 ewish settlement in Slovakia dates
to the 11th century, but the earliest surviving records of a Liebman family in the Zemplén region –
traditionally part of Hungary but today split between northern Hungary and
eastern Slovakia – date only to the 19th century. Birth records can be found
from as far back as 1840, and the 1869 Austro-Hungarian
census, which survives for the Zemplén region, is a particularly
rich source. It enumerates several Liebman families living in and
around the town of Zamutov at the time, and tells a good deal about how they lived.
 Two of these families,
one headed by
Izsak Liebman (1806-1883) and
Rezi Guttman (1816-1855) and
the other by
his brother
Jakob Liebman
(1808-1881) and
Yetta Karpel (1809-1881?) gave rise to
many descendants who emigrated to the United States
in the late 19th century and settled in New Jersey and Ohio,
respectively. A third branch, descendants of
David Liebman (1750-?) and
wife
Rezi (?-?),
or Rosa, of the nearby town of Licartovce and his
brother, another
Izsak Liebman (?-?) and his wife
Suve (?-?) of Drienov, fanned out to
several cities in the American south. That these two branches were
related is all but certain; exactly
how they were related is not clear. Some
family members from both branches remained in Slovakia, and in some cases met horrible fates at the
hands of the Nazis.
This website
tells many of their stories.
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