Guest post - Moving forward

Ever since I found out about going on this trip with Ricky, I've been excited about finding my roots. Fortunately, that aspect of the trip was successful--things seemed to fall right into place. The one part of the trip that I truly wasn't sure about was today's visit to Auschwitz-Birkenau. Living as a child of Holocaust survivors, has made a certain indelible mark on me, that I just didn't know how I would feel to walk through what was once a nightmare for many Jews, and other people as well. Whereas Auschwitz seemed to be more of a museum than I thought it would be, I couldn't help but think of the atrocities that happened to the people living in the barracks we walked through. Each step I took, I couldn't help but think about steps other people took there, and what they must have gone through, and thought, and felt like. I found it very interesting that many of the other people going through the museum took many pictures, as though they were walking through any other history museum--for me, however, it's more than that--it's part of my makeup.

At Birkenau, my emotions were much more prevalent. Its sheer size was overwhelming. I had to keep telling myself this wasn't a movie set, this was real. Again, I was trying to comprehend the incomprehensible--how could people live like that, and more importantly, how could people do this to other people?

One meteorological note--from the moment we were picked up from the hotel this morning to ride to the former camps, it rained heavily. While walking through Auschwitz, the rain continued until we walked through what was once a gas chamber. The second we walked outside, the sun came out. I mentioned this to Ricky, and he didn't think much of it, since he felt we were going to Birkenau shortly thereafter. When we got there, the sun continued to shine, and as we began our tour with our guide, I noticed a large group of Israeli soldiers preparing to march. A trumpet player began playing, "Ay-li, Ay-li," a song often used to commemorate the Holocaust, and the soldiers marched through the gates, down to the site of the former crematoria. Once they passed, we began our tour again, and it immediately began to rain again. The whole weather situation seemed fitting.

Later, back in Krakow, we went to a concert that was part of the Jewish Festival taking place now, that was played at one of the old, beautiful synagogues in town. The music was spirited, and the audience, made up of Jews and others alike, enjoyed it very much, clapping and dancing together. It made me realized that, as Jews, we should by happy. We're still here, singing and dancing, and rejoicing in the fact that we can still live our lives with our families and contribute to society in a positive way.

Tomorrow we go exploring Krakow with our guide. It will be fun! ( I'll get some more good pictures of Ricky!)

Yes, the pigeons are eating out of her hand...oooooookayyyy

Don't tell Ricky I put this picture up!

A good way to end the day

A funny thing happened on the way to Krakow

Before we left Zamosc this morning, we stopped at the city museum to make sure that the former 1 Maja Street we had found yesterday was the correct street. We learned there that the street we had visited, Grodzka Street, was called 1 Maja only after World War II, and only was recently renamed Grodzka. A different street, Solna, was called 1 Maja before World War II, when Zayde would have lived there. We visited 1 Solna Street--and it turns out, it's a building that's connected to the hotel where we stayed and right around the corner from the Zamosc synagogue! So scratch that part of yesterday's post--although that building was, at some point, 1 Maja #1, this building had that address before the war. We went inside the building, and today it's mostly used for various businesses.

We were picked up shortly after to ride to Krakow, and guess which town we had to pass through on the road from Zamosc? You got it--Szczebrzeszyn. We decided to stop by the town hall to see if they had records of the births of Zayde's three brothers. Again, we were lucky to have a nice and eager woman working at the archives, and she pulled out book after book to find something for us. The first thing she found was a record for the birth of Huna (what we think is another name for Hersh), born in 1916. The most exciting part about this specific record is that it also listed the names of Hersh's (and Zayde's) grandparents, or my great-great-grandparents--Laibus and Haia Zilberman. The next record we found was a record of the birth of Isak, born in 1919. This record was similar to Zayde's birth record in that it was in the form of an announcement. The woman there also found requests or listings of births and deaths of two of Zayde's brothers--Hersh and Rachmiel--written up in 1946. The request/listing also had Zayde's birth, with the 1904 birth-date we found the other day. The listing didn't specify who requested or wrote up the documents, but the woman there speculated that since Zayde's listed birth-date was the only one with a month and day (the others just had approximate years listed), then maybe it was Zayde who came back to the town in 1946 and requested/listed the documents. Further research is needed on that point...

Anyway, we arrived in Krakow in late afternoon, and we got situated into our hotel. We're staying right in the middle of the former Jewish quarter, Kazimierez. For those of you who don't know, Krakow is the second largest city in Poland, and unlike Warsaw, very little of it was destroyed during the war, so much of its historical landscape, including the Jewish quarter, has been preserved. Today, the whole Jewish quarter promotes Jewish culture through Jewish-style restaurants, Klezmer music, and the annual Krakow Jewish Festival, which features two weeks of speakers, presentations, workshops, concerts, meetings, tours, and more. Lucky for us, we've caught the last few days of the festival, which ends Sunday! There are so many people here from all around the world just for the festival, so it will be exciting to get to attend some of the events. Tomorrow morning, though, we'll take a trip to Auschwitz-Birkenau to the see the museum and former concentration camp there. More on that tomorrow...

Goodbye "Hometowns"

Today was our first full day without a guide and our last day in Zamosc. We began by going back to the town hall archives to request an official copy of Chaim Zylberman's birth record, as well as to find out if Zayde had had any other children. Yesterday, we visited the archives a second time in the afternoon, and by then Alex had left to travel back to Ukraine. After a few minutes of back and forth between us, speaking in English, and the woman at the office, speaking Polish, a girl walked in (what seemed like out of nowhere!) to act as our translator. This morning, seconds after we arrived in the office, the woman at the desk had the translator assist us again. We filled out the necessary forms, and were told to come back for the results at 2.

We then went to the Zamosc synagogue, a 17th-century Renaissance building that survived the war, and was recently restored to its pre-war state. The building is now used as a cultural center and gallery, as well as a museum to the history of Jews in Poland. We watched several short films on pre-war Jewish life, specifically on the Jewish life in the cities of Lwow, Warsaw, and Krakow. The films were narrated in Yiddish and featured cheesy Klezmer music, so ended up being both informative and entertaining.

Later, we went back to the town hall archives, and the woman there provided us with our answers: Chaim's birth record exists, but records from the years after Chaim's birth don't--so we can conclude that Zayde only had one child. On the birth record, one section lists a street name as the location of the "announcer" of the birth, that being Zayde in this case. The street name was one that was different from the street we visited yesterday, so we concluded that the location was either the place where Zayde lived when he first moved to Zamosc, or the place where Chaim was born. We went to the tourist information center to find out where this street was today. The woman working there didn't know exactly where the street was, but noticed that I also had written down "1 Maja, #1" in my notebook--this is the street name that's listed on Zayde's concentration camp forms, that we assumed was the same as Kamienna Street--the street we visited yesterday. However, she pointed to a different street on the map, one right in the center of town, that intersects with the main square, as the former 1 Maja Street. We thanked her and set off to see the former 1 Maja, #1 building, and when we got there, it was clear that this was not a modern building--it was a huge, white apartment building on the corner of the street, on the edge of the center of the city. Unfortunately, we don't have an apartment number, but this was definitely the same apartment building that Zayde must have lived in at some point after he lived on Kamienna and before the war. That means that I was in 3 out of my 4 grandparents' pre-war residences!

We also visited one of Zamosc's former cemeteries today, which is today a memorial to Zamosc's pre-war Jewish population. Since the cemetery's headstones were smashed, the builders of the memorial took the fragments and put them together into a monument and 3 walls to serve as the memorial. We lit candles there, and spent some time reading the fragments to look for familiar names.

Anyway, as I mentioned before, today was our last day in Zamosc, and tomorrow morning we go to Krakow! Everyone we've spoken to has said that Krakow is beautiful, so I'm sure we'll enjoy our stay there. More to come!

Interior of the Zamosc Synagogue

Zayde's apartment building at #1 (former) 1 Maja Street

The engine that could

Now that I can speak from experience, finding out things here ends up being a lot like the little engine's journey in the classic story: at first, things are slow, and all possible leads fall quickly. Then, the train gets moving, as you find one record, or one reference to a record. Then, someone gets interested in helping, and the train goes further up the hill. Then, sometimes unexpectedly, the train hits the top and goes rushing to the bottom of the hill, fresh will all the information (and more) that you could have imagined to find. Today was a perfect example.

We started off by looking for my grandpa, Zayde's, birth certificate. The reason we had to look for this information in the first place was because we had always thought that Zayde was born in May of 1913, but recently, we acquired many documents from the International Tracing Service that listed his birth year as anywhere from 1907 to 1912 to 1913. The reason that we were able to acquire so many documents regarding Zayde's experiences during the Holocaust was that he was in 5 different camps during the war, and from the dates that he was in the camps, it seems that he arrived in each of the camps before the bulk of the other people--we think to sew the prisoners' uniforms, since he was a tailor. From these documents, we also found out that Zayde had had a wife (other than Grandma Esther) before the war, named Milka Licht, but that they didn't have any children.

Anyway, we started off in the town hall archives in Zamosc looking for Zayde's birth records. We told the woman working at the desk that we were looking for someone born in Zamosc, and we gave them Zayde's information: Name, Tobias/Tewel Zylberman, and Year of Birth: 1907, 1912, or 1913. She began looking through books for births with the name Zylberman beginning in 1910, since any earlier documents are housed in another archive. She looked through books and books and books and didn't see any births with the name Zylberman, that matched Zayde's parents' names. I then remembered the name Szczebrzesyn, the name of a town that someone had listed as Zayde's mother's hometown on an online Yad Vashem (Israeli Holocaust Museum) database. I looked at a map of the local area on the wall, and saw that Szczebrzesyn was right next to Zamosc. Since the woman working in the archives couldn't find any Zylbermans up till the 1930's (this would include Zayde's younger siblings as well), we concluded that either Zayde was born in Zamosc before 1910, or in another town, possibly in Szczebrzesyn. But he never mentioned Szczebrzesyn, only Zamosc, so this left us confused.

We then went to the other Zamosc archive, the one that had records pre-1910 for both Zamosc and Szczebrzesyn. The archives were empty, so the woman who worked in the reading room was very eager to help us with finding out any information we could find. We began by looking through Zamosc birth records for 1907, but there was no listing for Tewel Zylberman. We then looked through the Szczebrzesyn birth records for 1907, but again there was no record for Tewel Zylberman. But then, the train started moving. The woman who worked in the reading room suggested we look at a census from Zamosc from 1934, and she brought us an index of last and first names, as well as birth dates. We slowly turned the pages until--there, right in the middle of the page, was listed, Zylberman, Tewel! But there was a roadblock: his birth-date was listed as June 7th, 1904, and the only other Zylberman listed was a Chaim, born in 1929. I was skeptical that this was the same Tewel, but luckily the index pointed us to the train's next stop, a coffee-table size book (literally the size of a coffee table) that had more detailed records on the index listings. We opened up this book, and there was confirmation that this was Zayde's listing: his parents names, which we had previously known, were listed right next to his name (including his middle name, Manys--a name which we hadn't before known). Again, his birth-date was listed in 1904, and his occupation was listed as tailor, and on the top of the page was his address in Zamosc, 1 Kamienna Street, apartment 3. And, he was listed to have been born in Szczebrzesyn! So the mystery of where he was from was solved: even though he was born in Szczebrzesyn, he had moved to Zamosc at some point, so he had always said that he was from Zamosc, since that's where he lived for several years before the war. Under Zayde's name was his wife, Milka's information: her full name, Kajla Milka Licht, and her parents names. And under her name, was Chaim's information--Chaim, their son's information. We had never known that Zayde had had a son before the war, let alone a wife--we had only found that out through documents after Zayde passed away. Not only was this news to us, it was news to my dad that he had (or has) a half-brother, born before the war.

And then it hit us--we had checked the birth records for Szczebrzesyn for 1907, but Zayde was born in 1904. The woman at the archive by now was excited that we were excited, and almost without us asking, it seemed, she brought out the birth records from 1904. We opened up the book, and inside was Zayde's birth announcement, that went something like this: "An announcement, that Abram Shlomo, 22 years old, at 11 in the evening, presents a male child by Mindla Rotman, 22 years old, by the witnesses Nuchim Tuchminder, 62 years old, and Mayer Dicker, 47 years old. The child was circumcised in the synagogue in Szczebrzesyn and was named Tewel Manys Zylberman, on the 7th of June in this year, 1904." By now we knew that we had to visit Szczebrzesyn...but not before stopping at Kamienna Street in Zamosc.

We got to Kamienna Street, not far from the center of town, and although the original apartment building was not there, a new apartment building stood in its spot with the same address. And, just like the front steps were a kind of sign at Mama Manya's house, right across the street from Zayde's apartment building was a tailor shop. We took some pictures there and then made our way to Szczebrzesyn, a 20 minute drive from Zamosc, not knowing what to expect.

When we got there, we asked the first woman we saw on the street if she knew of a synagogue or Jewish cemetery still in existence. She didn't really know, and since we couldn't find too many other people on the street to ask, we were about ready to turn back to Zamosc...until we saw a large, square pink building in the center of town, that looked strangely like a synagogue. We turned the corner to see the front, and right there, next to the door, was a plaque in Hebrew--this was the original synagogue of Szczebrzesyn, restored in recent years! Although the building is now used as an art gallery, the main hall of the synagogue was still there, complete with the original stone steps leading into the hall and the carved stone Aron HaKodesh, where the Torahs would have been kept. And, as we learned, this was the only synagogue in town in Szczebrzesyn, so this had to have been the place where Zayde had his bris, and likely his Bar-Mitzvah.

And if that wasn't enough, the train kept chugging forward. We asked at the synagogue if there was still a Jewish cemetery, and she pointed straight up the hill from the synagogue. We walked up there and entered the gates to the cemetery--now, two hills overgrown with waist-to-shoulder-high plants. But there, right at the cemetery entrance, was a fenced-off section with a 300 year old grave to a famous Rabbi from the area. And, through the plants and up the hill, were hundreds of intact, upright headstones! It hadn't looked like anyone had tried to destroy the cemetery, and the only damage done seemed like it was due to natural causes. We spent probably close to an hour looking at the headstones for the family name, and although we didn't find anything, it was amazing to see such an intact cemetery, with proof that Jews had been living in the area for hundreds of years.

At the end of the day, we came away with so much new information, as well as a new word to add to our vocabulary--Szczebrzesyn. It's amazing how one small step after another, we made it to standing in the very spot that my grandfather grew up. Tomorrow we'll go to another significant place in Zayde's life, the synagogue in Zamosc, which was restored just last year. For now, trying to say Szczebrzesyn isn't losing its charm--just don't ask me to spell it.

The Zylberman listing in the Zamosc 1934 Census

The synagogue in Szczebrzeszyn

Inside the Synagogue in Szczebrzeszyn

Szczebrzeszyn's Jewish cemetery

In the neighborhood

This morning we said goodbye to Lviv and traveled North to Volodymyr-Volynski to see where my grandma, Esther Silberman (Grandma Esther) was from. I can say conclusively that Grandma Esther is the grandparent we have the least information about--how she grew up, what her parents did, even where she was born--this was learned only through the few documents we could manage to piece together. since Grandma Esther never really talked about the details of her childhood after the war. But, what I did know, was that Grandma Esther was very resourceful and practical, and that she loved to garden--her entire backyard in Elizabeth, NJ was planted with tomato and cucumber plants. It was these two things that gave me the impression that Grandma Esther came from a rural, as opposed to an urban background. That's why it was surprising when we discovered that her hometown of Volyn (as she called it) was likely Volodymyr-Volynski, not a town at all but what Ukrainians would call a city, at a population over 30,000. But, when we arrived in the "city," it was clear that it would not be a city like Lviv or Kolomyja is a city. The place wasn't small, and definitely had more that one stretch of main roads, but the buildings were mostly low, and all the houses, even ones close to the center, had at least a small garden with a few animals in the front yard.

From some documents we found online, we found that Grandma Esther's family might have owned a small restaurant, and the documents listed the street where this restaurant was located. We went to the local museum to try and figure out what the modern equivalent of this street, Poniatowskiego street, was. They were unable to help us (the museum director was in Belarus and all the old maps were locked away in his office), so instead we decided to hit the streets and look for any older people who might remember the previous street names. After talking to what seemed like the whole town, we couldn't find one person who was both born in the city and old enough to know the previous street names, or even one person who knew such an older person. We decided to visit the local library to see if they had any old maps.

The librarians there were very eager to help us, and like us, went all over town to try and find an old person who would be able to tell us something about the town before the war. They were also unsuccessful in doing so, but knew of a book that had an old map in it. They called up another library in Kiev to have them examine a copy of the book, and then were finally able to tell us where the area of Poniatowskiego street was. When we got to this area, we could more and more picture Grandma Esther coming that sort of place--like the houses closer to the center of the city, every house had a garden, but in this area, every inch of space was used for plants--there were grapes here, cherry trees, cucumbers, dill, flowers, etc. It was like each house had a small farm, not just a garden, in the yard.

We went around this area a little to see if we could find anyone who would remember things from before the war, and the closest we found was a woman and her husband picking cherries in front of their house. The woman was born in the city in 1945, and her parents, who were friends with the local Jews before the war, would often tell her stories of what it was like. At one point when she was talking to us, this woman whispered something to Alex. He later told us that what she said was that her husband was Jewish, originally from Moscow. They shared some cherries with us and directed us to an old restaurant building down the street that she said was owned by a Jewish family who lived in an apartment on the second floor. Although we have no idea if this was Grandma Esther's family restaurant building, or if they even had a restaurant, by walking around this area of town, we really got a feel for where she came from. And, as my dad said, we were closer to her house there than ever before! So that was also an accomplishment.

That being our last stop in Ukraine, we drove to the border to cross into Poland and on to Zamosc, the city where my dad's dad, Tobias Silberman (Zayde) was from. After being told we would be waiting at the border for up to 7 hours (and then managing to get across in less than 2...let's just say we know our way around Ukraine), we were very excited to get to Zamosc--and here we are! It's a beautifully planned Italian-built 16th century city, and that's enough reason to explore its streets. But tomorrow we'll hopefully go to the local archives to look for original birth records, as well as the location of Zayde's house, and the local synagogue, which was restored just last year. Until then, good night from Poland!

At the entrace to Volodymyr-Volynski

One of the houses in Grandma Esther's town

Entering Zamosc

Buildings on the main square in Zamosc

Act II begins

Once again, Shabbat in Ukraine has proven itself to be an interesting experience, to say the least. The synagogue we attended this morning was about a 30 minute walk from our hotel, and mostly uphill. When we got there, we walked through the large metal fence around the few buildings, and proceeded to what looked like the main entrance. A Ukrainian man (whom we later learned was the synagogue's guard) stopped us and said something in Ukrainian. Of course, we didn't understand, and my dad said, "Maybe Yiddish?" Well, that was the password--he showed us to where services were being held. Unlike last week, when most of the men read the newspaper instead of following along with the prayers, at this synagogue, it looked like most people knew what they were doing. Again, though, a Rabbi lead the whole service and read from the Torah (pausing often for what seemed like short "intermissions" to catch up on the exact pronunciations of the words).

After the service was over, the Rabbi invited us over to his house for lunch, but not before stopping to show us the main hall of the synagogue, different from the one we prayed in. Today, this hall is basically the same as it was when it was first built in the 1920's, complete with a wooden dome and walls covered in detailed paintings of animals, landscapes, and scenes from the Torah. Although the synagogue was restored in recent years, it was largely untouched during the Holocaust, since the Russians, and later the Nazis, and then again the Russians, used the building as a stable and storage area, because of its proximity to the local train station. It was amazing to see such detailed artwork in what was considered not the most beautiful synagogue of the city back in the 30's--so I can only imagine what the other, now destroyed, synagogues looked like.

Sitting in the synagogue's main hall, the Rabbi described for us what is was like to live in Ukraine as an openly observant Jew, and he talked about some of his experiences with antisemitism. Well, on the minute walk from the synagogue to his house, we got a taste of what he probably experiences daily--everyone's heads turned, everyone stared, and one group of drivers even called out from their truck. It definitely felt good to be inside, as opposed to outside, at that point. Inside, we had a tasty lunch served by the Rabbi's wife along with help from six of their 10 children (four study in Yeshivas in America). We made great conversation, and we felt right at home there--it was also good to have a home-cooked meal! It was definitely worth the uphill walk over.

Anyway, tomorrow we depart Lviv to head to Volodymyr-Volynski, the town where my dad's mom, Esther Silberman, was from. After that we'll say goodbye to Ukraine as we cross the Polish border to head to Zamosc, where my dad's dad, Tobias Silberman was from. Next time from Poland!

P.S. My mom talked to Marisia yesterday. She confirmed that Olga Yankevitch was the right Mr. Yankevitch's sister! Meaning, we talked to the sister of the man who brought Mama Manya to Marisia's farm. Cool!

The big picture and the fine print

Ever since I read in my "lonelyplanet" Ukraine guidebook that tourists can ascend Lviv's central clock-tower, I knew that this would be a stop on my tour here. This morning I decided to venture out and see the city from above. Well, unlike the top floors of tall buildings in America, which you usually access by climbing into an elevator, the clock-tower's roof was accessible by climbing up 4 flights of stairs to the ticket booth, then what seemed like a thousand stairs up to the top. I guess I should have expected that there would be so many stairs, but it felt like it took forever to get up there! Anyway, I kept telling myself it was worth it, and in the end it definitely was--the view from the top was amazing! I had a great (and scary) time walking around the (shaky) metal platform and looking out above the fence (complete with limb-size slats). I guess I should have also remembered that I wasn't climbing just any tower, but that this was a clock-tower. Meaning, the bells on top would ring. And ring they did. I jumped a little, but luckily there weren't too many other people to see. The way down the stairs might have been a little scarier than the way up, since like many stairs here, these wooden ones were very worn and therefore all pointed downward. There was also very little lighting inside the tower. But I made it! And I'm glad I went.

Next stop was the airport to pick up my dad...and his luggage! I'm glad someone on this trip can enjoy the simple pleasure of having your luggage arrive with you. We ate a quick lunch and then headed to the central archives in Lviv to do some more research on Kolomyja and Zborow. The archives are housed in an old monastery, so the inside is dark and gloomy. And smelly. We, with the help of Alex and his wife, looked through pages and pages of records, and while we were unsuccessful for the records pertaining to Zborow, found a lot of family names in the Kolomyja property owner records. And, although we were unsuccessful for Zborow, as I said to Alex, it feels better to have looked at the records and to know that there's nothing there than to know the records are there and not have looked at them.

Speaking of looking at records, just a few minutes ago I was looking over my dad's dad's papers to see where exactly he lived before the war. I don't know how I missed it the first many times I looked at these same papers, but his address was right there on the page! I'm glad we have an address to visit there now instead of trying to look for one in the archives. But for now, we're in Lviv until Sunday morning, when we'll resume our travels. Shabbat Shalom from Ukraine!

The tower from the ground

The ground from the tower

Inside the Lviv archives

Happy we got permission to take this picture

Silent History

When we were back in Zborow, Maria, the archivist, gave us the phone number of an old woman, born in Zborow, who currently lives in Lviv. Alex called her this morning, and asked her if she remembered the Nissenbaum family. She did, and right away mentioned how they had a brewery and a flour mill. Unfortunately, she was unable to meet with us. Still, it's nice to know that there's more than one person out there who remembers Mama Manya's family!

Anyway, this morning I dropped off my mom at the airport to fly back home. I can't believe it's only been a week since we arrived--it feels more like weeks, if not months, that we were here, simply because we've experienced so much. My mom comes back in about 3 and a half weeks to join me in Austria, when we'll visit where the Displaced Persons camp was, since that's where Mama Manya and Papa Joe met and were married. Tomorrow, my dad arrives, and after a weekend in Lviv, we'll travel to his mother's hometown Sunday morning, and then Sunday night we'll arrive in his father's hometown, where we'll be for a few days before visiting Krakow. But more on that when the time gets closer!

Today, Alex showed me around the city of Lviv. As my mom mentioned yesterday, we got a taste of the city yesterday afternoon, but today I got to see basically the whole city on foot, and especially the Jewish sites in town. First of all, you should know that Lviv is a typical European city, meaning that it has wide avenues, beautiful old buildings, pedestrian-only streets, courtyards, main squares, and so on. I would have never guessed that there would be such a nice city in the middle of Ukraine, especially after spending most of the week in small towns and villages! I imagine that Krakow and Vienna look something like Lviv, but they're probably better kept up--that's the thing--while Lviv is a beautiful city, it still has the lousy road conditions and deteriorating buildings that are commonly found in Ukraine. Anyway, stops on our tour of Jewish Lviv included the remains of the Golden Rose Synagogue, an Italian-style synagogue that was blown up by the Nazis in 1941, the old Jewish quarter of the city, sites of Jewish businesses and shops near the center of the city (with original painted signage intact), the old Jewish hospital, memorials to the victims of the Lviv Ghetto and Janovska Concentration Camp, and two synagogues that survived the war. One of this, which used to be a Hasidic synagogue, was used as a synagogue and Jewish Cultural Center after the war, but sometime recently, has been out of use. I got out of the car to take pictures of the exterior of the synagogue, and noticed that the door was open. I decided to go inside and look around. The first hallway was used as an exhibit about what happened to the Jews of Lviv during the war, and it seemed like the only other people in the building were a young man and an old woman sitting in that first hallway, speaking in Ukrainian. They didn't seem to mind when I looked around, so I poked my head under construction tape, which was blocking the entrance to the main hall of the synagogue. Besides the fact that the room was being used mainly as a storage room, it looked pretty much intact, although it was clear that no one had prayed in here in years. I then went upstairs, and found abandoned offices and meeting rooms, complete with computers, printers, copy machines, televisions, desks with papers, and so on. It was very eerie--it was like everyone had been there yesterday, but no one decided to show up today. I'm not sure what the story is. As I was walking down the steps, a woman was walking up, and asked in Hebrew, "Is it okay to go up?" I responded (in Hebrew) that there was no one up there, just a lot of stuff. She started to climb the stairs, and following her was a huge group of Israeli tourists! They all said hi to me and I told them I was from Chicago, and it was really cool to see other Jewish people touring these places.

Anyway, tomorrow I'm going to wake up early to try and see some more sights (the top of the town hall clock tower and the art museum) before we pick up my dad from the airport tomorrow. Until then...

Buildings on the main square in Lviv

A former Jewish cafe

The abandoned synagogue interior

Guest post - Turning the Page

Today was my last full day in Ukraine, so Ricky has invited me to write a guest post on his blog. As you know, this trip was conceived by Ricky as part of his research into his grandparents' histories. Ricky's heritage is unusual in many ways. Being the grandson of four survivors of the Holocaust, and having as much information as he has about each of their stories is a gift. His heritage is one of strength, courage, perseverance, loyalty, humanity and faith.

We began our day entering an church on the main square in Ternopil in order to view archives which are kept there. Certain records for my mother's town of Zborow are stored in that region's archives. We went hoping to view voting records for several years in the 1920s, as well as Jewish Community organization logs for the 1930s. My mother told me that when she was younger, her mother was very active in society groups, and attended meetings in the evenings on a regular basis. Viewing these records would give us a chance to see our grandparents' and great grandparents' names in writing; to see that they were active members of their community.

Our guide wasn't hopeful that we would find any meaningful information. He told us that records are often mislabeled, that records of organizations are just minutes of meetings and don't list members, and that it would be very time consuming to go through all the papers which are written in Polish. Despite, that, we asked to see the records, and thanks to our guide's good relationship with the archivist, we got the records in an hour, rather than having to request them days in advance. Our guide handed us a thick file of voting records for 1927 and 1928. Ricky and I took deep breaths before beginning our search. And then we turned the page, and right there on the first page was a listing of my great-grandparents, and my great uncles on my mother's side. I had never known my great- grandmother's name, nor any of the great uncles' names or ages. It was so exciting to see their listing! A few minutes later, our guide jumped up across the room, and came over to us holding another thick folder of yellowed papers. He said "look- I found something! Your great-grandfather was a treasurer of Agudath Israel! And your great uncle was the vice-president!" We saw the minutes of the meetings, along with my relatives' signatures at the bottom of the pages. That must have been why my grandmother was also involved in organizations. It was what the family did.

This afternoon we left Ternopil to travel to Lviv where I am to depart from, where Joe (Ricky's dad) is to arrive, and where more archives are located. The archives in Lviv hold information about the residents of Zborow and Kolomyja dating back to the 18th century. I will not be here when Ricky receives the records he requested, but I'm hopeful that he will be successful in tying together more loose ends in his quest for information.

In the meantime, we spent our afternoon here walking the streets of Lviv. What a different atmosphere from the smaller cities, towns and villages we have visited in the last few days. It was refreshing to see a wide variety of people, age groups, clothing and big buildings. At one point on the main square, we witnessed Ukraine's official Day of Mourning marked by an assembly and show of flags. It was a time to remember all the Ukranians lost during World War II. It was strange, that just like in America, mostly older people were there to memorialize those victims. The young people on the periphery of the square walked by in their jeans and high heels (how do they walk in those things on cobblestones?) not showing any evidence that the War had any effect on them.

Ricky is now giving me a look that says "you're writing too much", so I'm going to say goodbye for now.

Entering the Archives in Ternopil

Council of Ukrainian Elderly meeting in the park

Watching the Day of Mourning Gathering

An uphill battle

This morning we ventured into the villages surrounding Zborow to see if anyone remembered hearing about Marisia hiding a group of Jews, including Mama Manya, on her farm. Picture this: we turn off of the main road onto a dirt road leading to one such village, in what feels like the Ukrainian version of a jungle. We see an old woman on the side of the road, we ask her if she remembers a name or part of a story, and even if she doesn't, she keeps us captive for at least the next fifteen minutes. We let her into our car, she directs us where to go, and brings us to all of her friends' houses, whom she thinks might be able to help. We get out at each house, meet the next person, and as the group of us gets bigger and bigger, there's more and more back and forth chatter about who did this, or who owned this property, or who worked where. After a few of these experiences, we met one woman who directed us to Stefana, who directed us down a hill, through a field, and up another hill to Klima's house. We met Klima and her husband as they returned from working in the field, and when we mentioned that we knew Marisia, they began telling all the stories they could remember about Marisia and her family--about where they lived, their lives before and after the war, and how they were hiding Jews. Just like yesterday, when we found someone who remembered Mama Manya's family, it was a crazy feeling to hear someone so many miles away tell the same stories we knew about Marisia and her family.

Anyway, later in the day, we returned to Zborow to see Mama Manya's school and house, as well as the memorial to the Jewish community from Zborow. We also revisited the technical department to see if they had any information about house #32, since the information we received about #30 was no longer relevant. Yesterday, they were all interested in hearing about our search, were willing to pull out the records, and showed us everything they had about that house. Today, however, even though it was the same people working there, and the same type record we were looking for, they claimed they couldn't be of much help. Without checking any lists or databases of records, they said that no such record about #32 existed. We were skeptical, but it seems like that's the way things work around here. You'll have luck one day, and not the next, people will choose to help you one day, and not the next. The next few days will mark the end of the first half of my "hometowns" leg of my trip, and we'll spend these days in the archives here in Ternopil and in Lviv searching for school records, taxpayers lists, Jewish community records, and so on. Just like the inconsistent help at the technical department, the records are very inconsistent. There will be a record of births from a given town for the years 1815-1865, but not for any years in the 20th century. There will be a census from 1780, but not for any other year. There might be a property owners list for the 19th century in one archive, but another list from the 20th century in another distant city. Anyway, we're trying to see all we can in the next few days to fit as much as we can together. Then off to my dad's parents' hometowns. Wish us luck for our first venture into the archives!

Some of the Ukrainian villagers

The couple who remembered Marisia

Mama Manya's Polish school in Zborow

In the basement of Mama Manya's childhood home

It's a small world after all

A little back-story before I delve into what we did today: Out of my four grandparents, I got to know my mom's mom, Manya Birnberg (whom we called Mama Manya), the best. Before she passed away this past August, I was able to interview her pretty extensively about her experiences during the Holocaust, but also about her life before the war. Mama Manya was born in Zborow, a town in what was then part of Poland. The town was small, so many people knew each other anyway, but Mama Manya's family was very prominent in their town since they owned a number of different businesses: her father owned a brewery that produced and sold vinegar. He also owned a flour mill, and her grandfather owned a lumberyard. Mama Manya's family lived in her grandfather's house, which they shared with her grandfather and two other branches of her family. She always described her childhood home as a villa: a large house with a staircase leading up to double doors that was divided into 4 apartments, with the mill on one side, and a park on the other. On a form that she filled out after the war, she listed that the house was built out of "well-fired Polish bricks." She also said that her house was on the same street as the mayor's office, and whenever her father visited the mayor, he greeted her father and offered him a seat in his office. Then, when everyone was placed into the ghetto, Mama Manya's family received a letter from another family that was being hid by a Polish Catholic teenager, Marisia. Marisia was offering to take in another family, so Mama Manya's father sent his wife, her mother, to hide with Marisia. The local Nazi authorities realized that someone was missing, so threatened to kill an amount of people if she didn't return. Mama Manya's mother returned to the ghetto, but a few days later, it was liquidated anyway. Right before the liquidation, Mama Manya managed to escape from the ghetto, and with the help of a Ukrainian man whom her sister knew from school, Yankevitch, arrived at Marisia's house, where she stayed underground until liberation by the Russians.

With all of this information in mind, we traveled to Zborow, about a 30 minute car ride from Ternopil. We took a picture with the sign marking the town as two cows and a farmer walked by. Marisia had been back in Zborow in 1994, and when she was there, she took a picture of what she remembered as Mama Manya's house on at 30 Sobieskiego Street. However, Mama Manya always said that this picture was of a different house. Still, we started off our visit by finding that house. The whole town turned out to be centered around one, short, main street, and we figured out that this main street was Sobieskiego, based on some old pictures. We found the house that Marisia thought was Mama Manya's pretty quickly, but as we pulled up to park, I noticed that the next house over had a staircase leading up to a double door, but the house seemed too tall to be Mama Manya's, at least according to her descriptions. We examined #30, which Marisia claimed was Mama Manya's, but we couldn't tell if this building was the original, or if it was built after the war. We went to the town's technical department, where they have building records, to try and figure out when the house was built. Still, so far, things were making sense--the house was on the same street as the town hall, and there was plenty of room in the backyard for a mill and lumberyard. But, when we got to the technical department, they showed us a record that the building at #30 was built in 1955, so this could have been where Mama Manya's house was, but it definitely wasn't the same house. We then went to the town museum, since the old man who worked there was rumored to have known some information. When you open the front door to this museum, a sensor plays "It's a Small World After All" until you shut the door--a weird Ukrainian quirk, but we thought that it might be a sign. It turned out that the old man there was born in another town, so he hadn't heard of Mama Manya's family, but he showed us some pre-war pictures of the town. On a whim, we decided to visit the archival department of the town, even though it was likely they wouldn't have any records from before the war. They didn't, but we asked about our family names anyway: Mama Manya's maiden name, Nisenbaum, and her mother's maiden name, Wolfzahn. Just before we were going to leave, we asked the archivist there, Maria, if she had heard of a Yankevitch family. She replied that she knew the family very well, and that one member of the family, Olga, who was born in Zborow in 1923, was still living, and that she would take us to meet her.

We all jumped in the car to visit Olga, a small, wrinkled Ukrainian woman who spoke with a very high voice. She sat us down in her living room, and Alex (our guide) explained to her who we were. He asked her if she remembered the name Nisenbaum from before the war, and she responded with a very enthusiastic, "tak! tak!" (yes, yes!). "they lived on the main street!" She continued (in Ukrainian of course), "I can't remember what business they had, but maybe they sold vinegar? And they didn't just sell it, they made it too." Well, by this point we were excited, smiling, laughing, crying, nodding--more emotions than you can list. Someone in the town still remembered them! We asked her more questions and showed her pictures, and then we asked her about her family, since Yankevitch was also the name of the man who helped Mama Manya get to Marisia, and one of Mama Manya's sister's friends from school. We asked Olga when her brother was born. She replied 1918. We asked Olga what her brother's job was. She replied that he was a German teacher in the local school. We knew that Mama Manya's sister was born in 1922 and was studying to be a teacher, so again, everything was starting to align--this had to have been the same Yankevitch! Olga's brother had passed away many years ago, but she remembered that he was friends with some other Jewish people from the town. We then asked her if she remembered which house the Nisenbaum family lived in. She replied that it was still there, but that it used to be a one story building, but in later years another floor was added. And, the numbering was changed on the main street, so the house was no longer #30, it's now #32--the "too-tall" house I noticed with the stairs leading up to the door! So, not only did we learn of the real location of Mama Manya's house, and not only did we meet someone who remembered her family, but her house was still there! Maria from the archives drove us over to the house to make sure we looked at the right one, and indeed, it was the one with the stairs. We took some time taking pictures of the outside, and we also went inside--now it's divided into 10 different apartments. We went to see the back of the house, and there, a little to the left, was a small park! Then, an old man came up to us and started talking to us. He was talking about how the house was very old, but another floor was added in recent years, and that there used to be a flour mill behind the house! Everything had fallen into place. This was the right location, and this was the house. Well, by now, it seemed like the whole town was crowding around us, and people were looking out the windows of the top floor of the house. One man yelled down to us, then came outside and shook our hands. Alex told us that he was a former mayor of the town. Mama Manya's father used to be invited into the mayor's office, and here was a mayor living in what was Mama Manya's house! Anyway, he was very excited to tell us all about the house, and he and the other old men from the house took us into the cellar to see the original bricks. They began pulling out various bricks and arguing about whether they were Soviet or Polish, and they looked all over for anything original from the house. We didn't find anything, but they pulled out a brick--a "well-fired Polish brick" with the original stamp on it for us to keep. We told them to keep looking, since we'll be back tomorrow. It was a whirlwind of a day, one that began with disappointment but ended with excitement and contentment.

Tomorrow we're going back to Zborow to see the house again and Mama Manya's school, as well as the neighboring villages--including the one that Marisia was from. We'll also visit the ghetto area of the town and a memorial site to the town's Jewish inhabitants. But, today we definitely understood what the song at the museum was telling us: "It's a small world after all."

The main street of the town, and Mama Manya's street

Talking with Olga Yankevitch and the archivist

Mama Manya's house today, with another floor added on

Searching for Polish bricks in the cellar

It's raining cows and donkeys!

This morning we said goodbye to our hotel and very friendly hotel staff in Stanislau. They were probably the only people we've met and will meet (besides our guide) with such good English-speaking skills. Though, that doesn't mean that they didn't have their Ukrainian quirks. But more on that later. After breakfast we drove back to Kolomyja to see where the Birnberg family business was located, as well as the section of the ghetto that Papa Joe's family was placed in. The street of the family business was a narrow one, a few blocks away from their house and from the main square. It wasn't paved, and many plants on the side of the street were overgrown. This proved to be a very bumpy ride. We had a little more trouble finding the street that the ghetto section was on, since it was, according to a map, just off a different unpaved (and very bumpy) street further from the center of town, but it turned out that the street barely existed: all that was left was a short gravel path mostly filled in with grass and other plants. The ghetto area was probably completely destroyed, and it looked like not too much was rebuilt. We also went back to Papa Joe's house one more time to get a closer look at the surrounding area as well as to take a few more pictures. We did most of this from the car, however, since it started pouring rain! That's when two unleashed dogs appeared out of nowhere and started fighting.Our last stop was at the Sheparowicz Forest, a spot near the town to where most of the Jewish residents of Kolomyja were taken to be shot and buried in mass graves. We lit two memorial candles there, in memory of my great-grandparents. Before we left Kolomyja we stopped at the Pysanky (Traditional Ukrainian painted egg) Museum, a building shaped like a giant painted egg and filled with elaborate painted eggs. They also had little sculptures made out of bread and cake there. It was kind of odd. And made us hungry. Speaking of kind of odd, since we spent the rest of the day in the car traveling to Ternopil, we got to take in more of the typical Ukrainian oddities, such as flocks of ducks congregating on the sides of streets, Ukrainian ladies walking on the side of the road in the middle of nowhere, and potholes that haven't been fixed since Soviet times. Oh, and those cows eating grass on the road median, that's old news. You would think that, like in many European countries, the younger people would speak English. But, from what we've experienced, only a handful do, and some, "only 50-50," like our waiter at dinner tonight. And, like I said, no Ukrainian is free of Ukrainian quirks. The receptionist in our first hotel had cheetah-print dyed hair, because she "just loves this animal." Anyway, I'm sure we'll get to see more of this tomorrow when we visit Zborow, the town where my grandmother, Mama Manya grew up. Back to Mike-n-Ike's, a much needed break from beets and oily potatoes!

Sunday afternoon stroll

Yes, that's a giant egg (museum)

...And she's proud of it!

Our prayers were answered!

If I didn't mention it before, the hotel we're staying at is located directly next to the pre-war Great Synagogue building, that we knew still housed services every Saturday morning. We woke this morning up to a loud resonating voice, which we assumed would be the Rabbi's from the next building over, but instead turned out to be Lady Gaga's being played at an outdoor "marathon." I say marathon in quotes because the start and finish lines were just across the street from each other and no one was seen running between them. A large crowd was gathered around a few Taekwondo masters jumping over each other. We walked back over to the synagogue for services. They were held upstairs, in what was likely the original main prayer room, but that was obviously renovated/repainted over the years. About the building itself: the whole original building is intact (minus a few decorative towers on the roof), but the front half is divided into various other offices and businesses and only the back half and the top floors belong to the current synagogue. Anyway, the services were held in a room that once held probably a few hundred people, and now held about 20 men and 6 women, including us. The services were all conducted by a Rabbi from another city, while the men in the congregation read mostly from newspapers, not the siddur. It seemed like only a few of them read Hebrew, since when they did follow along or read blessings, it was all in Ukrainian or Russian transliteration. The "Gabbai" there was a lanky old man who, when he wasn't knocking on his bench to tell everyone to stand up or calling out when to say "Amen," spent most of the service coughing phlegm into a handkerchief. It's a good thing I didn't shake his hand. The synagogue's general atmosphere did not seem that foreign to me, since mine at home also consists of old European men and women. Anyway, when the service was over, the Rabbi invited everyone to Kiddush--a small meal in another room. We all sat--separate men and women--at tables pre-set with small plates of salad, and the Rabbi made kiddush over grape juice while everyone else made it over local Vodka. I sat with the Rabbi and a man from California also visiting Ukraine, and we talked a little--me and the other man in English, and us three in Hebrew. My mom sat with the women, who knew no English, no Polish, no Yiddish, and barely any Hebrew. That didn't matter too much, since the Rabbi interrupted often to give a L'Chaim. After we left the synagogue, we spent the rest of the day relaxing and walking around the town. And--wait for it--our luggage finally arrived at our hotel! Though, after it arrived, it was still a lot of fun to go into the clothes shops in town and imagine what we would have to continue wearing if the luggage never came. It was good to see more of the city, which turned out to have a lot of very nice areas--we walked down one wide street that was closed to cars and had beautiful old European buildings on both sides--probably what people refer to as a boulevard. Tomorrow we're going to see a few more things in Kolomyja, and will possibly visit Nadworna, where Papa Joe's brother lived. In the evening we'll travel to Ternopil, a city close to our second destination--Zborow, where my mother's mother, Manya Birnberg, was born and grew up.

No more wearing things like this!

Lost and Found

Papa Joe's family home in Kolomyja

Today we visited Kolomyja (pronounced Kolomeya), the birthplace and hometown of my mother's father, Joseph Birnberg, whom I called Papa Joe. Papa Joe's family owned a textile business that produced a type of rug as well as some clothing, and sold their products all over Europe. Papa Joe, born in 1920, went to a local Polish school as well as a Cheder (religious Jewish school) and then went on to trade school to become an accountant, which he worked as for a year from 1940-1941. Papa Joe decided to join the Russian army so that he could fight against the Nazis, and during the war he both worked as a builder and accountant for the Russian army, and this was how he was able to survive. The rest of his family was murdered in Kolomyja, and Papa Joe learned what had happened in 1945, when he returned to Kolomyja to see much of it destroyed. His house however, was still there when he visited in 1945, as well as when a friend of his went back to visit in 1993. We started off our day by visiting the local historical museum, to see if they could match up the addresses we had for Papa Joe's house and his father's textile business with the current Russian/Ukrainian street names. We spent a lot of time there while Alex convinced the reluctant historian to keep looking for things, and while she was working, we wandered around the museum. It gave us a feel of what a nicely decorated home/building would be like, since it was decorated in the older style. We figured out the new street names, and also came up with a few more destinations: a pre-war synagogue we knew still existed, a different synagogue currently in use, and Papa Joe's Polish school. We found the pre-war synagogue, now a bank, and the other synagogue, at which no one answered the door. We then started to look for the school. We only knew the name of it--Piramowicza, and the historian at the museum said that it was most likely in a building that was currently being used as an employment center. We asked people where this was, but on the way there, I noticed another building that looked familiar to me (from the Yizkor book) as the school building. However, we went to the employment center instead, and when we got there, we asked inside if anyone knew what the building was before the employment center. We talked to the director of the center, who had us call a former director who might know. The former director thought that the center was previously a Russian school, not a Polish school, so instead we went to the building that I thought might have been the right school. We walked around the building to get inside, and a teacher led us to the vice-principal--the building is still being used as a school. He sat us down in his office and began to explain (all of this talking to people, by the way, is through Alex. No one speaks English!) some of the history of the school, and we asked if he knew Piramowicza. He didn't, but a bunch of curious teachers came over to us, and looked on at our documents in pictures, and then were very excited to help us. They took us upstairs to look at pictures of students from the '30s, and then showed us some old pictures of teachers. We sat in a little office for a little while they copied our pictures for their own records and called a former teacher of the school, who they thought might know something. He called us back later, and told us that the employment center was in fact the Piramowicza school--that in the 20's and 30's it was a Polish school, not a Russian one. With all their help, the pieces of the puzzle fit right together...especially when we began to look for the street Papa Joe's house was on, and it turned out to be the very next street over from the school, and the first house on the street. It had the same address as Papa's Joe's, but the street name was different. It was clear that the whole outside of the house was original to Papa Joe's--the style was very old, but everything was in extremely good shape--especially the ornately carved wooden door--and only the windows seemed to be replaced. We went around the house to enter, since the door handle wasn't on the front door, and saw that the house had been divided into two apartments, and where the front entrance was, was turned into a storage room. However, we saw that there was very nice red and blue stained glass on top of the door. We knocked on one of the apartments, and a very large shirtless Ukrainian man opened the door. We explained that Papa Joe used to live in this house, and asked if there was anything on the inside that was original to his house. He said that when they moved in, there was nothing inside the house, and it was he who divided it up into the two apartments and made the storage area. However, he let us look around and take a picture out the window, just like the one we've always had of Papa Joe's family (see below). We spent some more time outside the house, just taking in the fact that this was really where he was! It was such a nice location, right next to the school and the former great synagogue and the main square, and it was (as was the city as a whole) the total opposite of what someone expects from one of these former homes in the "shtetl"--it wasn't like Fiddler on the Roof at all. Instead, it was a beautiful, colorful, clean, well-kept large city. Anyway, we took some "artifacts" from the outside of the home, and then planned to return to Kolomyja on Sunday to visit where Papa Joe's father's business was, as well as Nadworna, a city close by, where Papa Joe's brother lived with his family. Oh--and still no luggage, which means that we've been buying more and more Ukrainian clothes. Let's just say...we'll fit in very well with the style here. See below.

Us in the main square (Rynek) in Kolomyja

Piramowicza School

The Birnberg family outside their home

Us outside the Birnberg family home

"Traditional" Ukrainian clothing

Day one

Well, we're here! We being my mom, who joined for the first week of the trip to see her parents' hometowns, and me. And what a crazy Eastern European adventure it's been so far. We started off in Chicago by getting to the gate just in time to board towards Newark (to take us to Munich and then Lviv, Ukraine). Minutes after we arrived there, the flight attendants announced that the flight to Newark was canceled due to a mechanical problem and that we would either have to wait 2 hours to board another plane (and miss our connections) or figure out a new plan to get to our final destination. We called our travel agent, who put a new itinerary on our flying records, which the flight attendant thankfully accepted to reissue. It was definitely a small lesson in flexibility and the utility of a travel agent. We got a quick bite to eat before our earlier-than-expected international flight, since now we would be flying from Chicago, to Frankfurt, to Warsaw, to Lviv. The only problem was, that by the time our flight to Frankfurt got moving, we were a little late, and when we landed, we only had about 45 minutes before our connecting flight to Warsaw was to depart. We tried to get off the plane quickly, but people seemed to stroll down the aisles as they made their way off the plane. The next 40 minutes was an adventure in itself. Many people claim that they've been to a country just because they've been to that country's airport, even if they never stepped foot outside. We had the opposite experience: instead of going into the airport, passing through passport control, moving through the gate, and onto the plane, we barely went inside. We were transported via bus to passport control, then sped off to a room down a hall and up a flight of stairs (up which we ran, since "you have two minutes!" said a flight attendant on the bus) where they checked our tickets, then directly to the plane. It was the most confusing 40 minutes ever, and we really had to trust the flight attendants and the people running ahead of us to know where we were going, since by this point, there were so many different kinds of people that you really didn't know what language to speak. Anyway, the plane turned out to be the right one, and we landed in Warsaw just over an hour later. It was not what I expected at all! The airport was very modern and, from what we saw of it, everything looked very clean and new and nice! Anyway, we spent some time there eating, people-watching, and converting money, and then we got on--you guessed it--a bus to get to our final plane that would take us to Lviv. This wasn't just any plane. It was a 48-seater (at the most) plane with two giant propellers on each side. This proved to be a bumpy and extremely strange plane ride, in which we slept pretty much the whole time, but we definitely felt like we were already in a very foreign country. As we approached Lviv, we got the feeling of, "now this is more like I thought it would look." Farms, old houses, and a tiny--and I mean one-gate-tiny airport confirmed that we were back to the old country. Back in the old country, by the way, minus our luggage, lost on the way. Minor detail? Anyway, after meeting Alex (our guide) and much of him translating Ukrainian into English (who speaks English around here?) we began our long drive to Stanislau, aka Ivano Frankivsk, a small city located near our first destination. The drive there took us through small towns, mountains, but mostly fields and fields--empty, or filled with haystacks, or filled with old Ukrainian ladies. On the note of old Ukrainian ladies, they love walking on the side of the road, but not just the side of the road, more like on the road itself. On the note of the roads, although they're two lanes most of the time (theoretically to allow one for each direction of traffic), anyone can use whatever lane he wants. And we did just that. Anyway, we spent the evening wandering around Stanislau buying socks and outlet adapters, and now we're going to sleep before hitting our first stop on the journey tomorrow, Kolomyja--my grandfather Joseph Birnberg's hometown. More later!

The main square in Stanislau

The (tiny) plane to Ukraine

Us after buying socks in Stanislau