, like cabinet work. The center picture shows the houses on another corner of the square, and that at right shows one of the two churches of the village.In the pictures below are other houses and streets in Wasosz. It is a very small place, and there is little else to see or photograph there.
