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