My Grandparents
 My grandfather, Wilhelm Bonkowsky (originally Bunkowski), was born in 1889 in Solodyri, Volhynia, Ukraine. His parents were Johann Bunkowski and Eva nee Riewe. He married Bertha Freigang in 1914 in Ivanowitsch, Volhynia, Ukraine. They had 2 sons (Arthur and Eugen) and 2 daughters (Eugenie and Adina) and lived on a farm, firstly in Blumenthal and later in Pulin. Wilhelm was a farmer, a member of a Baptist Church and played the trombone in the brass band. In the late 1920's, Wilhelm and his family fled eastward to China and after several months of travel, settled in Harbin. At the end of WWII, the Russian Army arrested Wilhelm, Eugen his son and Adolf Kitlitz his son-in law. They were transported to slave labour camps in Siberia. Arthur, the other son, managed to avoid arrest. Wilhelm died in 1948 in the Russian prison "Yuschnaya" near the city of Sverdlovsk, USSR and his son, Eugen, was released from prison late 1953. In 1989, the criminal case of Wilhelm Bonkowsky was rechecked by the public prosecutor's office for the district of Sverdlovsk and it was found that there was no evidence of any criminal actions. As a consequence, Wilhelm was posthumously rehabilitated (declared innocent) by the State Security of the USSR.
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 My grandmother, Bertha Bonkowsky nee Freigang, was born in 1893 in Pulin, Volhynia, Ukraine. Her parents were Samuel Freigang and Pauline nee Freigang. She married Wilhelm Bonkowsky in 1914 in Ivanowitsch, Volhynia, Ukraine. After fleeing Volhynia in the late 1920's with her family, she lived in Harbin until 1950. Late 1950, Bertha together with Arthur her son, Adina her daughter and Angela her granddaughter, emigrated to Sydney, NSW, Australia. Bertha lived in Merrylands, a western suburb of Sydney, attended the Cabramatta Russian Baptist Church and died in 1979. She was buried in Pine Grove Memorial Park, Minchinbury, NSW.
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For family history enquiries, write to: [email protected] This page was updated on November 11, 2006
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