Meller  Family

House shared by several Meller families

Wedding of Frida Meller and Abram Lapidus, Rokiskis, 1937

1. Yudel Meller; 2. Samuil Meller; 3. The mother of Abram Lapidus; 4. Abram Lapidus; 5.  Frida Meller Lapidus; 6. aunt of Abram Lapidus; 7. uncle of Abram Lapidus; 8.  Khone Meller; 9. Berta Butler; 10.Chaim Reznikovich; 11. Lisa Meller Reznikovich; 12. Fanya Rubanenko Meller (the wife of Khona Meller ); 13. Jacob, brother of Abram Lapidus; 14. Yacha Levitin Meller (the wife of Yudl Meller); 15.  aunt of Abram Lapidus; 16. uncle of Abram Lapidus; 17.Leiba Lurie; 18. unknown

Of the Mellers in the photo, Frida and her husband Abram left Rokiskis and emigrated to the US; Yudel survived the war and emigrated to Israel; Samuil and Khone died in Siberia, and Lisa and her husband Chaim were killed in Rokiskis.

Saying goodbye to Frida and Abram Lapidus, who were leaving for America, 1937 or 1938

1 - Mordechai Meller; 2 - Yudel Meller; 3 - Sana (Shoshana) Meller, daughter of Yudel and Yacha; 4 - Yacha Levitin Meller; 5 - Fanya Rubanenko Meller (married to Khone); 6 - Khone Meller; 7 - Mira Reznokovich, daughter of Lisa Meller and Chaim Reznokovich; 8 - Shmuel (Samuil) Meller; 9 - Chaim Reznokovich; 10 - Frida Meller Lapidus; 11 - Josef Meller; 12 - Lisa Meller Reznokovich; 13 - Keila Rubanenko, mother of Fanya Meller; 14 - Miron Meller, son of Yudel and Yacha; 15 - Jonina Reznokovich, daughter of Lisa Meller and Chaim Reznokovich; 16 - Samuil Meller, son of Khone and Fanya.

This photo was contributed by Samuil Meller (# 16), who survived the war in Siberia and now lives in the U.S.

Bar Mitzvah of Miron (Meir) Meller, in November 1939 at the home of Yudel Meller
(Miron was born November 27, 1926)

This picture illustrates the fate of Jews who lived in independent Lithuania in the months after the Germans and Russians conquered Poland in September 1939.  

The original photo, saved by David Apotheker, is owned by Annette Apotheker Rosen.  Her father, David Apotheker (1908-1995), the only survivor of eight siblings, was born in Bardejov, Slovakia (although his family had its roots in Nowy Sacz, Poland).  David’s family knew that he had escaped to Shanghai with a transit visa from Chiune Sugihara, the Japanese consul general in Kovno, Lithuania’s inter-war capital.  However, they did not know why David was in Rokiskis. 

However, Samuil Meller (25) and his cousin Sana Meller Levin (12) have identified the photo as the celebration of Miron Meller's bar mitvah in November 1939 and have identified most of the people in the photo for us (see below).  It seems more likely that they are correct if you note the table settings, which seem more appropriate for a family celebration than a 'meeting.'  Samuil and Sana provide the following explanation for why David Apotheker and the others who remain unidentified are at the celebration: 

As for unknown people  # 3, 7, 8, 10, 20, 22, 23 and 24, we think that after Germany’s invasion of Poland (in September 1939), Jewish refugees from Poland fled to Rokiskis. They were placed in detention camps, but were free to walk in the city. They used to dine with Jewish families. Every person was assigned to a family, which he or she visited every day, and shortly they became like members of the family.

David Apotheker, who saved this photo, was one of many such Polish refugees. He dined with the family of Yudel  Meller.

(David Apotheker's story as told to us by his daughter Annette:

My father David, after having been in Siberia and after arrival in Vladivostok, was taken to Japan, beaten and expelled to Shanghai, where he lived for 4 years. After the war he made his way to Antwerp but didn't find any survivors. He met a friend, Saul Braunhut, who had a weaving factory in Winterswijk, Holland. My father joined him, he had a letter of being "persona non grata" from Belgium.  In Holland he met Reina Wijler -Kropveld a war widow (of Lo Wijler ), married her in 1948, and had two children.  My brother Eli Apotheker and I both immigrated to Israel. 

My mother died in 1969 in Ruurlo, Holland and my father in 1995 in Tel Aviv, Israel.)

Lithuanian School, Rokiskis, 1940

This photo, contributed by Samuil Meller, was taken in June, 1940, several days before the occupation of Lithuania by the Soviets.

In Samuil's own words:

This is the 6th senior class Lithuanian Beginning School named after Tubyalis 

#1 - Samuil Meller, about 13 years old
#2 - Mr. Stulgis, the school principal

I was the only Jewish student in my class.  There was one more Jewish student in the school, Grisha Furmansky.  

Before our graduation, Stulgis delivered a patriotic speech about the coming fearsome events.

In June 1941 Shmuel Meller, the oldest of four Meller brothers and his wife Miriam and son Abram, who lived in Rokiskis in the own house on #2, Vytauto St., were sent into exile on the Arctic Ocean coast.  Shmuel didn’t survive the extreme conditions and climate and died in 1943. His wife and son survived by a miracle but certainly would not have survived had they remained in Rokiskis.  (Shmuel is #30 in the Bar Mitzvah photo of Miron Meller above and his home in Rokiskis is #1 on the photo entitled "Samuil Meller remembers family landmarks" on the main page of the Rokiskis ShtetLinks.)

We see them with their yurt, a traditional earthen Yakut house, in the background. (The Yakuts were Turkic peoples  who lived in Siberia.) It was a round shack with earthen floor and iron stove in the center.  During the winter (which can be nine months long in Siberia) in order to preserve warmth of their home they had to cover the windows with ice panels which were frozen to the outside walls. The yurt was covered with snow up to the roof and the fire was burning around the clock.

Miriam worked as a laundrywoman for a living so she had firewood for boiling the water for the clothes and this helped them survive. Paradoxically, although she was an exile she was awarded a medal “For noble work during the Great Patriotic War 1941-1945”. This award helped her to get permission to move to Yakutsk city in 1947 and after that to Krasnoyarsk in 1959.  She died in Krasnoyarsk and her son Abram still lives there.

(This photo is courtesy of Abram Meller; the commentary was written by  his cousin Samuil Meller based on Abram's information.)