Showing posts with label Smorgonski. Show all posts

I watched the latest WDYTYA? episode about Lisa Kudrow as it aired on Friday night. I have a lot to say about this from many different aspects. As usual, my thought may be a bit scattered but I hope you can follow along.

1. I watched the show with my wife, who I have to say has been a trooper and has willingly watched the first two episodes with me. But I think this may be the last one she watches. I think it was just the expectation that this was going to be a family history and discovery show and not a grueling reminder of the atrocities of the Holocaust. I think the graphic descriptions of what happened to Lisa's family and the Jews of Ilya were a bit too much and may have missed the target audience. I can see this kind of discussion coming up in a Holocaust documentary, as it should. But on an 8pm, Friday night, national TV show? A bit much.

2. My first point does not in any way mean that reminding people what happened during the Holocaust is not important. It certainly is. And the best example of why it is important is Lisa herself. How can a descendant of Holocaust victims have absolutely no idea what went on? It could be the suburban, southern California upbringing. But in a Jewish family? I find that hard to believe. I hope for her sake her discussion with her father was staged for the show because otherwise she should be ashamed.

3. 6 of my 8 great-grandparents perished in the Holocaust. My father grew up without ever meeting or knowing his grandparents. My mother only knew her maternal grandparents because they fled from Beltsy, Romania (now Moldova) to Tashkent, Russia. You grow up knowing these things, even though none of my grandparents ever talked about their parents. Not once that I can recall. You could see how painful it was for Lisa's father to bring up these memories and he had never met his grandparents either. But my grandparents said where they were from and did discuss a little about their families. I remember that my grandmother had an Yizkor book about her town, Dolhinov (Dolginovo). I remember reading it as a teenager. I guess growing up in Israel makes the Holocaust a lot more real than it does anywhere else.

4. Speaking of Yizkor books, the New York Public Library has the Ilya book. If you go to image 316 which is page 312 you can find the names of Lisa's Mordechevitz family:

Mordechovitz Mera
____"____ Liba
____"____ Avraham

If you go a few pages further to image 321 which is page 317 you can read the article that Lisa read in the market square. It's the testimony of David Rubin and it's in Hebrew (it was translated on the screen by Eilat Gordin Levitan who is a very active member of JewishGen, managed several of the shtetl pages and has many websites with wonderful photographs and other information). I couldn't find this specific translation on the Yizkor pages on JewishGen, but there are several others.

UPDATE: Miriam Robbins Midkiff, from the excellent Ancestories blog, left a comment with the link to the translated page that Lisa read. It's after the list of martyrs (which also lists the Mordechovitz family). Thanks Miriam!

4a. I am going to email Eilat and see if I can get a copy of the article she translated so I can share it with my readers or at least point you to a link.

4b. I am in touch with another Rubin from Dolhinov and I sent him an email to see if he is related to the David Rubin who wrote the chapter in the Ilya Yizkor book.

5. I wonder why Ancestry did not play up it's relationship with JewishGen for this episode. Strange. I think that would have been a huge win for all involved.

6. Now just to show how much this episode hit home for me, if you look at Eilat's website and check out the map, you will see that my grandmother's shtetl, Dolhinov (number 1 on the map), is right next to Ilya (number 19 on the map):



7. Doing the kind of research that Lisa did during this show in the Polish and other state archives is not as easy as it seems. From what I know, nothing is online and most records of anything less than 100 years old is not accessible to the general public. You would either need to go there in person and hire someone who's got the right connections or you may be able to do it remotely by hiring a local person, which is probably not something regular family historians can do.

8. I loved how the Polish archivist just plopped down a phone book in front of Lisa. There's no easier way to look for living relatives right?

9. I would have liked to see how Yuri/Boleslaw was related to Kudrow. They kept referring to him as a cousin, but only at the end did they say that Lisa's grandmother was his Aunt.

10. Another important part of the show was when Boleslaw said he wasn't there in Ilya to see the massacre. He only heard about it. But the family had lived for 60 years thinking that he witnessed it. This is a recurring theme with oral histories that are handed down through generations.

11. So how did Boleslaw escape the fate of the rest of his family in Ilya? He escaped to Russia and joined the army. This is pretty much what my own grandfather did. But my grandfather lived in Warsaw, not Belarus. So "escaping" from Warsaw was not going to be as easy. I will need to get to the bottom of this story on my next visit to Israel. I am not sure how much my grandmother will be able to tell me, but I have to ask.

12. I had more thoughts during the show, but I can't remember them now. Overall, I thought that while the subject matter was extremely dark (yet extremely important), the show itself was fairly lacking when it came to actual research. Why had they not talked more about Ilya's history? What about the generation of Jews who lived there for centuries before the Nazis ended it all? I also felt that the constant recaps and previews were too much. There was very little actual footage that wasn't reused several times.

I'm looking forward to the rest of the season of WDYTYA? but I have to admit that this format is starting to get a little tiresome. Maybe they can tweak the format if they get a second season going.

footnoteMaven has tasked us once again with finding something unique to share with our readers: "It is the holiday season and a time for giving. So give Smile readers the gift of sharing, sharing a family photograph. It can be a gift given or received, it can be the gift of talent, it can be the gift of having the photograph itself. The interpretation of gift is yours. Admission is free with every photograph!"

I decided to focus on family pictures and look for the oldest ones I have. As usual I will have two submissions, one for my ancestors and one for my wife's.

The Smorgonski Family - Dolhinov, Poland (about 1932)



I've written about this picture before, but thought it was worth displaying again. This is my great-grandfather and his family (without the oldest sister, Hanna, who was probably in Israel by this time). Everyone in the picture except for the top row of older siblings perished in the holocaust. They were murdered by the Polish villagers in their town of Dolhinov by being herded into a barn that was then set on fire.

Top row (left to right): Zipora (my grandmother), Shlomo and Pesia
Bottom row (left to right): Ida (Ita), Henia Segalchik, Joseph Haim, Avraham Smorgonski and Haya.

Hanna, Zipora and Pesia were the daughters of Avraham Smorgonski and Ester Segalchik. When Ester died, Avraham married her sister Henia and they had Shlomo, Ida, Haya and Joseph Haim.

I am not sure where this photo was taken or who saved it. Since The three oldest sisters left Poland with the Jewish youth movement before WWII, I suppose one of them brought it with her.

The Rightmire Family - Parsons, West Virginia (about 1906)



This is the the family of Thomas Ward Rightmire and Edith Mae Conley, my wife 2nd-great-grandparents. The family lived in Parson, West Virginia and from census records I suspect the were tobacco farmers. In the 1900 Census the three oldest children are listed as having an occupation of Stogie Rollers.

I believe this photo was taken after 1906 which is the year that Pearl Alta Rightmire was married and left the household to live with her husband Saul Isaac Hytowitz in Pittsburgh. I still need to figure out how the son of Jewish/Russian immigrants who lives in Pittsburgh married a girl from West Virginia, who was definitely not Jewish. But that's a story for another post.

This photo is on a postcard, which probably will give me more clues. In it we see Thomas and Edith, the parents, as well as their three sons, Myron W. Rightmire, Dale Mannington Rightmire and Otto Kent Rightmire. It is the oldest family photo I have on my wife's side of the family.

Randy over at Genea-Musings has another great Saturday Night Genealogy Fun challenge for us tonight:

1. Who is your MRUA - your Most Recent Unknown Ancestor? This is the person with the lowest number in your Pedigree Chart or Ahnentafel List that you have not identified a last name for, or a first name if you know a surname but not a first name.
2. Have you looked at your research files for this unknown person recently? Why don't you scan it again just to see if there's something you have missed?
3. What online or offline resources might you search that might help identify your MRUA?
4. Tell us about him or her, and your answers to 2) and 3) above, in a blog post, in a comment to this post, or a comment on Facebook or some other social networking site.

As usual I will split this into my ancestry and then my wife's.

My MRUAs are half of my eight 2nd-great-grandmothers (no maiden names):
21. Hanna Minka Smorgonski
23. Ita Segalchik
29. Sarah Zinberg
31. Miriam Benditovich

For the first two, on my father's side, I only have my sister's roots project family tree as well as Yad-Vashem pages of testimony for their children, listing them as the mothers. I have not been able to track down any other information from JewishGen or family members about these two women.
The other two are on my mother's side and all I have for them is oral history from my grandmother. Both of them were her grandmothers, but she can not recall their maiden names. I suppose I could try my grandmother's brother, but since he is younger I don't think he will be able to help me either.

On my wife's side, I was surprised to find that her MRUA is also her 2nd-great-grandmother, Maria Kearney (also number 31 with maiden name unknown). This is obviously due to me not doing enough research on this branch. Here's what I know about her:

She was born in Ireland in January 1843 and immigrated to the US in 1847 at the age of 4. She married Thomas Kearney (born 1840, Ireland) about 1868 and had 4 they had at least 4 children: Thomas Jr. (born April 1876), James (born July 1878), Mary (born May 1880) and Margaret T. (born 27 Dec 1882). Most of this basic information was found in an interview done in 2000 with Agnes Auth, who was her granddaughter. I also found some of the family in the US Census, but it's obvious to me that with a little digging I will be able to find a lot more information about Maria.

The difference in information about my side versus my wife's is staggering. Especially because my wife's ancestors have been in the US for centuries and almost every line is well documented. I mean, if I pull up my pedigree chart, I have only 9 out of 32 people in my 6 generation chart and most of those are unconfirmed first name only ancestors. My wife, on the other hand, is only missing 8. I have done some basic research on some of her branches and they easily go back to early the 1600's colonial settlements. I also know she is descended of several Revolutionary War patriots. The next challenge is documenting all this properly and citing all sources correctly. That will take a very long time.

I have to thank Randy Seaver for his challenging Saturday night fun posts that help me get out of my genea-blogging slumps. This time around he asks us to:

1) List your 16 great-great-grandparents in pedigree chart order. List their birth and death years and places.

2) Figure out the dominant ethnicity or nationality of each of them.

3) Calculate your ancestral ethnicity or nationality by adding them up for the 16 - 6.25% for each (obviously, this is approximate).

4) If you don't know all 16 of your great-great-grandparents, then do it for the last full generation you have.

5) Write your own blog post, or make a comment on Facebook or in this post.

I followed Randy's advice and grabbed my info from a RM4 Ahnentafel list:

1. Avraham Benjamin KIELCZEWSKI: b.? m.? died bef 1 Jun 1918. POLAND

2. Zywa Golda KRUG: b.? m.? died bef 1 Jun 1918. POLAND

3. Haim Shmuel KALMANIEWSKI: b.? m.? d.? POLAND

4. ???: b.? m.? d.? POLAND

5. Shlomo SMORGONSKI: born abt 1836. m.? d.? POLAND

6. Hanna Minka ?: b.? m.? d.? POLAND

7. Jacob SEGALCHIK: b.? m.? d.? POLAND

8. Ita ?: b.? m.? d.? POLAND

9. Jacob Yitzhak DOMBEK: b.? m.? d.? POLAND

10. Sarah Rachel KARPIK: born abt 1861 in Sterdyn, Sokolow, Lublin, Poland. m.? died abt 1941 in Sterdyn, Sokolow, Lublin, Poland. POLAND

11. Avram KREPLAK: b.? married 1874 in Kosow Lacki, Poland. d.? POLAND

12. Dobe JABLONKA: b.? married 1874 in Kosow Lacki, Poland. d.? POLAND

13. Aaron ZINBERG: b.? m.? d.? RUSSIAN EMPIRE

14. Sarah ?: b.? m.? d.? RUSSIAN EMPIRE

15. Joseph BENDITOVICH: b.? m.? d.? RUSSIAN EMPIRE

16. Miriam ?: b.? m.? d.? RUSSIAN EMPIRE

Hmmm. I have a lot of work to do. For starters, I know I have looked for all of these ancestors on JewishGen, but those databases are far from being complete. My next task should be to get some microfilm from the LDS, but how is that really going to help me? I can't read Russian or Polish or Latin or whatever language any of these records will be in. If they even exist.

At least I can pretty firmly say that I am 75%/25% Polish-Russian, which I have known pretty much all my life. And as I have written here before, the next generation after this one had a 75%/25% split for those who perished in the Holocaust. Yes, the entire Polish side. It's a good thing my grandfather fled to Russia.

So, does anyone have suggestions how I should go about filling in all these question marks?

When my parents arrived for a visit a couple of weeks ago, my mother told me an amazing story about a good friend of hers that was reported in the Israeli newspaper, Yediot Aharonot (latest news). I asked for permission to tell the story, because I think it is truly fascinating and wanted to share it with as many people as possible.

The article was printed on July 8th, 2009 in the "24 Hours" section of the paper. The cover of the section has a big family picture with the title of this post as the headline. It then says "One day, at the age of 83, Meir Bachar found out that he has seven brothers and sisters of which he had never heard about before, and they knew nothing about him. How did it happen? His father, Ben-Zion, had a relationship during his marriage with his wife's sister. The result? An impossible reunion."



How about that for an intriguing headline? I won't translate the whole article or go through all the details, but here's the main story.

Meir "Maxi" Bachar witnesses Kristallnacht in Vienna on November 9th, 1938. His fair hair and blue eyes helped him blend in with the angry mob who rampaged through the Jewish quarters, looting, burning and destroying 95 synagogues in the Austrian capital. Maxi left for Israel shortly after at the age of 14 and a half and 71 years later he was on his way back to meet a family he never knew.

It all started with an email that his daughter got one day from her cousin in London, England, telling her about a letter they got from Vienna claiming that Maxi has a brother in Amsterdam and two sister in Vienna - all children of Ben-Zion Bachar and his aunt Malka "Miriam" Lindenaur, the sister of his mother Frida. All this was very confusing because the family had only known of one sister, Suzy Morris, that had lived and then passed away in London. Nobody had heard about other family members before.

Turns out that another cousin found amongst her late father's possessions a folder that had a note with Malka Lindenaur's name on it along with her seven children. One of those names was her 82 year old mother's. And she also recognized another name of a woman who was supposedly a distant friend of her mother's. This cousin dug deep into the Vienna archives and realized that her mother was adopted along with her six siblings and they were all the children of Ben-Zion Bachar and Malka. Only three of the seven were still alive.

Almost a year later Maxi flew to Amsterdam to meet his brother Herman Kolomoyer. Their birth certificates show that they were born in the same house to two sisters who were involved with the same man. The father's identity was purposefully omitted from Herman's birth certificate as well as the other 6 illegitimate children. Even though he fathered 7 children with Malka, he refused to have any relationship with them and sent them one by one to orphanages for adoption. From his legal wife he only had two children, Maxi and Suzy.

Like the rest of the children, Herman was sent to an orphanage at the age of 2 and was supposed to be sent to a family in South Africa, but the war broke out and he was placed with a Christian Dutch family instead. Even though his birth certificate noted that his mother was Jewish and Herman found out about it at a young age, he hid this detail from the rest of his family and later on from his daughters as well. The two sisters in Vienna also had no idea that they came from a Jewish family and had lived their entire lives as Christians.

It turns out that growing up in Vienna, the family was poor and lived in a two room apartment. In one were Ben-Zion and his wife Frida, in the other was Frida's sister Malka and the children slept in the kitchen. The father was a gambler and a drunk who abused his children and did not provide for them. Maxi remembers looking for his father in card clubs and bars in order to get some money for food. He does not have fond memories of his father at all.

In 1938 his father was sent to the Buchenwald concentration camp and Maxi was spared because of his mother's pleading. His sister was later sent to London and in 1940 he left for Israel with other Jewish children on a long trip through Yugoslavia, Saloniki, Turkey, Beirut and Damascus. At the age of 17 he joined the British Army. According to some testimony, his mother, Frida, and her sister, Malka, both perished in the Holocaust, but in 1945 while serving in Italy he found out that his father had survived and remarried. So he went to see him in Vienna.

In 1959 his father's new wife called to let him know that he was very sick. Overcoming his tough childhood memories and dislike of his father, Maxi stayed by hi bedside for three months. During all this time, Ben-Zion never said a word about all the orphaned siblings that were given up for adoption. Surprisingly he has no recollection of any of the children his aunt had with his father, even though most of them were born after him. Maxi has no way to explain why his mother stayed with his father or why her sister kept living with them all those years.

I think this is a fascinating story. Since the mothers of all these children were sisters, this keeps the gene pool intact. Would a DNA test be able to prove that there were different mothers or would they look like real siblings? My own great-grandfather, Avraham Smorgonski, married two sisters, Ester and Henia Segalchik. But that was only after Ester passed away and not behind her back.

There were clues everywhere. But I have been distracted and disorganized lately and could not really focus on the task at hand. But suddenly something clicked and I am happy to say that I have found a couple of missing branches of my tree. And not too distant either. Let me explain.

I guess the one thing that gets me out of a genealogy posting funk is Randy Seaver's "Saturday Night Genealogy Fun."

This time we're on a quest to find my paternal grandmother's patrilineal line. That's not only hard to read and say, but kind of confusing to understand. What we're looking for are male ancestors of my dad's grandma. Boy genealogy would be so much easier if we just used regular 4-year old English, wouldn't it?

The challenge is this:

Provide a list of your paternal grandmother's patrilineal line. Answer these questions:

* What was your father's mother's maiden name?

Answer: Hey I know this! My grandmother's maiden name was Zipora Smorgonski - born between 1913-1916 (whenever we asked her when she was born she would say "in the spring") and I just saw that I have no idea when she passed away. It was around 10 years ago on Yom Kippur. I have to ask my dad/uncles.

* What was your father's mother's father's name?

Answer: I know this one as well! My great-grandfather was Avraham Smorgonski - born about 1881, died (murdered during the holocaust) on 29 April 1942. That date unfortunately shows up several times in my family's history.

* What is your father's mother's father's patrilineal line? That is, his father's father's father's ... back to the most distant male ancestor in that line?

Answer: This is a little harder to answer but I am happy to say I did the research on this with some help from other JewishGen researchers and have a few great-greats:
2nd great-grandfather: Shlomo Smorgonski - born about 1836 (I still have some work to do to understand the 20 year gap between Shlomo's children - I may have missed a generation?)
3rd great-grandfather: Ruvin Smorgonski - born about 1793, died about 1836.
4th great-grandfather: Movsha Smorgonski

* Can you identify male sibling(s) of your father's mother, and any living male descendants from those male sibling(s)? If so, you have a candidate to do a Y-DNA test on that patrilineal line. If not, you may have to find male siblings, and their descendants, of the next generation back, or even further.

Answer: My grandmother had two sisters, Hanna and Pesia. Her mother, Esther Segalchik died after Pesia was born and her father, Avraham, married her sister, Henia Segalchik. This was quite common back then. They had 4 children (2 boys, 2 girls), but only one son, my grand uncle, Sholomo Shamgar (changed from Smorgonski) survived the holocaust. Shlomo passed away in 2005, but he has a son and a grandson to continue the male Y-DNA paterilinial line.

Result: I have candidates! But I don't know what testing them would give me. There are a lot of "other" Smorgonski's out there that we have not been able to connect with my branch, so maybe that would give us the answer. I'll discuss it on my next trip to Israel.

Thanks again Randy, for your terrific genea-challenge!

I've been extremely busy these last few weeks but I decided to try out Randy Seaver's Saturday Night Fun challenge to find out who's number 21 in my Ahnentafel Report and came up with Hanna Minka (Unknown) Smorgonski.

I know absolutely nothing about her other than the fact that she was my 2nd great-grandmother and she was married to Shlomo Smorgonski. I only know this from a Page of Testimony I found on the Yad-Vashem website that was filled out by my grand-uncle Shlomo Shamgar about his father (she is listed as his mother). I'm not even sure where I got her middle name from and have no idea what her surname was. I doubt if I will ever find out much more about her.

I have been reading the book "The Lost" and have been thinking about my Jewish-Polish ancestry a lot lately. I think I will put up a series of posts about what I know and how much is missing. But just to give you a taste, when my parents where here for a short visit at the begining of the month I realized that my father had never known his grandparents. They were all long gone by the time he was born. His parents rarely spoke about them. On my mother's side she had only known her mother's parents. And had only seen them about 2-3 times in her entire life.

75% of my great-grandparents perished in the holocaust. Nobody in my family knows anything about them because their children barely said anything about what happened before or during these terrible times.

When my parents came to visit last month, I asked my mother to bring as much family history material as she could fit in her luggage. At first she said it wasn't a problem but when she saw the amount of photos and albums she started to get worried. Eventually we agreed that she would bring the best of the best, including my sister's entire roots project.

So it's been some time since I scanned everything and I am finally starting to get around to sorting everything and getting organized. I thought I would share some of these treasures with my readers.

First is probably the oldest photograph I have from my mother's side of the family. The photo below is in very bad shape. It was printed on cardboard and is severely deteriorating. It is the picture of my great grandfather, Moshe Zinberg, probably in his 20's, which would date the photo back to around 1920:



On the back of the photo is something that I believe to be a Russian newspaper. I am not sure how the cardboard photograph ended up glued to a piece of newspaper. You can also see my grandmother's handwriting, where she wrote her father's name in Hebrew:



Next up is my father side of the family and once again, a very old photo. In this photo of the Smorgonski family you can see my great grandfather Avraham Smorgonski and his second wife, Henia Segalchik. Henia was the sister of Avraham's first wife, Esther Segalchik, who died between 1917-1918. You can also see 6 of Avraham's 7 children:



Top row (left to right): Zipora (my grandmother), Shlomo and Pesia
Bottom row (left to right): Ida (Ita), Joseph Haim and Haya

Everyone in the picture except for the top row of older siblings perished in the holocaust. They were murdered by the Polish villagers in their town of Dolhinov by being herded into a barn that was then set on fire.

Staying a while longer with my grandmother, Zipora, we have some truly incredible identity cards for her and her husband, my grandfather, Avraham Kilchevsky, from Israel in 1939-1940:



But who issued identity cards in Israel nine years prior to it gaining Independence? See below:



The Government of Palestine? But hold on one second before you jump to conclusions and we start another 5000 year war. Palestine at the time was not an independent country. It was a British Colony. Like half the world at the time.

Now back to my mother's parents. I have never seen these photos from their wedding before. These were taken in Beltz, USSR (now Beltsy, Moldova) on October 6th 1945:



Aren't they a beautiful couple? Here's a close-up:



I loved my grandfather very much. He was a cool guy and always fun to hang out with. He was always taking things apart, fixing them and putting them back together. He had a tool shed inside his apartment. He once made a guy sell him a toy that he bought for his son so that he could give it to me. It was an elliptical race track and had these little cars that had rechargeable batteries. They were always breaking down and we would take them apart and fix them.

I know this has been a long post full of big images, but I will leave you with two more. The first is a typical pose for my grandfather. I call it the "What's the Problem?" pose:



That's him on the beach at the Dead Sea in Israel where he and my grandmother used to vacation often with their friends. I remember going out there with them several times.

And here's how you relax on your Dead Sea vacation. You just get in the water and float your troubles away:

After reading a lot of material from the Dolhinov Yizkor book, I decided to translate a few sections that were written by my grand-uncle, Shlomo Shamgar. It was harder than I thought because the way he wrote it in Hebrew was very poetic and I was afraid I wouldn't do it justice. Anyway, here is my first translation. It's Shlomo's memories of his uncle (my great grand-uncle).

Rabbi Shmaryahu Smorgonski (ZT”L)

Eighty-three years old was Rabbi Shmaryahu when he passed away on Isru-Hag of Pesach 5697 (1937). I begin my tale with his passing. His departure from our world at the end of an era – the era between two world wars: 1918-1937.

A big man of great stature was he – his intelligence, his wisdom and his knowledge of the Torah and the passages. His majestic appearance, beautiful and noble face and his eyes blazing with the holy-fire stored in them. Adorned by a full white beard and always clothed impeccably in a silk coat and soft boots. In the winter he wore a hairy robe and a fur hat. Although these were external characteristics, nevertheless they have the power to testify of an organized and meticulous man, who demonstrates in practice the Talmud saying: “Talmid-haham u-revav al bigdo hayav… mita”. But the essence of his greatness was during the “Days of Awe” (Yamim Noraim), on the days of Rosh-Hashanah and Yom-Kippur – when he descended upon the Holy Ark in the grand synagogue. He possessed a clear and strong voice and his prayers and recitals were said with emotion and pleas, a kind of lyrical dialogue between him and the creator, in which he would plead and pray for the well being of his children and family and all the people in his congregation. His townsfolk still living among us today won’t forget prayers said and sung by him, like: “Kol Nidre”, “U-Netaneh Tokef Kedushat Ha-Yom”, “Hineni Ha'-ani Mema'as…” and more – events that enchanted and shook every heart and brought tears even to the eyes of men. I also remember as if it were today, how the important Christians, like the Vayit (head of the local council), chief of police and others, would invite themselves to the synagogue on Kol Nidre night to listen to Rabbi Shmaryahu’s prayers, to the songs of the choir with the guidance of my father-teacher Avraham Smorgonski (Z”L) and the songs of the “poets” Efraim Shprirgan and the brothers Rapson. That was Rabbi Shmaryahu’s habit with his God and mankind in his twilight days, when he was past his “courage”. The walk to the synagogue was hard for him; on his way there from his home he would be forced to stop several times to rest. But when he approached the prayer podium, facing “Shiviti…” displayed above his head, he shook himself like a lion and his strength returned to him. His prayers, pleas and recitals, as if came from the mouth of a youth, a clear and strong voice, like good, old wine.

Until the last year of his life he prayed during the days of awe (Yamim Noraim) in front of the ark. He was a very physically healthy man who was never sick and, as stated earlier, he passed away on Isru-Hag of Pesach after praying Shaharit at his home, in his bed, a painless death. I got to learn from him biblical discourse and good manners in the last years of his life, when he lived alone. His wife passed away about 10 years before him and he lived in his house, with assistance of his daughters who lived nearby, each and every day, until his final moments. All his days he dealt with Torah and according to a schedule he set: wake up at daybreak, drink tea and pray Shaharit in solitude for about 3 hours and after that – Torah studies until the late hours of the night. In those years my uncle, Rabbi Shmaryahu, made efforts to draw me closer to him for a conversation and explanation and in fact – tried to convince me to choose a way of purposeful Torah studies. Even today I can remember his words to me, a sort of self confession by him: “See here my son, I did not get to see my own sons follow a path of Torah. They invested themselves in secular affairs and other matters (indeed, both his sons were not in Dolhinov; his eldest Reuven-Leib, immigrated to the USA before WWI and in the 1950’s passed away there. His other son Yermiyahu-Nahum resided with his family in Butrimonys, Lithuania, where they all perished without a trace). At least you, my brother’s son, could continue our legacy, maybe you will have the strength to carry the flag of Torah in our family.” From the stories of my father-teacher Rabbi Avraham Smorgonski (Z”L) I know and remember that Rabbi Shmaryahu was the leader and manager of the Dolhinov Yeshiva, in which about 100 young men studied until WWII and some well known Torah-greats came from, like Rabbi Yaakov Yitzchok Ruderman – the Rabbi of Philadelphia, USA, and others. The Yiddish newspapers in the USA featured articles about the character and greatness of Rabbi Shmaryahu.

Another illustrative story that deserves a special and informative mention: An incident that occurred to my uncle at the beginning of the Polish rule of the town in 1919, after WWI. During the reign of Czar Nikolai II and until WWI, Rabbi Shmaryahu was the head of the Jewish community in Dolhinov and had the authority to register births and deaths of the town’s Jews as well as issue formal documents (birth certificates and passports). This appointment was revoked with the establishment of the Polish control of the town. All those matters were being handled by the Polish “Gemayna” in town (a municipal organization for smaller towns that did not have a full municipality). With time everyone had forgotten about this whole matter and nobody remembered the “authority” that my uncle Rabbi Shmaryahu had. However someone did remember one day. Ten years later policemen and Polish secret police showed up from the Vileijka district and performed a meticulous search of my uncle’s house. In the attic they found old forms for birth certificates, passports and Russian booklets that where moldy from years of deterioration – with the Czar’s regime symbols on them. All those materials were taken, of course, for examination, and Rabbi Shmaryahu was arrested for holding anti-government materials and being a Russian spy.

News of his arrest sent shockwaves through the town and stirred up emotions throughout the surrounding areas. Everyone knew of his pure character, his honesty and integrity. Especially involved and active in his favor were the head of the community in Vileijka, Mr. Dubin, and the head of the Jewish community in our town during that time – Rabbi Gershon Eidelman (ZT”L). My uncle was released after five days under arrest. But the investigation and interrogation continued for some time after that, until no condemning evidence could be found against him. I can still remember how my uncle would joke about the matter and say: “Man must always experience everything in order to endure and know, that life is the Torah, and you must toil in it and learn from it. Life is short and not enough to learn everything. If you are given the opportunity to experience what it is like to be in prison while innocent, obviously this is a chance to learn something for the future.”

My uncle was granted a ripe old age and saw during his life grandchildren and many shilashim(?). Many of his grandchildren made aliyah to Israel in the period between the two world wars. Those descendants who made aliyah always received his blessing on their departure. He was a Zionist in his own right – Zionism interwoven with Torah and Mitzvot – which by his recognition, was the true essence. In his house, on the eastern wall, hung pictures of the Western Wall and of Rachel’s Tomb.

Rabbi Shmaryahu was amongst the student of “the Gaon” Rabbi Eliyahu from Vilna and the “Chofetz Chaim” of Radin. A man of a bygone generation, singular and unique – in his Torah, his behavior and his appearance – exceptional in Dolhinov and in the entire region.

Yehi Zichro Baruch!

Source: Chrust, Josef and Bar-Ratson, Matityahu, editors, Yizkor le-Dolhinov (Israel: Organization of Dolhinov Survivors in Israel, 1984 or 1985), pages 208-210, written by Shlomo Shamgar (Smorgonski), translated by Amir Dekel Aug. 30, 2008.

I remember seeing this book at my grandparents' apartment when I was a child, but regrettably I don't think I ever read it before this past week. I also regret not sitting down to talk to Dod Shleymke' as an adult. My memories of him are from my childhood, mainly during the time I studied for my Bar-Mitzvah. Shlomo taught the majority of the boys in our family for their Haftarah. I taped him reading it and then practiced at home over and over again until I got it right. 25 years later, I can still sing part of it and recall what his voice sounded like.

Sadly, Shlomo Shamgar passed away in Jan. 2005. Leon Rubin, a fellow Dolhinover wrote the following:

In Memoriam
It is with sorrow that I announce the passing of Schlomo Schamgar ( Smorgonski ) on the twelfth of January 2005. Schlomo was born in Dolhinov and was the only survivor of his family in the Holocaust. He made Aliya to Israel in 1948 and since served the Country and the Community with devotion. Schlomo was a man of great integrity, loved and respected by all who knew him, renowned for his good deeds and friendly human relations. He was one of the oldest and most venerated men of Dolhinov and played a central role in preserving the Memory of the perished Dolhinov Community. His death is a great loss to all of us. We extend our deep sincere condolences to his bereaved family.

May his Memory be blessed.

Leon Rubin, Israel

I don't even know where to start. I guess this will turn into kind of a to-do list.

1) Uncle Glenn sent his father's medals and they are amazing. I will put up a post shortly with some pictures and more stories. Apparently this was a swimming family, including Olympic trials.

2) The Geni.com site is a hit with everyone. People are logging in, sharing information and updating the tree. I think this will be fantastic.

3) I've found a lot of similar (and rare) surnames in the Geni.com site and I have contacted a lot of people with questions about possible family connections.

4) I've done a lot of work on the Smorgonski (paternal grandmother) and Kilchevsky (paternal grandfather) trees with the help of Eilat Gordin Levitan who runs the Dolhinov site.

5) I have been reading a lot of testimonies by my relatives from Dolhinov about their escapes, joining the partisans to fight the nazis (no freakin' way do I capitalize that word, no matter what spell-check thinks) and memories of their beloved town. I found the Yizkor book (online at the NYPL) where my grand-uncle Shlomo Shamgar wrote some beautiful chapters. I am going to try to do him justice and translate them and post them here and on the other sites (JewishGen and Eilat's site).

6) I found a not so distant cousin on my wife's side who was the Governor of West Virginia in the early 1990's. I will have a post about him as well.

7) And I have a bunch of photos I need to scan and tell stories about.

8) I backed up my blogs to WordPress after reading about one too many blogs being crushed by the Google empire.

So much to do, so little time.

My maternal grandfather was Michael (Misha) Dombek (Domb is an oak tree in Polish). As far as I know, he is the only surviving Jewish Dombek from his family to have made it through the holocaust (There are other Dombek families, but so far I have not been able to find any that are Jewish). When WW2 started he left Warsaw and his disapproving family behind and fled to Russia, where he later met my grandmother. When he returned after the war, there was nobody left alive.

I will have many more posts about my grandfather, as he was one of my role models growing up and one of my favorite people in this world. But for the sake of this post I will focus on one single story. It's a sad story about the complete annihilation of his family in the holocaust and how a misunderstanding and a case of mistaken identity changed the future for many people.

Misha lived with his family in Warsaw in a big apartment at 16 Woloska Street. He was one of 9 children in the family and was about 19 years old when the war started. he felt that things were not going to end well and decided to leave. He tried to convince his father and the rest of the family to leave with him, but they wouldn't listen to his warnings. And so he set out on his own to the Russian border.

He moved around a lot in Russia during the war, joined and left the Red Army (twice) and eventually met my grandmother in Central Asia (near Tashkent, Uzbekistan). After they married in 1945, he made an unsuccessful attempt to find his family in Warsaw. A couple of years later they moved back to Poland, in 1947. At this point, he tried to go back to his family's apartment. Surprisingly, the building was still standing and the old Polish woman who worked there recognized him. She told him that one of his sisters, Tema, had come back after the war and sold the family apartment. Apparently Tema and another sister had survived, according to the old woman, and had moved to Israel.

Misha was encouraged by this new development and had tried to contact his sisters in Israel for several years without success. Eventually Misha and his new family (wife and two children) immigrated to Israel around 1957. One of the reasons was the chance that his sisters could be contacted somehow. At that time there was a radio show on Friday afternoons that tried to reconnect lost family members. Misha was reluctant, but his wife Riva decided to put his name on the show and they were soon contacted by Mrs. Rivka Geiger (Kramarz).

Rivka and her sister, Tema Fruchter (Kramarz), were the only two known survivors. When they finally met, Rivka took Misha to see her sister and that's when things got a little strange. Apparently Tema and her husband were acting in a weird way, avoiding eye-contact and being very distant. After the visit with his two cousins, Misha figured out what must have happened. It seemed that Tema came back to the family apartment in Warsaw, pretended to be Misha's sister (also called Tema) and sold it. Misha later confronted her with this conclusion and she admitted to it and apologized. Her reasoning was that since it seemed like everyone had perished in the holocaust, there was no reason to just let the apartment go to waste. It took some time but eventually all was forgiven.

So the case of the cousin who "stole" the apartment had led to several life changing events. Had she not sold the apartment, Misha would have had no idea that they were alive and living in Israel. Without the (false) hope of seeing his sisters he would not have moved his family to Israel. My parents would have never met and I would not be here to tell the story. I am constantly amazed at how little incidents in our past make a huge impact on our future (or present).

Rivka Geiger has been one of my biggest sources of information about my grandfather's family. She filled out dozens of 'Pages of Testimony' for Yad Vashem about her relatives who had perished in the holocaust. From reading these handwritten documents I have been able to piece together a family tree dating back to the mid 1850's in Poland. Below is a tree of descendants of my 2nd great grandparents:



I marked the only survivors in red, all who perished in black and myself in blue (bottom left). It is astounding how entire families were massacred and wiped from existence. This is just an example of only one branch in the tree. I have similar diagrams for the Kreplak family (my great-grandmother's side, of which a couple of second cousins were later located in Paris) and the Smorgonski family (my paternal grandmother, who were murdered in Dolhinov, Poland). And these were only the adults. Many of these families had children that aren't listed in the 'Pages of Testimony'. All gone.

I will slowly continue to add details and proper citations from this resource. I am currently at around 100 people combining both sides of my Polish ancestry. My next big leap would be to try to find out if there were any family members higher up in the tree that left Europe before the war or survived the holocaust in some other way. The problem there is that both my great grandfather and his father were only sons in families with many sisters. Another problem is getting through to the correct information for 19th century Polish Jews. This is one of the top goals of my research.