Translated from: Perdeck, Nine (2015). Van Przedecki tot Perdeck. Benjamin^*, 2015, Volume 27, No. 102, pp. 8-9.
* The 'Stichting Joods Maatschappelijk Werk', or JMW for short, coordinates care for the Jewish Community in the Netherlands.
Benjamin is JMW's quarterly magazine.

Surnames
From Przedecki to Perdeck.
Text and Photos by Nine Perdeck.

Grandpa Przedecki came long ago from Poland to the Netherlands, a refugee from violence and persecution. During WW2, everything that was Jewish was wiped out at his birthplace.

If someone today would introduce himself with the surname Przedecki, this person, especially in Amsterdam, would not get the questioning gaze as much as in my grandfather's time. Indeed it is a very long time ago, because my grandfather was born in 1852 and so could easily have been my great-grandfather. His son, my father, Albert Adam Przedecki, was born in 1888. In 1949, when he was already 61, my parents had another offspring and that was me.
Grandfather Przedecki was born in Warsaw. At age 29 he had to flee from a pogrom. Around 1881 he arrived safely in Amsterdam after a long and difficult journey. Hard to believe that this was a century and a half ago and that so little has changed in this respect. Even now people have to leave there home in search for new horizons, fleeing war or discrimination.

Nine Perdeck with her father:     click to enlarge

Arrived penniless
In the then not yet digitized world you were registered in the Amsterdam's municipal archives in calligraphy and there I found it: 'Zijgmon Lijon Przedecki, occupation: Traveler'. One of the first and few foreigners to enter the Netherlands in that year. On foot arrived, hardly any luggage and in the company of a good friend and compatriot, named Huf.

What must that have been like, I have often wondered. Leaving everything behind, alone and on the run after experiencing something horrible. To an unknown country with hardly any language. But grandpa Przedecki was young and apparently equipped with a good trading spirit because in a short time he successfully established an import business through which he imported tobacco from Cuba to Amsterdam.

Left Albert Adam, Nine's father,
with his younger brother Max.
Photo about 1900:     click to enlarge

A less troublesome name
But yes, coming back to the name: what was one to do at that time with such a name that was unpronounceable to the people of Amsterdam? How often my father, he told me, as a boy was teased with that name. They yelled after him: "piesedekkie" or "paardedekkie". Not that he suffered very much I think.

The desire to assimilate certainly also played a role
In the first decade of the last century, there was a desire to assimilate by family members, who by now had settled in Germany and Antwerp, decided on a name change to avoid hearing every time, "how do you spell that or how do you pronounce that?" But the desire to assimilate more will certainly have also played a part.
A good solution seemed to be "Perdeck. Easy to pronounce and write, and in which the old name still shines through a bit. But does the name sound Dutch to the outside world? Well, no, still I hear: "where did that name come from?"

Official change of surname in 1920:     click to enlarge

From a lost world
Yes, where did that name actually come from? It kept fascinating me so I went looking for the origins of Przedecki. Credits the Internet! What turned out, there is a town 150 km west of Warsaw called Przedecz. And not only that. There is also a 1928 list of Jewish artisans, and there I found a Michal Przdecki, tailor in 1916.
At the end of the 14th century the first Jews settled in Przedecz. At the beginning of the 20th century one third of the population was Jewish. The Yiddish name of the town was Pshaytsh. There was a very thriving Jewish community with everything that went with it: shuls, Jewish schools, Jewish library, cultural organizations, mikveh and cemetery. Most of the Jews were merchants or artisans.
Unfortunately, none of that remains. Here, too, the war and persecution wiped out everything Jewish. The only reminder of the centuries-long Jewish presence in the city is a plaque in the former Jewish cemetery.
From a tinge of nostalgia for a bygone world I would quite like to restore the original name and then proudly introduce myself as Nine Przedecki.

Shoa memorial plaque to the Jews of Przedecz, Jerusalem     click to enlarge