Ficzel Matus (Matityahu) Gogol, הי״ד

https://geneteka.genealodzy.pl/index.php?op=gt&lang=eng&bdm=S&w=07m...

https://metryki.genealodzy.pl/metryka.php?ar=6&zs=0639d&sy=...

https://metryki.genealodzy.pl/metryka.php?ar=6&zs=0639d&sy=...

Ficzel Gogol was born in Ciechanów, Poland to a Jewish Orthodox family. His family were lumber/timber traders. He was in the business as well, and in one of his business trips with his father, passed through Rozhan, where he met his future wife Rywka Shilonchik. The "shiduch" was made, although the groom was somewhat too "modern" for the bride's orthodox family. The couple was married and Ficzel settled in Rozhan. He owned an agency of Singer sowing machines and a workshop for bikes repairs. The Gogols had 8 children. No 2. son - Tuvia drowned in the Narev river at the age of 17(?), while trying to rescue a drowning child, on a Shavuot eve.

Ficzel was Chair, "Gmilut Chasadim" a Jewish charity organization in Rozhan.

The eldest son David, and 4 daughters: Hana, Batya, Esther and Ruth, emigrated to Eretz Israel (Palestine) in the 1930's (David in the late 20's).

In 1939, the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact between Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union resulted in the invasion of Poland by the two powers and its division between them. Rozhan was in the area designated by the Pact to fall within the Soviet sphere of influence. The Soviets placed that area within the Byelorussian SSR. However, two years later, Germany invaded the Soviet Union (Operation Barbarossa) and Rozhan and the whole area was captured. Rozhan Jews escaped through Slonim (now Belarus), but soon after, most of them (including the Gogols) and 70% of Slonim's Jews had been killed in a single Nazi operation (9,000 on 14 November 1941). The second mass murder of 8,000 Jews took place in 1942. In this massacre, Ficzel, his wife and their 2 younger children, Velvale (Ze'ev) and Chaya, were murdered. .

Today, there is not a single Jew left in Rozan or in Slonim.