Ukraine 2013: Mapping the Journey

My daughter, Katherine, and I will be leaving in a few days for Ukraine. I will be suspending my Tombstone Tuesday and Treasure Chest Thursday blog posts until I get back (unless, of course I find something wonderful and have an overwhelming need to share under those themes immediately!).

In the meantime, here is a concept map of the planned trip. I say "concept" because while we will pretty much take these routes, there is flexibility built into the schedule and things may change.

Map constructed in Google Maps, 26 May 2013

Our journey will start in the Galicia section of Ukraine, part of the former Austro-Hungarian Empire. We will arrive in Lviv (A) about mid-day on 3 June. The next day we will head to Yaremche (B) with Alex Dunai (our genealogist, translator and guide) to take in Hutsel culture. I had hoped to hike Mt. Hoverla, the highest point (6762 feet) in Ukraine, but we've already had to change that plan due to a foot injury Katherine, my daughter, suffered yesterday. 

After at least looking at Mt. Hoverla we'll wend our way back to Lviv through the Carpathian Mountains. We will stop at Bolekhiv (C), the shtetl that Daniel Mendelsohn wrote about in his book The Lost: A Search for Six of Six Million. I am finally getting around to reading it. Alex Dunai is featured as Mendelsohn's Ukrainian genealogist.

My first family shtetl stop will be at Skole (D). Skole is the place where Jutte Ett Barath was born on 21 January 1894 and where, her mother (also mother of David Ett, and Sophie Ett Leiner, Sarah Ett Cohn, and Chaitze Ett Rappaport) Perl Wenkert Ett died on 18 August 1895.

We will then spend a couple of days seeing the sites of Lviv and working in the archives. Records will likely be in Polish script. I have been reviewing "Reading Polish Handwritten Records," a 3-part tutorial in the Learning Center on FamilySearch.org.

After Lviv, we will once again head south to continue treading the ground where my Wenkert and Liebross (maternal) relatives trod: Kolomyya (E), Chernivtsi (G) and Zalishchyky (F), Ustechko and Torskie. By the way, I have not been able to put Ustechko on the above map (I didn't even attempt mapping Torskie!). Each time I ask Google Maps to include Ustechko, Google places a dot north of Ternopil - way off from Ustechko's actual location just north of Zalishchyky. So, I had Google Maps place a dot near Chortkiv (H), which is a little north of Ustechko.

I am really looking forward to Kamyanets-Podilskyy (I). The photos I've seen indicate a picturesque location: a walled town with a castle. One of my floater "relatives," Samuel Myers (nee Zise Malzmann) lived in K-P before emigrating to the United States.

Visits to the archives in Khmelnitsky (J) and Zhytomir (O) will mark my entrance to the old Russian Empire and Volhynia Gubernia and my father's side of the family (Garber, Mazewitsky/Morris, Malzmann, and Kesselman). The Family History Library has been unable to film any records for Yurovshchina [once Labun (K) and Lubin], Gritsev (M) and Polonnoye (L). These towns, having been neither part of Poland nor the Austro-Hungarian Empire since about 1795 , have no records in the Warsaw archives (accessible to JRI-Poland). So, the best bet is checking the Ukrainian Archives. The records will likely be in Russian script. I'm working on understanding that, too.

I hope to not only find family records but to locate village records for Labun, Gritsev, Polonnoye and Baranovka that may be acquired, perhaps at a later date, for use by other Jewish researchers.

I'm trying not to be too excited about setting foot in Yurovshchina. I just don't know what to expect. But I will come prepared with early 20th Century maps for comparison sake and a photo the the bath house (pictured here) repaired with the American Joint Distribution Committee's help in 1923. I'd like to see if we can locate where it was located in the town. I want to know where the Jewish section was. I want to visit the cemetery - if there still is one. And I want to know where the Jewish people lived. 

I know that many Jewish people were slaughtered along with their Jewish neighbors from Polonnoye in a location near Polonnoye. I want to go there, too. 

I would like to visit Baranovka (N) so I can see the town where Feiga Grinfeld (Fannie Greenfield) was born. I've written so many posts about her, I've an investment (!). 

We'll end our trip with a few days in Kiev (P) and then fly home on 22 June. I hope to have my iPad and Dropbox folders filled with photos to share. If all goes well, I'll be able to blog a bit about my trip as it happens. If not, I'll be sure to post quite a bit when I return to the United States.

The Joint is Jumpin': Online Access to More JDC Documents

I'm in love! This morning I discovered that the Joint Distribution Committee (also fondly known as "the Joint") has been incredibly busy digitizing and uploading new documents for public viewing. This is relatively new and incredibly welcome. Now I find that I can search by village (shtetl) name and find useful historical documents. The Joint now offers over 250,000 digitized pages of text documents from their collections, 1914-1932,

For those uninitiated, the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee has been in existence since 1914 when its mission was to provide relief to struggling Jewish populations in Palestine. Shortly after it began, it also served desperate Jewish populations in war-torn Eastern Europe. The JDC is still in operation and still does great work for Jewish people and others in need.

As one might expect with such a history of good work, they have quite an archive of documents and photos. The Joint's archives have been open to on-site researchers. But, it has only been in the last few months that the ongoing lengthy process of digitizing and uploading to the web has been bearing fruit for those wishing online access. In March of this year the New York Times featured an article about the digitization effort. When I'd checked in March 2012, the Joint had many photographs from their collection online and some documents searchable by surname.  But when I searched via the surname index I did not come up with anything of personal family history interest. 

In the case of my father's family shtetl Lubin (aka Labun or Yurovshchina) the Joint had previously in 2010 provided me (for a fee) webpage use of the only known extant photo of a building in the village: a photograph taken in 1923 when the Joint sponsored a project to renovate the shtetl's bathhouse. It occurred to me then that perhaps there would be documentation to go along with the photo, but my email correspondence and phone calls with helpful archivists did not result in any such finds. That is until this morning.

Now one may search the JDC digitized records by location. In doing so, I found several letters regarding the donation of $300 by the Lubin immigrants in New York to JDC for the express purpose of providing flour for Lubiners in advance of the Passover holiday. The correspondence is not complete - one wonders if they have the letters written to them, as well as the copies of ones written to others. And there were attachments and enclosures with these letters that are not, apparently, included in the record. But, the letters and, especially, the report paint interesting and sobering pictures of conditions between the wars in Ukraine.

Prior to April 1919, the town had a population of 12,000. 2,500 were Jewish. There were 225 houses and 50 shops that were owned by the Jewish population. The community produced flax, hemp and jute. And there were three oil refineries.[1]

The Jewish population was hit with a pogrom in April 1919 resulting in 24 Jewish people murdered and homes pillaged and robbed. Another pogrom occurred in September 1920. Most of the Jewish population left all they had and fled to Starokostyantyniv (20 miles south southwest). Later, many returned to a devastated community. In 1921 a raging fire destroyed 20 houses and left 30 families homeless. These horrors affected approximately 200 Lubin families. As of the May 1923 JDC report, there were 50 widows, 80 orphans and 50 invalids in Lubin. Public health was in a deplorable condition.[1]

A letter from the Moscow Headquarters of the Joint dated 11 May 1923 reported on the good that the Lubin Relief money had accomplished.

...The $300 was converted into 13,500 million roubles, 12,500 million of which was used for the neediest orphans, sick and those who are unable to work.  Aid was extended to 92 families consisting of 299 people. The population in Laboun argued that it is imperative to repair the Bathhouse in the town and for this purpose the balance if 1,000 million roubles was set aside. We hope this will be satisfactory to the Landsmanschaft...[2]

Apparently, it was.

In August The Moscow Headquarters reported that an additional $57.60 was delivered to Lubin as a result of differences in the exchange rate for the initial $300. In consultation with members of the Lubin community, the money was put toward the bathhouse repairs. Even so, the letter estimated that an additional $250 would be required to complete the work.[3]

Lubin shtetl names mentioned in the eight digitized documents include M. Myers (likely Myer Myers, my great great uncle), Secretary of the New York City Lubin Relief organization; and the following Lubin residents:

• Yente Ravrebbe [4]
• Noah Zaslavsky [5]
• Simche Avrum [5]
• Yosef Novak [5]
• Chaim Ravrebbe [5]
• Yankov Kesselman [5]
• Leib Tzop [5]
• Moishe Rosenfeld [5]
• Miriam Kourman [2]
• Leah Kourman [2]
• Zousa Zak [1]
• Mounia Boxer [1]
• Mounia Kentzishin [6]
• Ichiel Dolgopiaty [6]

If you have not yet checked out the Joint for your Jewish research, do so. It may give you excellent background information. The search page also provides video tutorials that may help you if you have trouble with their search function.

Notes:
1. "1921-1932 New York Collection, USSR: Localities, L-Mink," American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee, JDC Digital Archives (http://archives.jdc.org : accessed 4 July 2012), "Report on Laboun (Lubin)," by I.M. Kowalsky, 05 November 1923 [sic: date should be 11 May 1923], Item 356444.

2. "1921-1932 New York Collection, USSR: Localities, L-Mink," American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee, JDC Digital Archives (http://archives.jdc.org : accessed 4 July 2012), "Letter from Headquarters, American Jewish JDC, Moscow to Joint Distribution Committee, New York, Attention Landsmanschaften Bureau, Subject: S.R. Sp. 12-#300. Lubin Relief (Laboun)," 11 May 1923, Item 356443.

3. "1921-1932 New York Collection, USSR: Localities, L-Mink," American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee, JDC Digital Archives (http://archives.jdc.org : accessed 4 July 2012), "Letter from Headquarters, American Jewish JDC, Moscow to Joint Distribution Committee, New York Attention Landsmanschaften Bureau, Subject: Additional Report on Labun (LDN-R 42)," 8 August 1923, Item 356446.

4. "1921-1932 New York Collection, USSR: Localities, L-Mink," American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee, JDC Digital Archives (http://archives.jdc.org : accessed 4 July 2012), "Letter from I.M. Naishtut to Mr. M. Myers," 06 March 1923, Item 356440.

5. "1921-1932 New York Collection, USSR: Localities, L-Mink," American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee, JDC Digital Archives (http://archives.jdc.org : accessed 4 July 2012), "Letter from I.M. Naishtut to Joint Distribution Committee, Moscow, Subject: S.R. Sp. #12 - #300 - Lubin Relief," 06 March 1923, Item 356441.

6. "1921-1932 New York Collection, USSR: Localities, L-Mink," American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee, JDC Digital Archives (http://archives.jdc.org : accessed 4 July 2012), "Subject: S.R. Sp. No. 12-300-Lehman," 05 November 1923 [sic: date should be 11 May 1923], Item 356445.

URL for this post: http://extrayad.blogspot.com/2012/07/joint-is-jumpin-online-access-to-more.html

Today is the beginning

--> The solution to the “Celebrity Cipher” puzzle in this morning’s newspaper is appropriate as a lead for my first blog post:

“The beginning is always today.” -- Mary W. Shelley

“Every new beginning comes from some other beginning’s end.” – Seneca

During my four+ years of obsessive study and research into my family history, I’ve steadily built a mailing list of cousins, colleagues, and landsman. Initially the sharing was frequent. Now, less so as the “discoveries” have taken more blood, sweat and tears time and are, while exciting for me, perhaps a bit boring esoteric for all but the most genealogically inclined (perhaps the play-by-play of how I located the woman who traveled to Ellis Island with my great grandfather is more than one bargained for). The fact is that my research has produced ever so much more than that nicely colored .pdf family tree (don’t you want to know how my great grandmother used pastry as a weapon?). Email has not been the best venue for sharing.

I spend all of my a great deal of time in front of my computer or, when time and travel allows, out in court houses, archives or cemeteries.  But, collaboration with the living has been one of the most satisfying and fruitful methods of advancement for my family research. I have sought out contacts with close and far-flung relations that have added appreciably to my knowledge of family. I believe, from how open and welcoming most of these cold-call relations have been, that both sides have appreciated this newly shared knowledge.

My research has benefited from the helping hands and ideas of colleagues whose only interest is in sharing the joy of discovery. I have also found that lending a hand and sharing my developed and developing skills as a researcher brings me great satisfaction (if not for working on another’s tree, I never would have ventured into pre-1900 federal census records; it reinvigorates my research when I can be reminded how easy it often was early on in my research to find records).

Other researchers have found me via posted family trees or my shtetl webpage: http://kehilalinks.jewishgen.org/yurovshchina/index.html

This has helped build my knowledge of Lubin/Labun/Yurovshchina – my father’s family town.

That brings me to the name of this blog:  (going) The Extra Yad.  This play on English and Hebrew* words reflects the several realities of my involvement with family history: 

·      my desire to lend a hand and share knowledge and skills,

·      my realization that one cannot do this kind of research in isolation, without the helping hands of others, and

·      my personal problem strength (I will stick with a problem over the long-haul, turning it upside down and inside out, in an effort to solve it, i.e., “going the extra yard”).

Today is the beginning: blogging. My hope is to encourage dialogue and sharing. If something I post strikes a chord, elicits a memory, makes you smile, please share: post a response or send me an email.  Please add to the discussion.

* “Yad” in Hebrew means hand.  It is the name of the pointer used while reading from the Torah scroll.