Ilya Neustadt's Family

1) Ilya's Birth

Ilya Neustadt was born in Soroca, Bessarabia, on 21 November, 1915. This is confirmed by a court document from 1930 that can be downloaded from the JewishGen database:

Handwritten court record:

The court hearing was probably in accordance with "the so-called Mârzescu Law, which dealt with the revision of the nationality rights of the inhabitants of the provinces which became parts of the Romanian state after the First World War (Transylvania, Bukovina, Bessarabia, Quadrilater). The inhabitants had to prove in court that they had lived in these provinces before 1918. Those who had arrived later (mostly Jews from Ukraine and Russia who had taken refuge there) were denied nationality rights, which made them vulnerable to expulsion as well as the loss of job opportunities, social insurance and the right to a Romanian passport." [Source]

It appears that the entry on the left was written in 1915 and that on the right was the 1930 confirmation.

2) Ilya's Parents

Odessa's birth records show them marrying on 13 June, 1903:

3) Birth Years of His Family

1870 - Ilya's father, Nicolai Neustadt, Odessa

c.1880 - Ilya's mother, Maria Polner, Odessa

1886 - Ilya's uncle, Harry Polner, Odessa

1904 - Ilya's sister, Sima

1905 - Ilya's brother, Leon, immigration records disagree on birthplace, either saying Novovorontsovka or Soroka

1912 - Ilya's brother, Benjamin (Ben, Benno, Bennea), immigration record states Soroca, Romania

1915 - Ilya himself, Soroca

Unknown - Ilya's sister, Dora.

4) Emigration and Naturalization dates:

1927 - Leon Neustadt (Ilya's brother), Balti, Bessarabia (Romania) to Toronto, Canada (indicating that Balti was Ilya's home town at this time)

1939 - Permission to travel abroad for Nicolai and Benjamin Neustadt

1948 - Ilya's parents, Nicolai and Maria, Belgium to the USA (Ilya had written his PhD thesis on the topic of Belgium)

1949 - Ilya's brother, Benjamin, Liverpool to Montreal (April), then arriving in New York (November). Benjamin had initiated his emigration in Paris, according to Arolsen Archives.

1954: Ilya's parents are naturalized

1955: Ilya's brother, Benjamin, is naturalized

5) Other Sources

In 1951, Ilya Neustadt visited Buffalo, New York, to stay with his parents, Nicolai and Maria, who had recently moved there after emigrating from Belgium as Holocaust survivors and were sharing a home with their eldest son, Leon, and his wife:

Buffalo Jewish Review, July 13, 1951:

Nicolai had been born near Odessa on February 15, 1870 (U.S., Social Security Death Index, 1935-2014). In 1927, when his son Leon emigrated to Canada (see below), the travel record showed Nicolai's residence as being in Balti, Bessarabia, Romania. The Neustadts' citizenship was thus Romanian during that period, a fact confirmed by the order permitting them to reside in Canada (1949):

In the event, this proved unnecessary because on 13 April, 1949, the Buffalo Daily Law Journal reported that Nicolai, Maria and Leon Neustadt had signed deeds for Virgil W 1043, N. Hertel. The following year Nicolai and Maria moved to the 341 Crestwood Avenue address Ilya would visit in 1951.

On June 24, 1953, the Buffalo Evening News confirmed that Nikolai had married Maria Polner in Odessa in 1903. The discrepancy on the date may be due to different calendars. It also gave details of their children, Ilya's siblings:

Leon had been a Canadian citizen before moving to the US, having arrived in Canada on a ship from Danzig on 7, September, 1927. A handwritten note later added to his immigration record says he was naturalized in Canada on 21, September, 1942. Leon's first wife Elsie, US-born, was a piano teacher for nearly 50 years, passing away in 1977. Leon remarried in Miami in 1983, passing away in 2002.

Maria's brother (Ilya's uncle) Harry Polner, who was a jewelry wholesaler, died in March 1965, having lived in Buffalo since 1906 (source: 1910 census and Buffalo News obituary). His 1917 draft card gives his birth place as Odessa, 1 July, 1886.

Ilya's sister Sima visited him in Leicester in 1954 on her way from Israel to Buffalo. She had been a wealthy doctor's wife in Bucharest but he had died in 1946 and she moved to Israel in 1950, where she became a singer:

When Nikolai died in 1973, aged 103, Sima was living in Miami (she died in 2004, aged 99), while Dora resided in Jerusalem (and may never have lived in the US, having most likely emigrated to Israel from Belgium, meaning she had stayed in Belgium when her parents left). Benno had died on November 2, 1966, having been born in 1912. Benno may have experienced some distress in 1953 based on the reporting of this incident:

Note on spellings: Ilya was sometimes Ilie. It seems that his family used the latter spelling (which is also on his travel documents) so it is possible that Ilya was his professional or westernized spelling, as such. Benno was Benjamin or Banjamin. Nicolai was sometimes Americanized to Nicholas.