My family came to the United States from Eastern Europe between 1895 and 1917. Growing up I knew people who were either survivors or as they used to be called in those days "refugees" meaning that while they didn't spend time in concentration camps, they had either managed to escape just before they might have been deported or they had the good fortune to have been deported to Siberia (to think of Siberia as being a stroke of good luck!)
As a family, we had always known as a kind of theoretical matter that while our grandparents had left, they had left family behind in their home towns. The fate of our extended families seemed to be in a terrible locked box.
Thanks to the wonders of the internet we have the ability to open that locked box.
Last night I observed Yom HaShoah by going into the database of Yad Vashem and finding relatives from the towns my family and my husband's family came from. Yad Vashem database. I read the names of Jakubowicz family from Konin,
Poland, the Kolsky's from Kalish,
Weisglasses from Zastavna, from Czernowitz and from Vienna, Freiders from Frampol, Krupnicks from Tulchyn and Reijzmans from Warsaw and all of the names from Radomysl.
The first time I had explored the Yad Vashem database coming upon the names of my relatives felt as shocking as a slap in the face. Their names were submitted to Yad Vashem by friends and relatives attempting to catalog their losses, the losses of whole towns. Sometimes all that was known was the person's name. Sometimes there is a bit more biographical information.
A statistic keeps coming up in my news feed that if you read the names of all of those killed in the Shoah it would take eleven years. So I find my family.
Through the JewishGen I was able to connect to my father's cousin. There are faces connected to the names of some of the Jakubowicz family from Konin. I know that Szlama Jakubowicz looks just like my father.
When my father was dying he was very lucid spoke quite a bit about dying. During one conversation he spoke about not knowing what it would be like for him after he died. He didn't know if post-death there would be a big nothing or if he could somehow connect with his Konin relatives who hadn't come to the states as his father and his immediate family did. My father mused that he would love to be able to hear the stories of his relatives of their experiences during the Shoah.
I don't have the stories of my relatives, but at least I do have their names. I also have access to photos of the places my family came from.
There is a famous Chassidic story about a great tzadik going into the woods and offering a sacrifice to God and reciting a special prayer and how each generation knows just a bit less about exactly what goes into that ritual until finally just telling the story of the ritual is all we have. While Jewish ritual and prayers seem to keep expanding, at this point with my relatives who stayed in Europe, all I have is the names. it isn't enough but it is at least something.
As a family, we had always known as a kind of theoretical matter that while our grandparents had left, they had left family behind in their home towns. The fate of our extended families seemed to be in a terrible locked box.
Thanks to the wonders of the internet we have the ability to open that locked box.
Last night I observed Yom HaShoah by going into the database of Yad Vashem and finding relatives from the towns my family and my husband's family came from. Yad Vashem database. I read the names of Jakubowicz family from Konin,
The first time I had explored the Yad Vashem database coming upon the names of my relatives felt as shocking as a slap in the face. Their names were submitted to Yad Vashem by friends and relatives attempting to catalog their losses, the losses of whole towns. Sometimes all that was known was the person's name. Sometimes there is a bit more biographical information.
A statistic keeps coming up in my news feed that if you read the names of all of those killed in the Shoah it would take eleven years. So I find my family.
Through the JewishGen I was able to connect to my father's cousin. There are faces connected to the names of some of the Jakubowicz family from Konin. I know that Szlama Jakubowicz looks just like my father.
When my father was dying he was very lucid spoke quite a bit about dying. During one conversation he spoke about not knowing what it would be like for him after he died. He didn't know if post-death there would be a big nothing or if he could somehow connect with his Konin relatives who hadn't come to the states as his father and his immediate family did. My father mused that he would love to be able to hear the stories of his relatives of their experiences during the Shoah.
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| the synagogue in Radomyzl |
I don't have the stories of my relatives, but at least I do have their names. I also have access to photos of the places my family came from.
There is a famous Chassidic story about a great tzadik going into the woods and offering a sacrifice to God and reciting a special prayer and how each generation knows just a bit less about exactly what goes into that ritual until finally just telling the story of the ritual is all we have. While Jewish ritual and prayers seem to keep expanding, at this point with my relatives who stayed in Europe, all I have is the names. it isn't enough but it is at least something.
Hugs Sarah. Very poignant.
ReplyDeleteThank you. I feel fortunate to have the tools to find the names of my relatives and in some cases, relatives. Given the recent shooting in San Diego and the one six months ago in Pittsburgh, the terror of the Shoah is feeling much closer this year.
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