Too comfortable

I didn't know what visiting the actual museum part of Yad Vashem would be like after my trip. I knew that specific places and pictures would be much more real to me, and I knew that going into the museum, I would feel more confident about the general history and also about how my grandparents' histories fit into the larger picture of the war. But what I came away realizing was instead something so simple, so disheartening, but something I've probably been ignoring for the past 6 weeks: not everyone cares as much as I do.

Yad Vashem's main museum is set up along a long, wide glass and cement hallway, but to get to the end of the hallway, you must follow the exhibits as they wind left and right and cross through the central hallway where you can look both back and forward in "time." At one point while walking through the exhibit, I looked ahead to see a big group of people (who looked about my age) standing around talking, laughing--one guy was even dancing. To say the least, I was disgusted, but I said to myself that I would try to avoid that group.

Then, in another section of the museum, I encountered two members of that group sitting on chairs (meant for those who want to listen to recorded testimony) with their feet up, talking like they were in any coffee-shop down the street. They didn't bother to whisper, instead, were loud and disrespectful. I decided to say something to them because I was becoming extremely distracted, so I told them that if they wanted to talk, that there's a place for that--outside the museum. The two apologized and got up, but that wasn't the end of it.

In the next room, the room that began to describe the transports from the ghettos and the first death camps, I encountered two guys sitting right at the entrance, sharing headphones and bobbing their heads along to music on an iPod. Then, after turning the corner, I saw two circles of people from the same group, talking and laughing and using their cell phones--right in the middle of the exhibit! I looked for a security guard before talking to them myself, since I felt that it wasn't my responsibility to keep chasing after this group--that's not why I went to visit the museum. After seeing that the three security guards of the museum were at the other end of the building also standing in a circle and talking, I decided to say something. I stood behind one of the circles, and the people didn't even notice I was there until I spoke. They were totally in their own world. I told them that if they weren't interested, that they could leave the museum. There was no point in being disrespectful and disturbing other people who came to the museum to learn. One guy asked if I worked there, and I said no, that I came because my grandparents were all survivors and it's something that I care about. They called me disrespectful for interrupting their conversation. Only after most of them walked away did one girl come up to me and apologize, saying that the group was tired and "needed a break." Later, one of the guys also apologized, saying that he understood where I was coming from, but "the girls talk too much."

I honestly don't know if they understood what I was trying to tell them, and that's a little scary. If I was in their position, I would never make up bad excuses, and no matter how embarrassing, I think the least I would do was admit I was wrong. It's frustrating that I had to tell people my age how to act in a Holocaust museum--like it's not totally obvious. I just find it so hard to believe that not one member of their group had the sense to tell the rest what I was trying to tell them. I don't know if this group was an exception, but I know it's not the first time I've had to deal with disrespectful visitors to a Holocaust museum--I just hope it's the last.

Moving on

Today was my last Shabbat of the trip--I can't believe it! I also can't believe that I'll be home this time next week.

Anyway, a quick note about something I noticed today. Throughout the trip in Eastern Europe, we would encounter places where the pre-war Jewish community was an extremely high percentage of the total population, but it was always hard to imagine what it would be like to live in such a place before the war. We would visit areas of town that were almost completely inhabited by Jewish people, and it would be hard to imagine how house after house was a Jewish home. With that in mind, being in Jerusalem, I think I can get a taste of what that life must have been like--especially on Shabbat. With few cars driving, it's quiet, and walking outside, one mostly sees groups of people walking to and from synagogue, walking to others' houses, or just enjoying the day off. I think this must be what Shabbat in the Jewish areas of towns had been like. Definitely a (comfortable) change from old men reading newspapers and high security to get into synagogue!

Tomorrow will be my last day at Yad Vashem--I'll look if they have any information about the Partisans that would have been around where Grandma Esther was from, and I'll also fill out pages of testimony (with names of people who were killed, and the way I found Sima)--something that I should have done a while ago. I'm also going to go through the museum, which should be an interesting experience, especially at the end of this trip. Then it's time for kippah (yarmulke) shopping for my brothers. More later!

!שבת שלום

I always forget how early Shabbat starts in Jerusalem, so I only have time for a really quick post!

This morning I went to our family friends' house for brunch--the Bergsons if any of you know of them. Their oldest son was home from the army so I got to see the whole family, and after we ate we went to the weekly Jerusalem street party. This week it was just outside the big mall and was beach themed, which meant sand, water from the air, and beach balls. There was music, but for two specified hours, you were only able to hear it if you wore noise-canceling headphones that they were giving out. Meaning...if you didn't have the headphones, it just looked like a lot of people were dancing to nothing! It was strange and funny to watch. The party was a lot of fun, but now it's time for Shabbat. Dinner's at one of Renee's friends, and I think I'll (finally) get a chance to sleep late tomorrow.

Shabbat Shalom from Jerusalem!

We are family

When I woke up this morning, it was hard for me to remember if what happened yesterday was real or just a dream. I think I'll have the exact same feeling tomorrow morning.

Sima and Leah (Zayde's first cousins) live in a nursing home in Rishon L'Tzion, just outside of Tel Aviv. Renee (my mom's friend) happened to be going to Tel Aviv today, so it worked out that she could drive me there, and then Dov (Leah's son) would meet me and take me to meet his mom and aunt. On the way to Tel Aviv, I tried to think of all the questions I wanted to ask Sima and Leah, but I didn't know what to expect--if they would remember things about him and his family, if they knew what happened to him during the war--and besides that, I kept thinking about how crazy it was that one day I call someone and say we're probably related, and the very next day I'm going to meet him! When we arrived at our meeting spot in Tel Aviv, Dov was waiting outside his car to meet me, and the instant we met and began talking, it was like I was talking to someone I had known for years. On the way to the nursing home, he told me that his wife, Rachel, and older sister, Miriam, would be joining us there with Sima and Leah.

Shortly after Dov and I arrived at the nursing home and sat down at a table outside, Sima walked outside to join us--we hugged and she kissed me and we starting talking. Right away, she started saying how Zayde and her were like brother and sister, that before the war, she used to stay at his house in Szczebrzeszyn every summer, and after the war, they always kept in touch. She described Zayde's parents as very nice people, owners of a clothing store, who lived in a large house in Szczebrzeszyn. She said that the family used to make clothes for all the important people in the town. She remembered Zayde's 3 brothers by name (Rachmiel, Hirsch, and Yitzchak), and remembered that one of them was married with young children. After Zayde married Milka, he moved to Zamosc since her family lived there, and he had his own tailor shop. Sima said that by the time the war started, Zayde and Milka's son, Chaim, was already grown. She even remembered how Chaim was named: the same night that Zayde's maternal grandfather, Chaim, died, Zayde's son was born, so he was named Chaim after his great-grandfather.

At some point, Sima's sister, Leah, Leah's daughter, Miriam, and Dov's wife, Rachel, joined us, and they were all excited to meet me and hear what we were talking about. Leah, right when she saw me, commented on how I looked just liked Zayde (By the way, they all knew Zayde as Tewel). I told them that my dad and I had been to Zamosc and Szczebrzeszyn, and I showed Sima and Leah pictures from the center of the city. None of them had been back after the war, so they were very excited to see pictures of how the city looks today.

I asked Sima if she knew what happened to Zayde during the war. She said that when the war started, everyone knew that they had to run away somewhere, and most people went to Russia. Zayde's mother came to Sima's house and told her that the family was leaving and that she had to come with them. Sima's parents weren't home, and Sima didn't want to leave without them, so Zayde's mother went back home, her family never managed to escape, and they were all killed. Sima's family escaped to Russia, and that's how she was able to survive with her whole family. After the war, Sima's family was in Germany and heard that Zayde was still alive, so got in touch with him and then lived near each other in Germany--that's when Sima heard from Zayde what happened to everyone. Zayde stayed in Zamosc with his wife and Chaim, and at some point, Chaim was killed. Zayde's wife found out first, and she had to be the one to tell Zayde. Later, she was also killed. Then, everyone was sent to various camps, and since Zayde was a skilled worker, he worked in the camps, but only up until a certain point, when everyone was put on a train to what they understood was their deaths. Zayde jumped off the train, injured both of his legs, but managed to escape. At some point, he was caught and sent to Terezin, but he was liberated shortly thereafter.

When Sima's family and Zayde met again in post-war Germany, Sima said that Zayde had already been married to Grandma Esther and that they already had a son (Henry), and that the other was born later (Mickey). I asked Sima if she knew what happened to Grandma Esther during the war, and she said that the only thing that she knew was that she had been a Partisan (!), and that the war was an extremely difficult time for her. That's why, when she and Zayde met after the war, and they were each alone, they decided to marry and start new lives together. Sima's family moved to Israel in 1947 or 1948, and when it came time for Zayde and Grandma Esther to leave Germany, Zayde wrote to Sima asking if he should move to Israel. Sima wrote to him that she should go to America, because he would find more opportunities for work there. Ever since then, Sima and Zayde kept in touch, and when things were hard in Israel, Zayde would send a package--Miriam and Dov always remember that as children, a package from Tewel in America meant something special, and Miriam told me that she has framed pictures of herself wearing dresses that Zayde made and sent to her. When Zayde and Grandma Esther visited Israel, they spent their time with Sima's family, and when it came time for them to go back to New Jersey, Zayde would be so upset to be leaving Sima. She described him as smart, but also humble--he wouldn't try to tell you something or teach you something just to show you that he was smart.

I don't know how long we talked for, but it seemed like time just stopped and we were in a dream. I really can't describe it any other way. I brought pictures of Zayde and Grandma Esther with the American branches of the family, and they were all so interested in learning about everyone and hearing where everyone is. Dov and his wife will be in New York in September and they want to meet everyone! On one hand, it's crazy to think that from yesterday to today, it's like our family had doubled in size--but on the other hand, this whole branch of the family was always there, but somehow, our connection was broken. We all agreed that this time, the connection wouldn't be broken.

After I said goodbye (actually l'hitraot, Hebrew for "see you later") to Sima, Leah, Rachel, and Miriam, Dov and I met Dov's youngest son, Roy, for dinner. He's 23, so he's the closest in age to my brothers and me. Again, it was like talking to someone I've known for years. It's made me realize that even after years of a lost connection, years after not even knowing relatives existed, years of telling people I didn't have relatives in Israel--even after all of that, family is family.

Laughing with Sima

Leah's daughter, Miriam, and son, Dov

L-R: Miriam, Rachel, Leah, Dov, Sima

L-R: Miriam, Rachel, Leah, Me, Sima

Remember the day the sun came out in Szczebrzeszyn?

Let me quickly tell you what I did this morning since I'll want to go into detail about my extremely exciting afternoon. I went back to Yad Vashem to do some more research, and while I was largely unsuccessful in finding out more information about Grandma Esther (I only found one document related to her and it requires further analysis), I was able to visit the office of the Righteous Among the Nations. There I saw the original testimony and documentation related to Marisia's being honored at Yad Vashem, and I made some copies of letters I hadn't seen before.

Anyway, this afternoon my search for Zayde's cousin continued. The back-story: A woman named Sima Keniger (nee Roitman) had posted about the deaths of Zayde's brothers and mother on the Yad Vashem website in 1999, and listed herself as a niece of Zayde's mother (making her Zayde's first cousin). While there was a contact number on the posting, the same number today is that of a kitchen supply store. Yesterday, I tried searching on the Israeli white pages for the last name Keniger, but no Sima showed up. Today, I decided that I couldn't give up until I called each Keniger on the list and asked if they were related to Sima. I started going down the list, and after 3 unanswered calls and 1 woman who only spoke Yiddish, I decided to call a man named Joseph Keniger, since it would be more likely that a male Keniger would be related to Sima rather than a female. I asked Joseph Keniger if he was related to Sima, and he said that he was. I asked if she was his mother, and he said that she was something like a great aunt. He asked me my name, and I told him why I was calling, and then asked if Sima had children. He told me that she never had kids, but that her sister, Leah had two children. Then I asked him the question that I was dreading to hear the answer to: if Sima (or now also her sister) was still alive. He replied that he didn't know, since he stopped talking to that side of the family many years ago. But he did happen to have Leah's son's phone number, so he was next on the list to call.

When I called the number that Joseph gave me, Dov Shefer, Leah's son, picked up. I asked him if he was related to Sima Keniger, and he told me that she's his aunt--Leah's sister. He asked why I wanted to know, and I told him that I believed my grandpa and his mother and aunt were first cousins. He asked me what my grandpa's name was, and I told him Tobias Zylberman. "Tobias Zylberman...I've heard that name before," was his response. You can imagine how many emotions I was feeling just then! And then, the question I dreaded to ask Joseph Keniger, I could barely ask Dov--I was too nervous to hear the answer. He heard how I hesitated, and he understood what I wanted to ask. "They're still alive, in their 90's, and they live in a nursing home now. But they're sharp and clear." Well, it felt like my heart was about to pound right out of my chest. What a feeling it is to know that you've just made contact with family, and to know that a grandparent's family member is still alive! But then came the most surprising, most exciting, and the most mind-blowing. Dov said that a month ago, Sima was talking about her life and mentioned a Tewel (anther name for Tobias) Zylberman who used to send things when there were hard times in Israel and visited her when he came to Israel. Dov told me that Sima mentioned where he was from--"Sheshin maybe?" Szczebrzeszyn! Dov and his wife talked about trying to reconnect with Tewel's family, but they had no idea how to start looking for him in America.

When I told my dad that Dov said that all this happened a month ago, he realized...weren't we in Zamosc a month ago? I checked to see where we went exactly a month ago, and what do you know--that was the day we found Zayde's birth record and visited the synagogue and cemetery in Szczebrzeszyn. What are the chances of that!

Anyway, if that all isn't enough, I'm so excited to go visit Dov and his sister Miriam (my dad's and uncle's second cousins), Sima and Leah (Zayde's first cousins) and Dov's and Miriam's families (my third cousins) tomorrow! Yes, I'll be meeting everyone tomorrow afternoon. It's really unbelievable that I managed to find these cousins, and that Sima and Leah are still here. My family has never been this big--I can't wait to meet everyone tomorrow!

Act IV begins

It's been a crazy 24 hours! I won't bore you with the details of my trip from Prague to Israel, but basically, the flight left at 11:15pm and arrived in Israel at around 4 am with an hour ahead time different. You can guess how tired I was after little sleep on the plane! One quick note about the ride: when I sat down in my seat, I noticed a red Star of David on one of the overhead compartments--probably where a first-aid kit is kept. But my first reaction was, "Why is there a star there? Either it's vandalism or there's some Jewish significance." I guess that's what a long trip in Eastern Europe can do to you! Anyway, after a long wait in passport control, I finally was able to pick up my bag and leave the airport for Jerusalem, where I'm staying for the next week. I'm staying with my mom's friend--also named Renee--and I arrived here at about 6:30am. I decided it would be best for me to take a nap, so after a quick breakfast and shower, I ended up sleeping until 10:30.

As I mentioned in earlier posts, my time here in Israel is for further research but also relaxation, and so my first stop after lunch (and an unsuccessful attempt to contact Zayde's cousin here) was my friend Abby's apartment! That's when it hit me that it was only the second time in five and a half weeks that I talked to someone my age. I went back tonight--it was so nice to finally have some time to catch up with friends.

After Abby's I made my way over to Yad Vashem. I decided that I should make use of a couple free hours today to visit the library at Yad Vashem to assess what's there and how much time I'll need to spend there in the coming days. I think I mentioned at some point that at Yad Vashem, anyone can use the library facilities, including the International Tracing Service (ITS) database, and that's the main reason why I'm doing work there. The International Tracing Service is a database that contains wartime and post-war documents that were, for many years, held in Germany, but were recently released to Yad Vashem and the US Holocaust Museum in Washington. The museum in Washington accepts online requests to have the database searched for submitted names, last names, etc., but the results of these searches often take up to a year to be returned. At Yad Vashem though, I'm able to search the database myself...and I now know why these requests take so long to be returned. There's so much to look through! The database contains documents related to all kinds of different places, time periods, groups of people, and more, and I think if I didn't know what I wanted to find, it would be overwhelming to search. I think, though, that I'm only going to search for a limited set of things (mainly information about Grandma Esther and Zayde's first family), because otherwise, I could spend ages looking through all the documents.

Tomorrow is back to Yad Vashem to see what I can find, and more attempts to get in contact with Zayde's cousin. Wish me luck!

Act III close

I'm blogging a little earlier than usual today since I have a late flight to Israel (!) and I'm not sure what the airport internet situation will be.

This morning, I said goodbye to my mom, and then spent most of my last day in Europe visiting the former ghetto and concentration camp in Terezin. As I learned, Terezin was first built as a military fortress and garrison town in the 18th century by Maria Theresa's son, hence the name, Terezin. The town was built in two parts: a smaller fortress, which served as a prison of enemies of the Hapsburg empire, and a larger fortress, which was a town with barracks for soldiers. When the Nazis overtook the fortresses during the Second World War, they were completely intact, and they realized that they didn't have to move a brick in order to turn the smaller and larger fortresses into a concentration camp and a ghetto. So, in 1940, the Nazis began to use the smaller fortress as a prison for political prisoners, and the larger fortress starting in 1941 as a Jewish ghetto. Besides the historical value of visiting the site, one main reason why I visited Terezin is that Zayde was an inmate at the Terezin ghetto at the end of 1945, and he was liberated from there as well--but more on that soon.

For those of you who have visited Auschwitz-Birkenau, you might remember that the place is often crowded with huge tourist groups talking and taking pictures, and also that many buildings at the former camp were reconstructed after the war. For those reasons, it was hard for me to imagine during my visit how the camp would have been like when it was operating during the war. Terezin, however, has remained completely intact since the war, and from what I saw today, is less frequently visited, so all the barracks and prison cells at the smaller fortress were open for viewing. This made the site very real, and on one hand, it was not hard to picture the events that took place in such a dark, fortified prison. On the other hand, the town of Terezin is situated in what's the otherwise picturesque Czech Republic, and today being a beautiful sunny day, it was hard to block out the beauty of the surroundings when looking at things like barracks, tiny prison cells, and false washrooms that the Nazis built to show to visiting officials.

The larger fortress, which is the former ghetto, though now a regular town, still contains all the buildings of the ghetto. I visited the archives at the Ghetto Museum to see if they could help me find anything about Zayde's time in Terezin. The man at the archives looked up Zayde's name and quickly found that Zayde arrived in Terezin on April 19th, 1945, just a little under a month from when he would be liberated. Still, even though he was only in Terezin for a few weeks, as I learned, the time that he was there was a very difficult one. Beginning on April 20th, 1945, transports arrived from concentration camps all over in what were called "Evacuation Transports"--the Nazis attempt to move their prisoners further from the lines of the approaching Allies. In these few weeks, the Nazis scrambled to murder however many people they could, and these transports to Terezin were such an attempt. Zayde may have been in one of these such transports, although it's a mystery to me why he arrived a day before these transports officially began.

In the former ghetto, I was able to walk the streets and see the buildings that Zayde very likely saw when he was in Terezin. For example, the site of the end of the rail lines into Terezin--this was where he would have gotten off the train and arrived in Terezin, and the surrounding buildings are exactly as they were in 1945. I was also able to see a recently discovered "secret synagogue," a small prayer room in the back of a building that was used covertly during the war. The walls of the room are painted with quotes from the Torah and the prayer services, and it was amazing to think of the people that stood in the same room, just a few decades earlier. As many of you probably know, Terezin was the ghetto that was used as the "show" ghetto for the Nazis--the same ghetto that was beautified and displayed to Red Cross officials in person and in the propaganda film, "A Gift of a Town." If only these officials had opened their eyes a little wider, perhaps Terezin would not have gone down in history as a place with two faces: a beautified exterior and a dark, cold, destructive interior. One last note--as I mentioned before, Terezin is a walled town, and you might remember that Zamosc, Zayde's place of living before the war, was a fortified town as well. The fortifications and layouts of the towns are hauntingly similar, and I wonder if Zayde had thought of this at all when he was imprisoned at Terezin.

Anyway, this will be my final post from Europe and my final post about this leg of the trip. The next and final leg will be a week in Israel, where I'm not only going to relax and see friends, but I also plan on visiting the Yad Vashem museum and archives to take in everything I've experienced as well as explore paths to more discovery. I'm sad to be leaving Europe, but I know that I'll have such a warm feeling of relief the moment I touch down in Israel. I can't wait!