After a much-delayed flight and no sleep, it was wonderful to see Charles and Polly at SFO and arrive in Sonoma at 6am, eat dinner and go to sleep -- finally.
I was very happy to see that we still had tomatoes ripening on the vines.
Sunday, October 30
I had planned my New York day around a visit to the Met Breuer (the former Whitney) for the Kerry James Marshall exhibit. What a wonderful way to spend that day ! His works are exquisite and unique. Here are a few:
My second goal was to pick up some excellent rice pudding to take home. That meant a trip to the New Wave Cafe on Broadway at 78th Street. The best rice pudding on either coast !!!
Saturday, October 29
After breakfast, Alex drove me to the airport. It was a sad good-bye. I've said this many times since our trip with him last year, but I'll say it again: There aren't many people you could spend 10 straight days with and not get tired of that person. Alex was so easy and reasonable to travel with.
Waiting at the airport was a pleasure -- there was a wonderful exhibit of posters entitled Prominent Ukrainians:
The flights to Munich and New York were fairly uneventful and I was excited about having one day in New York before my return to San Francisco.
Friday, October 28
Today is our last full day in Ukraine. After breakfast we started the long drive back to Lviv. The sun shone as if we were being rewarded for the many chilly gray days during our Ukraine trip.
A not unusual sight on the road:
We approached Lviv and Alex left us at the wonderful Swiss Hotel, where we packed for our flights the next day.
We wanted to enjoy Lviv up to the last minute, so we took a walk to the market square, looking for a new restaurant and some last-minute souvenirs. I finally found a large Ukrainian flag; I had bought a small one on our trip last year, but now I have a large banner.
Thursday, October 27
In Kamenets, no rain, this is the day to drive to Briceni in Moldova.
The reason to go to Moldova (which our grandmother called Bessarabia) was that our grandmother's (Pauline Berenson Finkelstein's) mother was born there. We know that her mother's birth name was Lia Milman, but I have not been able to find her father's name or the town she came from. We know her father was a soifer [wrote the torah].
One night I was very frustrated with family research and I put into a Google search: "soifer Milman." The result was a youtube clip of a cantor Chaim Milman singing in Hebrew, along with a bio that said his father was a rabbi and cantor and his grandfather was a SOIFER ! and that he was from Briceni. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TOegoNcVLAw
Although I still am not sure of the connection with that family, I researched the family of cantor Chaim Milman, who brought his family to the U.S., and died here.
I recently spoke to his only surviving son (a retired lawyer who lives in Florida) and a niece (a CPA who lives in Long Island), but they didn't know enough about prior generations. They were very friendly and did welcome me into the family.
So ... we crossed the Dniester River, which separates Podolia in Ukraine and Moldova.
The trip to Briceni was for two purposes: First, to meet with a friend of Alex, a local Jewish doctor, in order to talk about the Jewish community in Briceni, if there is one. Alex contacted her in advance and we tried to accomodate her schedule, but were not able to meet with her. We tried last year also -- just not possible, for whatever reason.
The second purpose was to visit the Jewish cemetery. I had information about four Milman graves and one memorial to three others, but all from the 1940's or earlier.
As in the other Ukraine cemeteries I have visited, the more recent stones were upright, some in Russian, and apparently maintained. The older section of the Briceni cemetery was not maintained and we did not find the Milman stones, although I have photos of them from the organization that restored them enough to photograph them.
Before the trip, I was in touch with Michelle Frager, the town leader for Snitkiv. When I saw the stone pictured below, I had to take this photo for her, even though it is in Briceni. I believe she has said that Treiger is also her ancestral name.
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| Berko Moshkovich Treiger |
Back in Kamenets, we dined again at Blomanzhe -- another excellent meal.
Wednesday, October 26
I'm inserting the last days of our Ukraine trip that I didn't finish earlier.
Now, through the fog of jetlag, I'll do my best.
On the road from Khmelnitsky to Kamenets-Podolsky, we drove through Shatava -- a lovely small town, where our Berenson cousins, Robin and Pat have roots.
Kamenets was familiar to us from last year, but we may have forgotten how many tourists could amass there -- huge numbers, even in the extreme cold and rain.
We visited the market in the pouring rain to buy some necessities (necessary is in the eye of the beholder): tomato, beet and carrot seeds [now successfully imported], Ukrainian chocolate, and souvenirs.
The best part of that day was a quest for the dwelling of the Mendel Berenzon family in Kamenets. I had the census information with a location mentioned. Alex did further research to pinpoint the location and we set out.
As a driver, Alex is intrepid -- the roads were hilly and muddy in the pouring rain. But we kept going, looking for the streets Ruska (if you look closely at the first photo below you can see the street name) at Dobna. It was definitely a multi-unit building; two branches of Berenzon families lived there -- in Apartment 1 and 3a:
This may be the best discovery of the whole trip !
At dinner time, Alex drove to a restaurant, where we climbed to the second floor. On the table were placemats with news of the restaurant called Бломанже [Blomange].I wondered if this was their version of Blanc Mange and indeed it is! You Monty Python and Brit fans will be amused.
Tuesday, October 25 -- catching up
After breakfast, we left Vinnitsa to head for Khmelnitsky and drove directly to the archive.
No photo of this archive building -- it's severe and modernish looking, very different from Vinnitsa archive. The person in charge was bureaucratic, scolding, and in turn helpful. Still we found nothing that day.
I was not terribly disappointed. Rather, I was amazed that we had found anything at all the day before. It was important to me to see in person just how the archives work. I have been involved in and organized several research groups, each time hiring a local research professional and have learned some about how the archives are organized, but the in-person experience was invaluable.
I kept being reminded especially that I am in awe and have ultimate respect for good genealogy record researchers. Working in the archives is a monstrous effort, due to old and confusing indeces that don't coordinate with other information. It takes a great deal of patience and organization to find anything. I have been thrilled with the information found by our researcher, Vladimir Kreschchynyn, and now I am even more impressed with his work.
More later.
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