Exploring Jewish Radom

We began today with a visit to the USC, the governmental office which has vital records for the past 100 years.  Dora was interested in getting her birth record and that of her brother.  People who can prove their parent was born in Poland may be able to obtain a Polish passport enabling them easier access to European Union countries.  Dora’s experience was quite smooth because she speaks the language and within an hour we had secured the birth records for both.

Our next stop was the archive which holds records that are over 100 years old.  We secured a number of identity papers for family members.  When we had been at the Warsaw genealogy office of the Jewish Historical Institute, we had obtained lists of family members who had been in the ghetto and completed identity papers.  Many of the papers were accompanied by photographs.

Using JRI-Poland.org I had been able to locate indexes of many records on Dora’s family that included her great-grandmother’s birth record and her grandparents’ marriage record.  We found the Book of Residents which included her family.  The Book of Residents lists the residents by family along with parents’ names and various events in their lives that required official notation.   My ability to decipher Russian Cyrillic came in handy and we were able to leave with the records on my list.

Our tasks accomplished, our touring now began in earnest.  Dora’s niece had secured a van to take us to different locations and we began with a chronological history.  We started at Dora’s childhood home and concluded with a visit to her home in the ghetto.  We visited the area of the former forced labor camp and I asked Dora if she ever received any compensation as the Austrian company that ran the weapons factory still exists.  She replied that a few years ago she received a very small sum.

We then stopped at her former school which is now an apartment building.  She was pleased to see that a plaque on the history of the school adorned the door.  We entered the building and I was struck by the worn stone steps on which so many students had walked.

We stopped by the Resursa to see the artwork and photos being hung for our show.  At Dora’s request we planned another visit to the cemetery and Jakub once again secured the key to the cemetery for us.  Again we said the Kaddish, the prayer for the dead, now with this enlarged group of family and friends.  It felt especially important to Dora to have her family with her in this place.

We also did a brief stop at the site of the old synagogue.  Throughout the day we had several videographers in our group recording Dora’s stories in the related locations.  Hopefully some will turn out to be useable as filming in a vehicle or on the street has its challenges.  Dora told some stories that I had heard from her previously, but they took on an added resonance when told on the site in which they occurred.

One more day in Radom, but a jam packed one.  Tomorrow we give our talk at the Resursa to high school students, then an opening in the evening and we reconnect with our Polish friends from our prior visit.

Goodby Budapest

On our last day in Budapest we went back to the Jewish Museum and the Dohany synagogue and took the tour of the synagogue (see left). We also stopped at the nearby Rumbach synagogue (photo on right) that closed as an operating synagogue in the 1980s. This synagogue was built in 1872 by the Viennese architect Otto Wagner. The sanctuary is octagonal and the façade is Moorish and striped with intricate designs. The synagogue was sold to the state in the 1980s and partially restored until money ran out. It is now back in the hands of the Jewish community, but is basically a shell with no interior furnishings, albeit a beautiful shell. Additional photos can be found on the Budapest album link.

We also had an opportunity to visit the Hungarian Jewish Museum which is housed next to the Dohany synagogue. The museum was in the news in the 1990s when its entire collection was stolen while the building was covered in scaffolding. The thieves climbed the scaffolding, went in through the windows and removed everything. Several months later they found virtually everything in a village in Romania.

In the evening we attended the Budapest Opera House for a performance of the Barber of Seville. The opera hall is the way you imagine opera halls should be with layers and layers of gold balconies with decorative figures. We were in the second row so had a wonderful view of the orchestra as well as the stage and could look behind us and take in the entire expanse of the opera house. At the intermission people gathered on a rooftop balcony with views of the city.

The next morning we arose early to catch a cab to the airport for our flight to Warsaw. We connected with our rental car service and soon were in a small Fiat heading towards Radom. We had brought our own GPS (Garmen 275) and had the one from the rental car as well. We found theirs difficult to program so were happy to have one we had already figured out. With its guidance we found our way to Radom, a city south of Warsaw where my grandfather came from.