Footprints on Cobblestone: 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!