Exciting Discoveries Await

After the IAJGS conference in Warsaw, I decided to travel to Radom, my Polish ancestral town, to do research in the archives. Radom is about an hour and a half drive south of Warsaw and is a town of around 215,000.  At the time of the war it was 100,000 of which 25% was Jewish.

My prior visits were in 2010 and 2011 and in the interim I had ordered many records on my own family and for others for whom I was doing research. That works well when you are working with records of a page or two on specific people that are indexed, such as vital records, Books of Residents and identity or forced labor papers. 

On this visit I wanted to do something different. I wanted to explore the community as a whole and perhaps my family’s place within it.  Unfortunately, I don’t speak either Polish or Russian, the language of the records. I can painfully decipher Cyrillic names and Latin-based Polish names are easily readable. Most were in the form of lists, hence somewhat more manageable, but those that are narrative in either language required more extensive language skills. Many of the records were bound in books with other records so knowing what I was looking at also took some deciphering. Often you find a relevant name, take a picture and get translation help later, but this was a lot of material. I needed to target my search. 

So why was I interested in community records? I do the Kehilalink on Radom for Jewishgen. A Kehilalink is a website on a former Jewish community for people who are researching their Jewish roots. I hoped to find information that I could put on-line. I also had begun to get a sense of the broader community through my genealogy work for others and wanted to build on that. When I look at a page of names I recognize a community of researchers descended from many of those names.

The Radom Archive had moved to a different location since I had last been there and it had changed quite a bit in the intervening years. In addition to the old paper records, there were now computers that had the vital records and identity papers, accessible by archive visitors. 

Now you don’t just show up at archives without doing quite a bit of preparation. I had spent a lot of time learning how to mine the online Polish Archives. I had searched the contents of the Radom Archives for “zydow”, one of the Polish words for Jew, and found a number of interesting items with the aid of Google translate. Before arriving at the archives, I had sent them several pages of items that they then pulled in advance of my visit.

On my first morning, Google maps guided me to the archive's new location. It was a sunny pleasant day as I walked through the town, tracing the edge of the beautiful park across from my hotel.  When I arrived, a young man sat in a central area outside of the archives. I had been asked by another researcher to check on some information for him and I didn’t look forward to a discussion in a language I didn’t speak. The young man had limited English and with my non-existent Polish it called for some creativity. Using Google Translate, I pressed conversation. I spoke into my phone in English and it  repeated it in Polish. I then asked him to do likewise. We didn’t prove very proficient with this program as it captured just small segments at a time, but it had given the young archivist an idea. He pulled up Google Translate and typed his response which appeared in English. “You type” he said. I reached for the keyboard and did likewise until we arrived at mutual understanding.

I deposited my belongings in a locker and entered the archives with my computer, phone and notes.  I was delighted to see the welcoming face of the same archivist I had met in 2011 and a large pile of the resources I had requested. She gave me a pair of white cotton gloves and black plastic disposable gloves for handling the archival material and I settled in at a table surrounded by history.

Where to begin? I reached for a white folder from 1940, questionnaires on Jewish teachers collected by the Nazis. Within each was a photograph and a completed form with their birthdate and names and ages of their children. Some listed parents and grandparents. I saw the word for Jew. Each had written out their resume in longhand Polish. Over twenty Jewish teachers, each with the well-modulated handwriting I have come to associate with teachers. I imagined a pride reflected in those resumes filled with hard-earned credentials, perhaps still hopeful at this early stage that their skills would still find them a purposeful existence. 

I had one other piece of 20th century history to peruse, a number of files from 1945 which listed real estate that had been owned by Jews and lay abandoned after their death in the Holocaust. It was gathered by a city department that was looking at tax collections that would now prove fruitless. Unfortunately, it did not list owners which would have been valuable information, but it did list addresses. I envisioned those addresses on a map to visualize the Jewish community and the hole it left with its absence. With the records from the 1940s there was often printed text. I held my phone over them in Google Translate and it translated the words below.

Having cut my teeth on the history of the past century, I stepped back into the 1800s. I had gathered information in the form of lists, lists of Jewish tailors from 1847-1851, Jews living temporarily in the city from 1847-48, Jews who owned real estate 1814-1865, Jews who contributed to the schools from 1872-74, Jews who chose the supervision of the synagogue in 1875/1884, contributions to the fathers of families 1878/1893. The earlier lists, those that preceded the mid 1860s were still in Polish, and names were readable. The later records were in Cyrillic Russian and even when the scribe had good penmanship, which he often didn’t, the pages of names were daunting. The paper was thick, like handmade paper. Not exactly tactile through gloves, but the foreign writing on thick cream paper reminded me of the passage of time it represented.

I attempted to make use of Google Translate with a Polish title by typing in the hand-written title for the document. According to the translation of the archive text, the collection was called the City Name List of Jews Living Temporarily in the City. It translated what I input to this: 

a list of smuggled believers in exchange for gas-fired spectacles 

Then it gently asked me if I might’ve meant something else. What it proposed translated to this: 

name list of the Old Testimonies with testimonies gasily in the children's council 

And yet another iteration got me to this for which the first part is accurate and the last part is puzzling.

Name list of the Orthodox believers in the joy of the children's advice 

The discovery for which I am most excited is what appears to be a Book of Residents dated 1827 which lists my third great-grandfather, his children and their spouses. The title in the archives translates to Radom City Lists Jews of Homeowners and Tenants Together with Families and Service 1823 to 1847. It consists of 30 double pages in Polish. I hope to begin by pulling out the surnames and ultimately posting them on the website. What is interesting about this is that Jews did not take last names until 1823. On prior visits I found a listing of the patronymics that preceded last names (father's name and ending) and the subsequent last names they took. Because of its proximity to 1827 it allows us to expand from the man to his family. 

A lot of work lies ahead and I will need to tap others to assist with translation. For anyone preparing for an archive visit, I would urge preparation with archival online resources and familiarity with the tools that Google offers. Exciting discoveries await.

Cracking the Code

When I'm not at the studio painting, I am often immersed in genealogy. I've delved deeply into my own family history and now the discoveries are few and far between. I do some genealogy consulting for others as I miss that rather addictive thrill of discovery. I am always fascinated by process, how we get from point A to point B. It sometimes seems like I am pulling a rabbit out of a hat when I present someone with the result, but much of discovery is knowing the route to follow and understanding what data is available and how it connects. Having a basic familiarity with Cyrillic Russian often proves critical in the part of the world I research. A few community ed classes in Russian have given me enough so that I can find family names in records and was able to translate signs when we traveled to Lviv.

When I was a kid, my brother did magic tricks at birthday parties. I used to sneak into his room to examine the way the tricks worked and I remember studying a yellow cabinet into which he would drop a marble. It would disappear behind a wall of mirrors and miraculously reappear. So I am about to tell you a bit of the magic behind discovering family history, but no mirrors are involved.

I was contacted by an individual whose one branch came from a small town in Poland. He knew the names of his grandparents who died in the Holocaust and that two family members had survived. Beyond that the history was unknown.. Now that didn't give me much to go on as privacy laws mean that records from the past 100 years are not available on-line. They can be accessed if you go to Poland and prove your family connection, but as a researcher I was limited in what I could find. I estimated when the grandfather would have been born and thought I might be able to find a birth record older than 100 years. We always begin with what we know and tug on a thread.

Now if you are searching for Jewish records in Poland, the starting place is indisputable. JRI-Poland.org has indexed many of the Polish records so I began with a search on name and town. I came up with one record that matched the name with a birth year of 1891. I soon realized that I was quite fortunate. The Polish archives has begun to digitize records and the actual record was accessible on line from the JRI site.. My elation soon turned to dismay when I was reminded that the record was in Cyrillic Russian, handwritten Cyrillic Russian. Even if you learned your textbook Russian, handwritten languages don't look like the printed text.

I decided to see if I could decipher any of the names as I knew the father's name was often at the top as well as the first name below the record. The mother's name is further down in the body. They also had assisted me by capitalizing the names, but you will notice there are quite a few capitalized words, the name of the town and witnesses are also capitalized so knowing the location in which to look is important. Now despite the fact that I know some Cyrillic, I also drew on Stevemorse.org for some help. I input Nahum Stern and translated it to printed Russian. Then in a second step I translated it to handwritten Cyrillic. This is one of the options that it gave me.

Then I started looking for something similar. In the third line you will see the father's name and the last name appears to be Shtern, but the first letter is different.

I had been looking for the letter that sounds like "s" and looks like a"c" rather than the "sh" sound, but assumed it could also have been spelled in this fashion. In front of it is a common Jewish name that looked familiar even in Russian, Mordko.

The mother's name usually comes before the child's name so I looked for Nahum. At the end of the 11th line is a word that is capitalized and looks like it begins with Hoxum. In Cyrillic, what appears as an H is pronounced as an N and the x sound is a ch, close enough for Nahum which is often pronounced as Nachum.

In the prior line is a word which starts with a B which is a V in English and often pronounced as a W. I deciphered the first few letters and came up with a name that began with Wolf for the mother's maiden name.

Back to JRI-Poland to do a search on a Mordko Stern which quickly uncovers many records for Mordko Stern and his wife whose last name is Wolfenfeld.

Now I circle back to my client to see if 1891 sounds like the appropriate birth year. He's not sure. My dilemma is whether this record, from which I'm working backwards, belongs to the right family. I need to confirm that this is the right family or I can build a wonderful tree that lacks a solid foundation. I recall the grandfather died in the Holocaust so do a search for testimony on Yad Vashem. Success! A record has been submitted by an uncle who gives the birth year of 1891 and the parents' names which match my record.

Working back from one record to another I quickly realize that I can get back to his fifth great-grandparents, certainly back to the 1700s. There are marriage records for great-grandparents and great-great grandparents, always valuable for the wealth of information they provide, parents names on both sides.

Now the work is by no means done. Now I need to order records from the Family History Library or from the Polish Archives and get translations for them. I will build a tree with what I know and build the details from the records into it. But our process has begun, using sources of JRI-Poland, Yad Vashem, stevemorse.org and the Polish Archives. With those resources together with some basic Cyrillic and knowledge of the layout of records, I can crack the code.

 

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Visiting the Radom Archives

I have traced my family in Radom back to the 1700s and intended to do some research in the Radom archives. We soon found the USC which is the archive that has records from the last 100 years. We were a bit disconcerted to discover the building locked, but upon inquiring were told to proceed through the alley to the back of the building where we found an entrance. We hesitantly made our way up the stairs following signs to the USC. A line was outside a small office in which no one seemed to speak English. I wrote down the name of the woman I had corresponded with previously and asked for her. They quickly called Emily and we were able to discuss what I needed in English. Records are 22 zlotys each, about $7 and she had found the death records for my great-grandparents and records on the family of the one surviving cousin. I was interested in those as the story was that he had taken his younger brother’s name and birth date after the war as he heard it was easier to gain entrance to the US if you were younger. This became a bit of a problem for him when he was old enough for social security. We made plans for me to return in a few days and she would prepare copies of the records. She had searched for many other records on my behalf unsuccessfully.

Our next stop was the PSA, the archives that hold the records that are older than 100 years. The PSA is located on a small park at Rynek 1. We parked in front of the building and purchased a ticket to park there from the machine up the street.

Here I met Michalina, a 15 year old Polish girl who was assisting me at the archives. I had met Michalina on-line when she was seeking information on the Jewish community of Radom. As I had created the Shtetlink website on Radom, I shared stories with her from my research. When I made plans to go to Radom, I had asked her if she might be able to assist me. Michalina arrived accompanied by her parents who have invited us to have dinner at their home next week. We are very much looking forward to talking with a Polish family from Radom.

Upon entering the building we went down the corridor on the right and deposited our belongings in one of the lockers on the wall. We brought a computer and papers into the research room where we were able to request documents from the archivists. Internet was not available at the archives so research in their on-line catalog needed to be performed prior to going to the archives. Any copies must be purchased, not photographed. Copies of pages cost 3 zlotys (about $1) with double that for a scan of the documents.

Fortunately I had done considerable research prior to arriving at the archives. The on-line catalog is quite extensive, but it is just in Polish so it was a slow and laborious process to search for files related to the Jewish community. First I identified a likely file based on Polish words that typically described Jews. Then I used my translation software to arrive at some understanding of what they included. As I had already located most of the available birth, marriage and death records, I was digging into different types of documents. One in which I was particularly interested appeared to address the surnames that Jews were required to assume in 1823. Prior to that time they had used patronymics, their father’s name with an ending meaning that they were the son or daughter. To have a document that connected the patronymic with the last name was a key to working further back in time.

At the archives I was able to review a book with indexes to identity papers which Jews were required to take out during WWII. These documents often had photographs and indicated birthdates, parents’ names and addresses. They were disturbing to me, knowing that most of their recipients were murdered within a year. I requested several identity papers as well as many of the documents that I had identified on-line. Michalina was very helpful in being able translate between me and the archivists and her assistance made the process move much more smoothly.

After leaving the archives we walked the nearby streets and I took pictures of many of the addresses where family had shops and offices. I had reviewed business directories from the 1930s and recorded addresses prior to our trip. Soon a violent rain storm began, a frequent occurrence on this trip, and we ran to our car to begin our drive to the small town in which we were staying. Kazimierz Dolny is a charming town located on the Vistula River which attracts many weekend visitors. In recent days Poland has been faced with flooding and we weren’t sure if we would be able to get to the town. Our host reassured us that it was accessible through some detours so we decided to venture forth. It is close to Lublin and the concentration camp Madjanek which we hoped to visit the following day. One detour and much rain later we arrived in Kazimierz Dolny.

Archives Take II

It is very difficult for me to admit defeat so I didn’t like the idea of abandoning my archive research. I did decide however, that it was time to draw on reinforcements. I contacted a guide who had been highly recommended to me. I had established contact with her briefly from the States, but then had difficulty connecting with her by e-mail. I noted in the schedule for the Yiddish Institute that she was our guide on a day trip so decided to take another run at establishing contact. This time I met with success and received an e-mail reply with her phone number. I called her and learned that she would be able to go to the archives today!

I then had to call over to the archives to see if they would pull some files for me in advance so we would have something to work with. I am always a little hesitant to use the telephone here as I am never sure if the person at the other end speaks English. After a long pause, the archivist seemed to be grasping my English. I mentioned that Regina would be accompanying me and could hear a change in tone at the mention of her name, probably relief at not having to deal with an American who doesn’t know their system.

Regina Kopilevich and I agreed to meet at a location near the University where we would take the trolley together to the archives. Not only would I learn another route by trolley, but we’d have an opportunity to talk in route. As I sat by the bell tower, I heard my name called by a woman wearing a floppy hat and a welcoming smile.

Regina guided me to the nearest trolley car where we got on a #12 which took us past a striking green domed Orthodox church. It dropped us at the Gerosios Vilties stop, the street on which the archives are located. Aboard the trolley we chatted with one of my classmates, a Belarusian who was doing research at the archives as well.

We entered the archives where I was now familiar with the drill. I traded my researcher card for a locker key and brought my computer and papers into the reading room.
We began with the 1875 census that I had reviewed for Glebokie. I had two of my own family names, but four additional names that I had received from others who were researching the region. I told Regina that while my two were the priority, if we saw the other names, I would like to take a photo of the page and get it to the researchers. Regina went through each page reading the names quietly as we rapidly flipped pages. I asked her why there were cutouts from the census and she told me that they were receipts that were provided to the families.



We first found a name from one of the other researchers. I took a photo and recorded the information in my notes. The second name looked like it might be Sher, the maiden name of my great-grandmother. The first letter was a “C” which has an “es” sound, instead of what we expected, the letter which resembles the Hebrew shin and has a “Sh” sound. Regina studied it and then went to get a friend’s opinion. She then proceeded to ask three other people in the room who were proficient in Russian and returned to report that they all believed it was Sher, but people from that region sometimes wrote it differently.

It listed the names of two brothers, Leyzor and Fishel, sons of Yankel as well as their ages. The youngest son was reported to be 16, but in another column it noted that he looked like 12. I wondered if that addition was for the purpose of determining if a son was of draft age, but masquerading as younger than his age to avoid conscription. The census also reported that the older brother had a house in Glebokie. I asked if it provided an address and we flipped back to the beginning of the section to locate the name of the street. As I will be in Glebokie, it will be interesting to see if the street still exists.

We continued through the book and although I found no more of my family names, there were several for other researchers as well as many Shapiros who seemed to dominate the town. I also found a family name for one of my fellow students who had told me that her great-grandmother came from Glebokie. And for those who may contemplate such research, it took us about an hour to get through the book with a fluent researcher reading every name as we sought six surnames.

We reviewed one other book which stood at least two feet tall on fraying parchment. Within it was the 1834 census for Dunilovichi. I took photographs of each page of that section with the hope that I may find someone to translate it more thoroughly.

We then moved to the microfilm room where we again tackled the “reel-less” rolls of film. I asked Regina why they weren’t on reels and she noted that they were quite old. 

 “Couldn’t they put them on reels?” I queried. 

 “We are not looking for the easy ways,” she replied with a chuckle.

On film we reviewed the index for the 1858 Dunilovichi census. Only the index is available as well as many of the files of supplemental census data. While we found several names for my fellow researchers, I did not have additional success with my family names. Nonetheless, I was grateful to have expanded my scope so as to have a greater sense of success. I think it is likely that as I try to map relationships across the shtetl, I may find relationships with other families that may make some of these discoveries personally meaningful.

On the way back to town, I queried Regina about her background and family. I learned that she trained as an engineer, but had worked as a volunteer for a Jewish cultural organization. Prior to Independence, families weren’t permitted to go to the shtetls to visit family graves. Part of her work was in facilitating this. She then got interested in learning Hebrew and gradually made a career shift. I recalled at the panel discussion the day prior, the panel had noted that Independence had brought much more freedom to practice the Jewish religion.

Despite the discovery of only one of my family names, today felt much more successful than my first attempt at archive research. Regina was able to move past irrelevant information for other towns and focus on a broader list of names than I could do alone. And she could do it in a fraction of the time it would take a non-native speaker to do so. She was aware of resources that would likely not have been available to me and was able to use our three hours in the most effective way possible. As we bid farewell, she mentioned that she would be at the International Jewish Genealogy Conference next week in Philadelphia. With a smile she said, let me know if you need anything from the States.

Learning Yiddish and Spinning my Reels

Today we began our Yiddish classes with a very colorful teacher, Dov Ber. Dov Ber has a full beard and curly dark hair with a perpetual twinkle in his eyes. Dov began by asking us our names and where we were from and then proceeded to write our replies phonetically in Yiddish. The program stresses the importance of getting comfortable with cursive Yiddish and this proved to be good practice in doing so. It also allowed us to add a few more nationalities to the group, Italian, Lithuanian, Finnish and Russian. The Russian language which I’ve studied proved to be a good preparatory experience. Because neither Russian nor Yiddish consists of a Latin alphabet, it forces an extra step in the learning process. First one must transliterate the alphabet, recognizing both its look and sound. After this becomes familiar you realize that you are no longer transliterating it on a conscious level, but seeing it and hearing its sound simultaneously. Had I not gone through that learning process with Russian, I think I might find this more intimidating. Not to say that it is simple, but I realized that I already know more than I had acknowledged and I need to trust the learning process.

We met for an hour and a half with Dov Ber and then had a half hour coffee break. Regrouping, we then spent another hour and half with another professor, Anna, a striking Estonian linguist. Anna drilled us still further in the cursive alphabet. Having three hours of classes each day is a new rhythm to which it will take a while to adjust. In the afternoon there was a lecture in Yiddish about the fate of books during WWII. Fran decided to attend even though she would understand little if any of it. She hoped that hearing the language would enter her brain by osmosis. Another student who understood some Yiddish described the talk as depressing as it described the systematic destruction by the Germans of Yiddish and Hebrew books. I departed to head to the archives and see what I might learn.

The archives are on the other side of town and there was no easy way to get to them. The directions by trolley bus were quite complex so I decided to take a cab on this first day. The cab was costly from the old town and dropped me in front of a rather neglected building in an uninviting area of the town. I entered the archives and asked for Galina, the one English speaking archivist. They directed me to her office at the end of the hall. I began to knock on the door only to realize that it was padded. Knocking apparently is not encouraged. Instead I tried her door only to find it locked. She opened the door shortly after this attempt and I introduced myself. Galina escorted me down the hall where I was given a locker in which to put my coat as well as deposit any carry case big enough to walk out with documents. She then directed me to the reading room. There, people sat at small tables where they reviewed documents. She indicated that they had the original of one of the documents I requested, the 1875 census from Glebokie, but the rest of the documents were on microfilm. Before providing me with the documents they filled out an information card on me.

The 1875 census was quite crumbly with sections cut from it. I’m not sure why that was and Galina was no longer there to ask. It was in columnar format and the Russian script was better than some with which I’ve worked. As a result I was able to recognize a number of first names. I had written out the surnames I was researching in handwritten Cyrillic so I could look for names that might resemble them. Both names were short, Sher and Gold, so I thought they would be easier to locate. When I found names that resembled their initial letters I took a photograph as I wasn’t sure if there might be an ending added to the name which could lengthen it.

Having exhausted the census with some remote possibilities, but no Eureka moment, I then found my way to the microfilm room down the hall. They brought out a tray of microfilm, but only one was on a reel. Apparently those without reels had to be wound by hand. They set me up on a machine that didn’t seem to allow for enlargement of the image. Each time one rotated the reel it blurred for a minute until it came into sharper focus. That made for a slow and unwieldy process. The document was the census from 1834 and unlike the columnar form I had reviewed for 1875, it appeared to contain paragraphs, a format I would not have expected for a census. After winding through one of the reels, I concluded with disappointment that I’d be spinning my wheels and reels to continue down this path.

The archives closed at 4:30 so I decided to find a way to take a trolley car back to the center of town. I soon realized that the stop named for the street which housed the archives wasn’t the correct one as each trolley car passed me by. The Savanoriu stop listed the buses going to Pylimo, a stop from which I could find my way home. As I was dropped across from a large park, I pulled out my map and traced my path through streets that changed names frequently until I found Fran and one of our classmates at a nearby café. They had been hard at work on our homework which I now need to catch up on.

I have concluded that unless I can identify someone with more Russian skills to assist me in my research, I will abandon my attempt at archive research. The archivists are no longer available to assist in research and the difficulties in communication proved somewhat daunting. I plan to e-mail a researcher who I had contacted originally and ask at the University if someone might be available to assist me. Otherwise I will have to rely upon our Belarus visit to learn more about that segment of the family.