Pres

Relationship Family/ Pre-Marriage Name First Name Father’s Name Mother’s Name Occupation or Nickname Place of birth/ Residence Age or birth date Place and date of death
Husband Pres Netanel Hatmaker Shkud 70 Shkud, July 1941
Wife Pres Rachel Housewife Shkud 65 Alka Hill
Son Pres Chatzl Netanel Rachel Shkud 35 Shkud
Daughter Pres Michela Netanel Rachel With her family Shkud, Libau 30 Libau, Latvia
***
Husband Pres Yosef Netanel Rachel Shkud 38 Shkud
Wife Pres Mina Housewife Shkud 32 Alka Hill
***

According to Hana Shaf-Brener, Netanel Press, a hatmaker, and his wife Rachel had three adult children: a daughter, Michela, and two sons, Chatzl and Yosef. Michela was married and lived with her husband in Libau (Liepaja), Latvia. Yosef was married to Mina.

According to Jewish Gen’s Lithuania Tax and Voters Lists Database, the Pres family was established in Shkud by 1846, and was quite a large one. It appears that Ovsey Pres, born in 1838 and a poor shoemaker in 1892, was the father of Netanel and Aron. Sanel [Netanel], son of Ovsey, was born in 1870, and by 1904 was a “cap maker, well-to-do,” and a hat seller in 1914. Netanel’s brother Aron was a poor shoemaker with six family members in 1904. By 1914, Aron, then aged 53, was a hatter living in Zamkovaya Street.

Ovsey’s shoemaking factory is remembered in “Jews in the Memory of Skuodas People” (link on this page). He had a shoemaker’s shop (1), described as a “smaller shoemaking factory with around 8-10 employees owned by Ofsiej Pres on Basanaviciaus Street” (9; see also 20).

Kehilat Shkud tells us that Shlomo Pres operated a shoe factory in the New Town (52). “Shoe producers were Yitzhak Cohen, Michael Mines, Hirsch Gilder, Shlomo Peres, Yehuda Berman and Bernstein – in the New Town. All together, the factories and craftsmen in the trade produced around 400 pairs of shoes a day” (Kehilat Shkud 13).  It is unclear how Shlomo is related to Netanel and Aron.

Kehilat Shkud tells us also that Dov-Ber Zusya Perez [apparently a variant of Pres] was a scholar and public figure: “In the evening hours, the group “Gemara” studied their page under the guidance of Dov-Ber Zusya Peres z”l and Kaplanski” (27; see also 55). Dov-Ber Zusya also arranged Shabbes meals for poor travellers arriving in town, helped those in need, and was a leader in prayers (44).

According to Jewish Gen’s Lithuania Tax and Voters Lists Database, Dov-Ber Zusya Pres, born about 1859, was the son of Mousha Pres, son of Girsha, a shoemaker. Dov-Ber himself was a well-to-do baker. Girsha had another son, Aron.

A number of children of Orel Pres also appear in the Lithuania Tax and Voters Lists: Rocha (born 1889); Chasse (born 1892); Zelda (born 1894); Chasia (born 1896); and Chatskel (born 1898).

Jewish Gen’s Lithuania Marriages database lists a number of marriages of the children of Aron Zuse Pres and his wife Sore (nee Sher) of Skuodas: Chase Pres, age 39, married Isroel Braude in 1937; Zelda Pres, born 1890, married David Elyas Klein in 1936; and Rokhl Zise Pres, born in 1895, married Yosel Itsik Parmast, of Liepaja, in 1925. Osvey Pres, son of Aron Joel and Shora (nee Shneider) Pres of Skuodas, married Eta Shapiro in 1938. Yankel David Pres, son of Maushe and Rokhe Khine (nee Kleinman), was married in 1926 to Mire Levi and in 1935 to Khane Erman (from whom he was divorced in 1936).

As of April 2014, Yad Vashem provides no information on the Pres family of Shkud. Perhaps many of the people discussed here either died pre-war (Ovsey Pres, for example) or moved elsewhere.