People create lists for all kinds of reasons. Projects to complete. Things to do. Shopping. As the owner of a paper goods store on the Lower East Side, my grandfather, whom I knew as Zaide, must have created all kinds of lists. Inventory. Expenses. Receipts.

These lists, like the store itself, no longer exist. All except for one. It is his most personal list. I first saw it many years ago at my aunt’s home. It had been passed down to her from her mother, my Bubbe (grandmother), after she died. It’s only a single page, but it tells more more about my maternal family history than any other document I have. For, on this nondescript piece of paper, my Zaide recorded, in his native Yiddish tongue, the names of his parents and grandparents, as well as his wife’s parents, and the dates they passed away.

These dates are called “yahrzeit.” Yahrzeit is a Yiddish word that literally means “year time.” It refers to the day on the Hebrew calendar on which someone died. The yahrzeit day is the designated time for remembering someone who died. It’s a day set aside for memorializing the person, contemplating their life and accomplishments, all that they stood for, all that they passed on to their children. Everything associated with the departed is wrapped up in this day. (Jews generally do not mark the birthday of the departed. Indeed, traditional Jews, at least in my grandparents’ generation, hardly even noted a person’s birthday, and some did not even know their actual date of birth.) A parent’s yahrzeit is a type of holy day, and the date is ingrained in their child’s mind.

Jews observe a number of customs to mark a yahrzeit. The two most common practices are reciting the mourner’s kaddish in synagogue and lighting a yahrzeit candle in one’s home. Other customs, at least among Ashkenazi Jews (Eastern and Central European Jews), include fasting or, alternatively, having a kiddush–a small meal–in shul (synagogue), in which food such as herring and schnopps (whisky) is served. Often, to mark the occasion, the person makes a donation to the synagogue or other organization connected to the departed. Another custom is to visit the grave of the departed on or around the yahrzeit date. Those connected to the person observing a yahrzeit say to him or her, “may his/her neshema [soul of the departed] have an aliyah [elevation].”

Being a very organized person, my grandfather wanted to have a list to keep track of the yahrzeits he observed. He was his parent’s eldest son, and the only son who remained religiously observant, so he wanted to make sure he remembered to light a candle and get to synagogue to say the mourner’s kaddish on these yahrzeits (a traditionally male role). So he took a piece of paper and recorded the dates, thereby creating a summary of his family’s history:

The first thing that strikes me about the list is the paper itself. It is plain and brown. It may well have come from my grandfather’s paper goods store. The store was called “Central Bag & Paper Company.” It had various locations over the years, winding up, sometime in the early 1950s, on Pitt Street, between Delancey and Rivington:

The store was not particularly extravagant, but it was the center of my grandparent’s lives, practically a second home. They, as well as their three daughters, worked and ate there. When they married, their husbands were expected to help out, if not take over the business. (My father refused, much to his in-law’s chagrin.)

In the late 1950s, the City condemned the property for what it termed “urban renewal.” My grandfather, perhaps with the help of influential local mafia with whom he had good relations, negotiated a favorable settlement with the city. My grandparents lived on the proceeds for the rest of their lives. Some $5000 of these funds were lent my parents for a down payment on their first house in Palo Alto, a property they sold 15 years later for eight times the amount they paid for it.

Now to the list itself. Traditional Jewish names have two parts. The first is the name given by the parents, at the time of birth for a girl, or at the bris (circumcision) for a boy. The second half is the child’s father’s name, so that a person is called, so-and-so, the son or daughter of so-and-so. The name of half of the previous generation is thereby preserved. Family names (surnames), which Ashkenazi Jews did not adopt until the beginning of the 19th Century, are traditionally not included.

On the first line of the list, my grandfather recorded his father’s name and yahrzeit. It reads:

“נאך מיין טאטן ר’ אלחנן בן אברהם ז’ל וחנה ראש חודש ניסן”

“For my father, Elchanan, the son of Avraham of blessed memory, and Chana, the first day of Nisan”

His father, my great grandfather, Elchanan Wierzbowicz, was known as Chone. He came from the small town of Kolno in Poland. According to information contained in the marriage certificate filed with the Russian authorities who then government Eastern Poland, on January 3, 1898, at the age of 22, he married my great grandmother in her home town of Zambrow. He arrived in the United States from Zambrow in December, 1938. When he obtained his U.S. citizenship, he changed his last name to Waxman, as his son had before him.

He died on March 17, 1953, the date corresponding to the first day of Nisan of that year. While his name is the first my grandfather recorded, he was the last person on the list to die, meaning that my grandfather must have compiled it sometime after his father’s death. While most of the names on the list do not include the year of death, I know that my great grandfather died in 1953 because he is buried in the Zambrow section of the Beth David Cemetery in Elmont, near the Queens border. He was the first of my relatives to be buried in its burial grounds. I am named after him.

The second line reads:

“נאך מיין מאמען שיינדל בת ר’ אברהם יעקב ז’ל והינדע י”ב שבט”

“After my mother Sheindl, the daughter of Avraham Ya’acov of blessed memory, and Hinde, the 12th day of Sh’vat”

As mentioned, while a person’s name usually include only the father’s name, my grandfather listed the names of both parents of his father and mother. Chana was his father’s mother’s name and Hinde his mother’s mother’s name.  I am thankful that he mentioned the names of his grandmothers, as my own mother’s Hebrew name was also Hinde. And so, from his list, I learned that my mother was named after my grandfather’s maternal grandmother.

Unlike her husband, Sheindl Wierzbowicz has no grave. And while her yahrzeit is recorded as the 12th day of Sh’vat, the exact date is of her death is uncertain. After the war, my grandfather was informed that she, along with her two daughters, a son-in-law and a grandchild, were deported to and gassed at Treblinka. The 12th day of Sh’vat was established as the yahrzeit date to commemorate the Jews of Zambrow, the Hebrew date corresponding to the date when the remaining Jews of Zambrow were exterminated at Auschwitz on January 16, 1943. Every year, probably through the 1980s, those who left Zambrow before the war or survived those terrible years would gather on the 12th day of Sh’vat to commemorate their murdered family and neighbors.

Next, my grandfather records the name of his father-in-law, my maternal grandmother’s father:

” נאך מיין שווער ר’ צבי דוב ב’ר חיים ז”ל י”ב חשון [ו]סימה פערל”

“After my father-in-law, Tzvi Dov the son of Chaim of blessed memory, and Sima Perl, the 12th day of Cheshvan”

His father-in-law’s name was Tzvi Dov Golomborsky. He came from Sharoshov, a small town in Belarus.  In 1906, he and his family moved to Palestine, then ruled by the Ottoman Empire. He became a contractor, helping to develop the new city of Tel Aviv. My grandfather was one of his employees, through whom he met my grandmother.

I know this part of Tzvi Dov’s history because it is written on his grave stone, located in the Trumpeldor Cemetery in Tel Aviv. The stone also records his date of death as the 12th day of Cheshvan in the Hebrew year of 5688 (תרס’ו)–the same date on my grandfather’s list–corresponding to November 7, 1927. He is buried there along with other notables of the yishuv (pre-state settlers).

The next name on the list is my grandfather’s mother-in-law:

“נאך מיין שוויגער בילה צינע בת ר’ בצלאל ז”ל ט”ז אב [ו]שרה”

“After my mother-in-law, Bela Tzina, the daughter of Bezalel of blessed memory, and Sarah, the 16th day of Av”

I don’t much about Bela Tzina’s life. This photo of her hung prominently in my grandmother’s home:

She lived seven years after her husband died, passing away on August, 8, 1934. I’ve never visited her grave, located in the Nachalat Yitzchak cemetery in Tel Aviv, but a picture of it exists on the website billiongraves.com.

Her names live on. My grandmother named her first daughter Sarah after Bela Tzina’s mother. And my grandmother’s first granddaughter was named Tzina.

In the next four names on his list, my grandfather recorded the yahrzeits of his grandparents. He begins with his father’s father:

“נאך מיין זידען אברהם יצחק ב’ר שמעון ז”ל  פסח שני”

“For my grandfather, Avraham Yitzchak, the son of Shimon, of blessed memory, Pesach Sheni (the 15th of Iyar, a month after Passover)”

Avraham Yitzchak (Isaac) Wierzbowicz was my grandfather’s paternal grandfather. I know only that he lived in Kolno, Poland, where my great grandfather Chone lived before he moved to Zambrow. But the list does tell me the name of his grandfather, my great great great grandfather: Shimon. And, excitingly, the list is corroborated by the entry on the JRI-(Jewish Records Indexing) Poland data base, which indexes Jewish birth, marriage and death records from Poland and other eastern European countries. It contains a record from 1846 recording my grandfather’s grandfather’s birth on December 31, 1845, and showing his father’s name as Shimon (Siemein). His wife–my great great great grandmother–was named Esther (Estera):

Next comes my grandfather’s paternal grandmother:

“נאך מיין בובען חנה בת  ר’ אברהם  ז”ל כ”ז תמוז”

“For my grandmother, Chana the daughter of Avraham, of blessed memory, the 27th day of Tammuz”

According to my great aunt (my grandfather’s sister), Chana died before her son married in 1897. Her maiden name, which I learned from my great grandfather’s marriage certificate, was Kaczynska (possibly pronounced Kazinsky). She must have died before my great grandfather’s first daughter was born, because, in the Ashkenazi Jewish tradition, children are named only after deceased relatives, and, in 1903, when my great grandfather’s first daughter was born, he named her Chana:

The next two names are my grandfather’s maternal grandparents (his mother Sheindl’s parents). Again, he begins with his grandfather:

“נאך מיין זידען אברהם יעקב ב’ר צבי מיכאל ז”ל  א[?] חשון”

“For my grandfather, Avraham Ya’akov (Jacob), son of Tzvi Micha’el, of blessed memory, the [?] day of Cheshvan”

The genealogical records confirm, and even elucidate, the list. Avraham Yankel (the Yiddish equivalent of Ya’akov/Jacob) was born in 1861. His father, my great great great grandfather, was named Tzvi (in Hebrew) or Hirsch (in Yiddish), both of which mean “deer.” The records show that Avraham Yankel’s mother–my great great great grandmother–was named Golda.

This means that when Chone’s first daughter was born, he named her after both of his grandmothers, Chana, his father’s mother, and Golda, his mother’s mother.

What I know about Avraham Yankel’s life comes from the recollections of my great aunt. Surprisingly, as a young man, he left Zambrow and came to America. He was the first person in my family to arrive on these shores.  But he didn’t stay long.

When exactly Avraham Yankel arrived in America is uncertain. There are two possibilities. One is that he left Zambrow when he was about 15 or 16 years old, in 1876 or 1877, being that he must have been married by at least 1878 or 1879, the year before August 13, 1880, the date his daughter, Sheindl, was born. Leaving for America would have been very brave act, leaving his parents and traveling alone, before even the first major wave of Eastern European Jewish immigration began in 1881. Another possibility is that he left his wife after the birth of his daughter, probably  in the early 1880s, to conduct a kind of pilot trip to investigate the possibility or resettling the family in the United States.

In either event, the America that he encountered was not suited to his taste. He came from a religious family and, unlike many other immigrants of that era, he remained committed to maintaining traditional Judaism. America, as my great aunt put it, was not “kosher” enough for him. “Even the stones,” my great aunt reported him saying, “were not kosher.” He returned and made a life in Zambrow, raising a family and establishing a flax oil factory. He lived in his daughter and son-in-laws home for 18 years after his wife Chana died. Described by my great aunt as “moody and lonely,” he died in 1934.

By that time, his son-in-law, Chone, had taken over the operation of the factory. (Click here to read about the factory.)

Next on the list comes my grandfather’s maternal grandmother:

“נאך מיין באבע הינדע בת ר’ יוסף ז”ל  כ”ט שבט”

“For my grandmother, Hinde, daughter of Yosef, of blessed memory, the 29th day of Sh’vat”

According to the wedding certificate filed with the Russian authorities, Hinde’s maiden name was Sapirstein, or possibly Satirshzhein, depending on the transliteration from the Russian. According to my great aunt, she was born in Lomza. (I have not located her birth record.) In her later years, she became ill, suffering from severe asthma. She moved in with and was cared for by her daughter and son-in-law and their family. She died at age 66, probably around 1916, and is buried in Zambrow. Unfortunately, the Jewish cemetery of Zambrow was substantially destroyed during World War II and the years under Polish communist rule. Her grave, as well as that of her husband, can no longer be located.

Hinde’s father was named Yosef, which means that her father must have died before 1899 or 1900, since my grandfather was born in one of those years (he never knew for sure), and he was named Yosef, after his great grandfather.

The next name on my grandfather’s list is, surprisingly, my grandfather himself:

“נאך מיין טיירע מאן יוסף ב’ר אלחנן ז”ל  י”ח שבט”

“For my dear husband, Yosef, the son of Elchanan, of blessed memory, the 18th day of Sh’vat”

My grandfather obviously did not write his own name. My grandmother wrote his name. And his name is written in the same handwriting as all the other names! But the list is my grandfather’s. So how, exactly, did this list come to be?

What must of happened is that my grandfather made a list. But after he died, my grandmother wanted to add his name to it. Perhaps there was no more room on the paper for his name. His memory had to be embedded into the memory of the others. The list had to be a whole. So I am supposing she rewrote it on a fresh piece of paper–perhaps a paper resembling the one on which my grandfather had written his original list, paper left over from my grandfather’s store. And so, after he died, she made the list her own by including the name of her husband.

But she did not stop there. She added to the list. For when her eldest daughter tragically died of cancer in her early 40s, she took a pen and wrote, on the bottom of the page:

נאך מיין יונגע עלטע טאכטער שרה בת יוסף כ”ז  ניסן תשכ”ז”

“For my young eldest daughter, Sarah, the daughter of Yosef, of blessed memory, the 27th day of Nisan, 1967”

And then, with the same pen, perhaps at the same time, she made one more addition to the list. She inserted, after my grandfather’s mother’s name, the names of his siblings who also perished in the Holocaust:

“הינדע חנה גולדה פואה לאה בת אלחנן מיט זיירע מענער און קינדער”

“Hinde, Chana Golda, Puah Leah, the daughter[s] of Elchanan, with their husbands and children”

The purpose of the list was that their names not be forgotten. My grandfather was committed to remembering and honoring the memory of his parents and grandparents as well as his wife’s parents. My grandmother was committed to remembering and honoring the memory of her husband and daughter. Their descendants today live on in their children, grandchildren, great grandchildren, and now, what would have been their great great grandchildren. For this youngest generation, the list leaves a legacy that stretches back seven generations and nearly 180 years. An entire world encapsulated on this single scrap of paper.

And to this list I would add my grandmother, keeper of the memory of my grandfather and his family:

“נאך מיין באבע חיה בת ר’ צבי דוב ובילה צינע ז”ל  י”ב סיון”

For my grandmother, Chaya, the daughter of Tzvi Dov and Bela Tzina, the 12th day of Sivan

And, finally, in the tradition of my grandparents, it is my turn to make this list my own by adding the names of my parents:

“נאך מיין טאטע ר’ שלום בן מאיר זאב וגולדה מלכה ז”ל  ב שבט”

For my father, Sholom, the son of Meir Zev and Golda Malka, the 2nd day of Sh’vat

“נאך מיין מאמע הינדע יעל בת ר’ יוםף וחיה ז”ל  כ”ד חשון”

For my mother, Hinda Yael, the daughter of Yosef and Chaya, the 24th of Cheshvan

May their memories be for blessing. May the List live on.