Memorials

Memorials in Tel Aviv (1950s)

 
 

In December 1951, former Lunna residents who settled in Israel before the war organized the first memorial for Holocaust victims of Lunna-Wola. Eliezer Eisenshmidt, Eliezer Welbel, Aron Leibowicz, Etel (Berachowicz) Zinger and Chana (Rochkin) Sedranski, the Holocaust survivors from Lunna who resided in Israel, attended this memorial and told the "Lunnaers" about the fate of the Lunna Jews during the Holocaust. Additional memorial services took place in 1953 and in 1957, and then stopped.
 

 

Invitation to memorial in 1951 in Tel Aviv  

 

Invitation to memorial in 1957 in Tel Aviv  

List of participants in the memorials in Tel Aviv

Meeting in New York City (1952)

In 1952 Yitzchak Eliasberg, Lunna born, was sent on a mission by Pardes Sindicat (Citrus-Grove Growers) to the United States. He met the former Lunna residents who emigrated and settled in the New York City area. At that time Michal Shnier, who was born in Lunna (in 1904), was the president of the Lunna-Wola Landsleit in the USA.

 

Meeting in New York City (1952). Source: "Forverts” (“Forward") newspaper no. 20180, November 2, 1952.


Lunna descendants reunion in Israel (2006)

Based on the lists of persons who had participated in the Lunna memorials during the 1950s, we were able, with the assistance of Eliezer Eisenshmidt, to trace many descendants of former Lunna-Wola residents. In March 2006, a Lunna-Wola Descendants Reunion was held in Beit Vohlyn, Givatayim. About 150 people gathered from all over Israel. Ruth Marcus, the author of a book "Once There Was a Little Shtetl Named Lunna", said at the end of her talk:

"During the search of the former Lunna residents' descendants, a typical way to start a telephone conversation was: "Are you Ms. X, the daughter of Ms. Y, who came to Eretz Israel from Lunna before the war?" Once I got an excited reply, "yes that's me… but how did you find me?" I knew that I found one more of the names on the list. The result of these searches is our gathering here this evening…
Most of the participants in this evening are either sons or daughters, or grandchildren of people who left Lunna and settled in Eretz Israel during the 1930s. They brought with them albums of childhood pictures as well as family pictures. Eliezer Eisenshmidt came to Eretz Israel from a completely different place. He came from Aushwitz-Birkenau death camp. He came without any family-pictures or any pictures of his own childhood.
 

During the preparations for this evening, Shmuel Yanovsky, a former Lunna resident, who came to Eretz Israel before the war, sent me several photos that were taken at "Torah Ve'daat" School in Lunna during the end of the 1920s. I showed the pictures to Eliezer. We were so happy when Eliezer identified himself amongst the pupils. In another picture he also identified his younger brother, Yaakov who had been murdered in Auschwitz. Consequently, Eliezer now also has one childhood picture from the time he was 8 years old. Eliezer kept lists of names for more than 50 years and received his only childhood picture after 75 years."  

 
  Students of the second grade in "Torah Ve'daat" School (1929).
From the collection of Shmuel Yanovsky


Monuments in the memory of Lunna's Jewry

In 2005 a memorial stone was placed at Kirov Street (previously Zagoryany Street) in Lunna, close to the town-square, for the memory of the 1,549 Lunna residents who were killed during the Second World War (no mention to Jews). In July 2006 a plaque was added near the stone for the memory of the 1,549 Jews from the Lunna Ghetto transported to extermination camps during the Second World War in the years 1941-1945.

In September 2006 a stone for the memory of the Jewish communities in the Grodno region was built near the monument for the memory of the Grodno Jews in the cemetery of Kiryat Saul, Israel.



 

Memorial stone for the residents of Lunna (Lunna, August, 2006)

Memorial Plaque for the Jews of Lunna (Lunna, August 2006)

Memorial monument for the memory of the Jews of Grodno and the Jewish Communities in vicinity
(Kiryat Saul, September 2006)
 

 


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Compiled by Ruth Marcus & Aliza Yonovsky Created May 2007
Updated by rLb, March 2020
Copyright © 2007 Ruth Marcus

All the photos are presented by courtesy of the families and are not allowed to be reproduced without their permission.

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