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The Sapoczkowski family is reunited after more than 120 years, thanks to the combined research efforts of Daniel Paczkowski (Ancestral Tourism in Poland) and the Asociación Mutual Israelita Argentina (AMIA). In March 2020 Daniel’s skilled archival sleuthing led us to South America, where we discovered second-degree relatives alive and well in Buenos Aires, Argentina. Sundry travel documents revealed Nison Sapockowski (b. 1916), my mother's first cousin, fled Bialystok in 1936, anticipating the unspeakable historical events that were to follow. Nison left behind a large extended family, whose fate rested entirely in the hands of Nazis and Nazi collaborators. To the best of our knowledge, all perished by 1943.

Nison Sapockowski’s passport is a treasured family heirloom.

In Argentina, Nison and his wife Salomea Nagel, also from the northeastern Polish town of Bialystok, raised three girls, Juana, Susana, and Dora. There’s no conclusive evidence, but Nison Sapockowski likely was unaware that five of his father's 10 siblings, including my grandfather, Yakow Ickowicz Sapoczkowski, immigrated to the United States between 1900 and 1912. Judging from their initial reaction of shock and disbelief, it was obvious our Argentinean mishpacha knew nothing about living, breathing relatives in North America, assuming correctly that no one survived the German occupation.

Nison Mowszewicz Sopockowski was the only family member from Europe who managed to avoid the horrors of World War II, having emigrated before the conflict began. (I recently learned the Sapoczkowski siblings in America tried to rescue their youngest sister and her 15-year-old son from Nazi persecution and death. This attempt to save Dr. Olga Golda Sapoczkowska-Plusserowa and Adolph failed in the end, and both were arrested and put to death in Czortków, Poland, 1942.)

We all thought we knew our family’s Holocaust story—until our bombshell discovery of Nison Sapockowski’s journey to Argentina (equally staggering to La Familia Argentina is recognizing they are not alone on the family tree). Way too many of my Jewish friends lost everybody, I mean 100% of their family who were stuck in Europe and then went to the gas chambers or were burned alive in barns and synagogues, were shot in the streets and forests, or were buried in unmarked mass graves. So, it’s a tremendous development to find relatives in Sudamerica we never knew we had—I suppose one could call it a tragic story with a happy ending.

P.S. The big news is that my brother, niece, and I spent six days in Buenos Aires before returning home on December 28, 2024, meeting up for the first time with three brand spanking new second cousins and their families. I’m delighted to report that everything went swimmingly well. It’s hard to describe the sensation of meeting someone for the first time yet sensing you’ve known them forever or seeing the reflection of mother in the faces of our cousins, but that’s the feeling we had. It was a profound experience we will treasure for years to come.

Las 3 Hnas Sapockowski and the Boxt brothers track their family history on a pedigree chart.

Family reunited after 125 years apart. Buenos Aires, Argentina. December 24, 2025

Hooray for genealogical research! Kudos to Daniel Paczkowski. ¡Viva la familia!

Matthew A. Boxt, Ph.D.

Los Angeles, California

January 8, 2025