Mindla (Magdalena) Goldszmit

Henryk Goldszmit’s aunt

Mindla Goldszmit’s birth certificate

The daughter of Hersz Goldszmit and Chana née Rajs was born in 1837 in Hrubieszów and died on 10 April 1918 in Warsaw.

On 30 November 1857, she married Leon Rajner, “a bachelor, the owner of a lottery office, living in Lublin, aged 35.” The fathers of the couple were both doctors. In the marriage certificate, the signatures of those present during the registration are especially interesting. The bride signed the certificate as Mindla Goldschmidt (similar to her father), but her mother chose a more Polonised version of the surname, i.e., “Goldszmidt.” The spelling of the first name was not uniform, either. In the birth certificate of Cecylia, the Rajners’ first daughter who was registered by her grandfather, the name is spelled as “Magdalena.” The same spelling was used in the birth certificate of Maria, the second daughter, but in the death certificate of her mother, the original form “Mindla” was used. In 1871–72, in the records of the son, Artur (Aron), “Magdalena” was used, again. In his Pamiętnik (The Diary), Henryk Goldszmit mentions “aunt Magdzia’s garden,” which he visited perhaps in Lublin, where the family lived until Leon’s death in 1887. Afterwards, she moved back to Warsaw. Magdalena’s granddaughter, Janina Gołębiewska, describes her grandmother in one of her letters: “Janusz Korczak’s first novel, entitled Dziecko salonu (Child of the Drawing Room) was on the étagère in her flat at 29 Królewska Street, among many souvenirs from her foreign journeys. The aunt was proud of her talented nephew. She supported him financially during his stays in Berlin and Paris, where he broadened and extended his medical knowledge.”

Marriage certificate of Mindla Goldszmit and Leon Rajner 

Death certificate No. 38 from 1918 states that “Magdalena Rejner née Goldszmidt, the widow of Leon Rejner, a capitalist, the daughter of Herman and Chana, died in her own flat in Warsaw, at 29A Królewska Street.”