Tombstone Tuesday: Perl Garber Zabarsky

There is no tombstone for Perl Garber Zabarsky. In fact, we are not entirely sure where she is buried. Perl was the eldest of three daughters of Avrum and Chana Garber, my great grandparents. She was their second child, likely born in 1888. Perl, along with her youngest child, her only daughter, Chana, was murdered during the German occupation of Labun during World War II. 

Thanks to my visit to Ukraine this past June, I have photographs of memorial plaques placed at the two mass murder sites where Labun Jewish residents were killed. I did two posts during my trip (here and here) regarding my visits to these sites.

First murder site in the forest south of Trojeshchina

Trojeshchina Forest memorial to Jewish Labun victims (photo by author, June 2013)

--------

Cherished

memory

to the Soviet

citizens

victims 

of Fascism

                       July

                       August

                     1941

 --------

This and the second memorial (shown below) were erected about 1970 by the local Ukrainian town's people. The memorials are in Ukrainian. I am indebted to several volunteers (whom I have already thanked personally) who responded to my post on JewishGen's ViewMate application and translated the first word. It literally means "light." However, in this context, it reflects the sentiment that their neighbors will not be forgotten.

As is typical of this time period and its war memorials, there is no mention of the fact that the victims were killed because they were Jewish.

This first site is about 1.5 miles from town in the forest to the south of Trojeshchina (the town adjoining Yurovshchina). The second site is in the forest on the road toward Polonne. On the map, below, the red oval represents the first site. The blue oval, the second.

Approximate locations of two mass murder sites outside Labun/Yurovshchina. Base map from Google Maps, accessed 9 September 2013

Velyka Berezna Forest memorial to Jewish Labun victims (photo by author, June 2013) 

The second memorial is similar to the first and only omits the reference to "Soviet citizens." 

--------

Cherished memory

to the victims of Fascism

August-September

1941

--------

On 13 September 1911 in Labun, Perl married Isseck Zabarsky of Gritsev.[1] They had four children: Usher (20 August 1914 - 26 April 2004), Leib Ber (8 December 1916 - October 1941), Motel/Mark (19 December 1918 - June 1943) and Chana (a August 1926 - ca. 1941). Isseck emigrated to the United States in 1935.[2] He was unable to successfully arrange passage for his family and they remained in the Soviet Union. He died in Boston on 4 August 1971.

The best information I have regarding Perl comes from Kniga Skorbatyi (The Book of Sorrows) published in Ukraine in 2003. As I understand it, this book in one in a series of volumes compiled based upon archival research regarding victims of the Holocaust in Ukraine. I first saw this volume in the Labun Museum and photographed several pages that had family surnames. According to this book, Perl and Chana were shot to death in Labun in 1941.[3]

Notes:
1.  Petition for Naturalization for Isseck Zabarsky, 4 May 1942, Brooklyn, New York, United States District Court for the Eastern District of New York, National Archives and Records Administration, New York City.
2. "New York Passenger Lists, 1820-1957," digital images, Ancestry.com
 (http://www.ancestry.com : accessed 8 September 2009), manifest, Berengaria, Cherbourg to New York, arriving 8 October 1935, list 12, line 8, Aizik Zabarski; citing National Archives Microfilm Serial T715, Roll 5717.
3. Книга скорботи України, Хмельницька область (Book of Sorrows, Ukraine, Khmelnitskiy Oblast),volume 2, Kmelnitsky, 2003, pp. 95-96. The Family History Library  lists this book in their catalog - one of the few places in the United States that seems to have this volume.

Avraham: son of Mordechai, grandson of Yitzchak Leib

Since most Jewish people have at least two names (their Hebrew name, which includes their father’s name, i.e. son of/daughter of _______ , and their common/legal name) their tombstones can be a fount of good genealogical information.  In Ashkenazi (European) Judaism, the common custom (it is not a religious rule) is to name after someone who is deceased.  Thus, using tombstone information, one may tell not only the name, Hebrew name and father’s name, but also, if one has some information about prior generations, the fact that whomever they were named after had passed on before their namesake was born.  But my great grandfather’s tombstone went a step further.

I am not proficient in Hebrew, so I posted a photograph of my great grandfather's tombstone on ViewMate, JewishGen's amazingly helpful application that allows people to post documents and photographs and others to view and respond to those posts. Both David Rosen and Dena Yellin, individually, were kind enough to respond to my post with translations and interpretations [1]. In addition, Rachel Wilson and Israel Pikholz both noticed an error and corrected the Hebrew date of death.

Our dear father

Here lies

Peace loving, charitable, benevolent

Avraham Aba son of Mordechai, of blessed memory,

grandson of Yitzchak Leib, of blessed memory,

the great rabbi, called by the name magid.

Died the 11th day in the month of Tevet 5688 [4 January 1928].

May his soul be bound up in the bond of (everlasting) life.

The gravestone of my great grandfather Abraham Garber is unusual in that it provides not only his father's name (Mordechai), but also his grandfather's name (Yitzchak Leib).  And while I have little information about Mordechai - except that Mordechai must have passed on before Abraham's second son, Max (aka Mordechai), was born in 1889 - Abraham's tombstone provides a tantalizing clue about Yitzchak Leib that may explain why he was included on the tombstone: he was a highly respected person.

A magid (pronounced mahGEED) in Eastern Europe in the 19th Century was an itinerant Jewish preacher, a skilled, respected story-teller and persuasive speaker of well-known impeccable moral behavior and judgement. Magids were distinct from "darshans," scholars employed as rabbis in communities. Some of the maggids became quite prominent. In about the middle of the 19th Century, there was an increase in the number of these preachers who were involved in championing Hasidism [2].

Dena pointed out that the wording is subtle: the gravestone does not say that Yitzchak was a magid. It says he was called Magid. She goes on the suggest that perhaps he was ". . . a magid who was called not by his last name (if he even had one) but as Yitzchak Leib Magid, after his occupation . . ."

There are many tantalizing unknowns:

• How was Abraham descended from Yitzchak: on his mother's or father's side? I would think it is more likely on the father's side as these things tended to be passed down patrilineally, but I do not know.  
• Many Jewish people in Eastern Europe did not have surnames until well into the 19th Century. I have never heard that I have any relative with the last name of Magid.  But, this is something I will have to consider.
• What was the religious bent of the family while in Europe? There were a number of interesting movements in the Volhynia province of Ukraine during the Russian Empire period. With which one were they affiliated?

Notes:
1. David Rosen and Dena Yellin, Responses to ViewMate Post # 21509, JewishGen.org, ViewMate (http://www.jewishgen.org/viewmate: accessed 29 January 2012).

2. Jewish Encyclopedia. "Maggid," article, JewishEncyclopedia.com  (http://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/articles/10259-maggid : accessed 5 February 2012).

Hundert, Gershon David, editor. The YIVO Encyclopedia of Jews in Eastern Europe, vol. 2, (New Haven, Connecticutt and London, United Kingdom: Yale University Press, 2008), 1450-1453.
----------------------------------------
Post Script (10 February 2012): I have received two emails correcting the translation &/or offering additional insight.  Israel Pikholz pointed out that the word "neched" [the first word on the fifth full line] means grandson, but could also mean descendant.  Magid could very well be meant as a family name.