Sometimes the connection between past and present is crystalized in a moment of space and time. You stand before a place where your ancestors lived. You contemplate its history and how the present resonates with the past. I experienced that connection during my recent visit to Israel. I stood before a place, the exact place, …
Tag: Zambrow
Immigration (legal/illegal) stories of my ancestors
In this time of vilification of undocumented immigrants, it’s worth examining, from a legal point of view, the immigration stories of my grandfather and great uncle. They were born in Zambrow, a town in the northeast section of present day Poland. My grandfather, his parents’ eldest child, was born in 1899. The area was ruled …
A visit to my Great Uncle
I never met my great uncle. His Hebrew name was Shmuel, his English name Sam, but everyone called him by his Yiddish name, Shmulke. My grandfather’s younger brother, he, along with my grandfather and one younger sister, left his home town of Zambrow, Poland, before the war. Those who remained, their mother, three siblings and …
My Great Uncle Shmulke: Mysteries Revealed and Remaining
Everyone it seems has an ancestor whose life is a mystery. Someone who lived on the margins of family, whose behavior was both excused and inexplicable. The black sheep, part of the family yet seldom spoken of. Perhaps a loner. Perhaps inflicted with a disability about which no one dared speak. These qualities describe my …
Zambrow During the War Years: Part 2–the Soviet Occupation
For nearly 21 months, from the end of September, 1939 until June 22, 1941, the residents of Zambrow lived under the control of the Soviet Union. In retrospect, this period was but an interlude between the initial Nazi occupation in September, 1939, until their 1941 reoccupation, during which they would destroy Zambrow’s Jewish community. Yet, …
The Lomza Yeshiva: Connections Past and Present
Before I began researching my family history, I had never heard of Lomza. But it turns out that I have connections to this city, connections of the past that stretch into the present, and future. Lomza is located in northeastern Poland. It played an important role in the history of Jews of Poland. Jews first …