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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.
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Invitation to memorial in 1951 in
Tel Aviv |
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Invitation to memorial in 1957 in
Tel Aviv |
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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.
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Meeting in New York City (1952).
Source: "Forverts” (“Forward") newspaper no. 20180, November 2,
1952. |
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Lunna descendants reunion in Israel (2006)
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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.
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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." |
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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
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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. |
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Memorial stone for the residents
of Lunna (Lunna, August, 2006) |
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Memorial Plaque for the Jews of Lunna (Lunna, August 2006)
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Memorial monument for the memory of the Jews of Grodno and the Jewish Communities in vicinity
(Kiryat Saul, September 2006)
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Genealogy. If you have been aided in your research by this site and
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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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