Shirley's Essay

Shirley here recounts the interesting and disturbing story of a Mlynov man who never returned home after going to collect a debt from a Czech man who borrowed money from him. The missing man was Daniel Arelas, "Arelas" here meaning he was "son of Aaron" (Hirsch). When Daniel was discovered murdered on the road the next day, his fur hat was missing. The ghost of the deceased Daniel visited the town's residents alerting them as to where they could find the missing fur hat, which they indeed found. Daniel's wife was pregnant at the time and a son was born after his death. That son came to New York.

The story sounds alot like fiction. But we know that Shirley knew the Hirsch family because a photo of her mother, her daughter Marilyn Israel and sister Sylvia (see above) appear in a photograph in America with "Henia Arelas" (i.e., Anna daughter of Aaron Hirsch), the sister of the murdered Daniel Arelas. It seems plausible that Shirley heard the story from her mother and/or Daniel's sister, Anna Katz. Whether it was true or not is of course another story.

Additional reading:

You can read the essays written by Shirley's sister Sylvia about their grandfather, Icik Statrosta, and her visits to Mlynov. You can also read more about "The Mystery of Sylvia Goldberg."

Notes

[5] Shirley's mother's brother, Usher (Harry Tatelbaum) lists his birthplace as Mlynov on his passenger manifest in 1911. He arrived in Baltimore with two other Mlynov men. Since her brother was born in Mlynov, and her parents lived there, I suspect that Sylvia's mother also was born there. Her later US records, however, are inconsistent. When she arrived in 1921 her passenger manifest says she was born in Varsovic (perhaps Varkovychi) and her Petition says she was born in Lutsk. ↩

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Lamdan, Yitzhak, (Israel)

The poet, Yitzhak Lamdan, is probably the best known of the individuals born in Mlynov because of his important role in shaping Zionist ideology and Israeli national identity with his famous and influential poem, “Masada.”

Born in Mlynov in 1899 into an affluent family as “Itzik Yehuda Lubes” or Lobes (later Yitzhak Lamdan), Lamdan lived in Mlynov until the outbreak of WWI in 1917 and the civil wars that followed. During this period, he was uprooted and wandered through Southern Russia with his brother before joining the Red Army. In 1920, after his parents’ home was destroyed and his brother was killed, Lamdan immigrated to Palestine as part of a socialist youth group in what has come to be known in Zionist history as the “Third Aliyah.” His poem “Masada” was written between 1923 and 1926 during his early years in Palestine while he was also involved in manual labor of various sorts.

Yitzhak Lamdan, Jerusalem. Courtesy of Irene Siegel.

A view of Masada.

Additional reading

Yitzhak Lamdan was finally able to return home to Mlynov for a visit in 1932. A charming story of that visit, "In the Presence of Yitzhak Lamdan" is recounted through the eyes of a younger boy who hero worshipped the older poet.

Lamdan's Poetry Selections:

A selection of evocative poems from Lamdan especially when understood against the backdrop of Lamdan's visit back to Mlynov in 1932. They represent very moving reflections from a young man who has left religion behind and who is imagining a conversation with his father about his life in Palestine. He struggles with how much to reveal about the difficulties he is facing in his life, knowing his father is hanging on his every word. In the selections that follow, Lamdan voices the overwelming challenges of chasing the dream of Zionism in a "Boat Torn to Pieces" and "Without Shabbat," giving vent to the anguish felt by his generation of immigrants.

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Lederer, Helen (Gelberg)

Helen Lederer was born "Chultzie Gelberg" in Mlynov in 1903. She became Helen Dishowitz and then later Helen Lederer in the United States. She was the eldest daughter of Moishe Gelberg/Goldberg and Gitel (Weitzer). Helen’s siblings include: Sarah Lewbel (1906–1987), Avrum Gelberg (1908–1954), and Gershon (later Jack) Gelberg (1910-1970).

Helen’s father, Moishe (1875–1967), was one of seven children of Labish Gelberg and Eta Leah (Schuchman). In 1911, he was the first of the four Gelberg children who immigrated to the US where he settled in New York and became Morris Goldberg. He was soon joined by his sister Sura (Sarah Gelberg) who subsequently married and became Sarah Spector. Moishe intended to bring his family to join him in New York, but when WWI broke out the Gelberg family back in Mlynov became refugees. Helen, about eleven at the time, must have been terrified leaving Mynov during the War with her father far away in the US. The family was eventually reunited in the US after the War.

Helen's Essay:

Life on the road as a WWI refugee from Mlynov is described in this moving essay through the eyes of a young girl, who wanders with her family from town to town as the Eastern front got close to Mlynov. This is one of the few detailed accounts of the Mlynov evacuation.

Additional Reading

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Litvak, Yosef, (Jerusalem)

Yosef (Josef) Litvak (1917–2001) was one of the eight individuals from Mlynov who oversaw the Mlynov Memorial Book. He had an amazing life's journey.

Yosef grew up in Mlynov but he was not born there. He was born in Kiev within one month of the Communist Revolution, which would trigger his family to flee and make their way to Mlynov where his mother had been born. His father was Motl-Meir Litvak (1881–1942) and his mother was Dvora Rifka (Lamdan) (1889–1942), the sister of the poet, Yitzhak Lamdan. Dvora was born in Mlynov in 1884 but moved to Kiev in 1911, possibly following a sister, where she met and married Motl-Meir. Yosef and his sister, Pnina ("Pepa") (1913–2003), were both born there. Up until the Revolution, life was good and the family enjoyed the culture of Kiev and later had fond memories of their special attachment to opera in this period, which would not last long after Yosef was born.

Motel-Meir Litvak and Dvora Rifka (Lamdan). Mlynov Memorial Book p. 454

Dvora's brother, Moshe Lamdan (left), died 1919; her father Yehuda Leib Lamdan (right).

During this time Yosef's father was a business manager for a wealthy Jewish contractor who built train stations for the Tsarist government. Following the Communist Revolution, the family fled Kiev due to pogroms and because the Bolsheviks considered Yosef's father, Motl-Meir, to be part of the bourgeoise; their lives and fortune were therefore at risk. Yosef later shared with his son, Meir, a story of a childhood trauma that occurred during this time: When he was a baby, there was a pogrom and the family went into hiding in the cellar; to keep him from crying they had to stuff rags in his mouth. From this and other traumas that followed, Yosef would wake up the middle of the night screaming later in life.

The Litvak family fled Kiev with a cart, a horse, a 5-year-old daughter and Yosef, a 1-year-old baby boy. It took them a year to reach Mlynov where Dvora had been born and where they resettled. Yosef later described Mlynov to his son as "a poor muddy stinky shtetl." The Litvak family tried to get a visa to the US, but failed following the 1924 laws restricting immigration to the US. Motel-Meir tried his hand at a number of business ventures but they lived in great poverty until the end.

In Mlynov, Yosef was very active in the Zionist youth group, Hashomer Hatzair, which he writes about in his essay below. In the 1930s, the right-wing Zionist Youth Group, Betar, opened a smaller branch in Mlynov. Yosef served there as a group-leader and later as the branch sercretary. In 1937, Yosef’s sister, Pnina, was able to make aliyah. Two of her Lamdan relatives were already there. Her uncle Yitzchak Lamdan, who had by this time become a famous poet in Mandate Palestine, had arrived shortly after WWI and her aunt Malka (Lamdan) Mandelkern had made aliyah in the mid-1920s. In Palestine, Pnina got married and and became Pnina Holtsman and had three sons: Arye, Mordechai (Motti) and Joshua (Shuki). Yosef also tried fervently to get a certificate to Palestine from 1936 to 1939, but failed because of the British restrictions.

During the Soviet occupation of Eastern Poland, beginning in September 1939, Yosef was suspected of being a Zionist, which he denied. This later saved his life. The Soviets gave him a role as an accountant which he loathed, and so he eventually moved to Rovno, the district seat, and managed to get himself into a teacher's college there.

When Nazis invaded on June 22, 1942, Yosef reported as was expected to the military draft office, where he waited half a day, before he told to go home and come back the next day. But the next day, June 23rd, all the Soviet officials had already fled the area. He tried to hire a peasant to take him back to Mlynov to assist his parents according to a prearranged plan with them. But Mlynov was more to the west, and they were told that the Germans had already occupied Mlynov and they had to turn back. The wasted day at the draft office haunted him the rest of his life. His parents were killed in the ghetto liquidation in October 1942.

Yosef managed to flee eastward into Russia, walking, and hanging upright on the outside of trains filled with other fleeing refugees. He reached Kharkiv where he had family on his father's side but had to flee eastward again when the family was evacuated by the Soviets. At some point in this journey he was conscripted into the Red Army and like other recruits from the East, whom Stalin distrusted and would not put at the Front, he was sent further East and put to work in hard labor as a coal miner. At one point, a mining accident occurred and he was left in the dark for seven to eight hours. He recalled this as the worse experience of his life and thought he was surely going to die.

At the risk of his life, Yosef finally deserted the army. Though subsequently arrested, he managed to convince them that he was headed to the Front to enlist and was released. At some point, he managed to buy false papers in Chelyabinsk and in 1944 after three turbulent years in the Soviet Union, he finally managed to join the local pro-Communist Polish army and sneak out of Russia with them to reach Lubin. There, he deserted their camp and found a group of Jewish Zionists involved in the Bericha Movement, which was helping Jews illegally get out of Europe.

Joining with group of other refugees on a new route out of Europe, they pretended to be Greek, traveling through Romania, Poland, and Bulgaria before finally reaching Greece. In Greece, where the ruse could no longer work, they poised as deaf and dumb people. Finally, in Greece, Yosef was able to embark on an illegal ship that the Hagganah had organized, one of the first ships to navigate past the British into Mandate Palestine. He remembered it later as a miserable creaking ride, but they managed to get through and landed on November 21, 1945, south of Haifa. At night, they were brought to shore by Haganah activitsts and sent to Kibbutz Ein HaMifratz on Haifa Bay. A half year later, he transferred to Kibbutz Nir David, near Beit Shean, where there were others from Hashomer Hatzair.

Yosef subsequently married, had four children, nine grandchildren and many great-grandchildren. In 1947 he left the kibbutz, went to the US to study sociology and finished a BA in social work. He subsequently returned to Israel and completed an MA in modern Jewish History, and for his PhD wrote on Polish Jewish refugees in Soviet Union. He passed away on January 1, 2001. His family calls these granchildren and great-grandchildren their father's victory over Hitler.

Yosef Litvak's Essays:

"The Town of Mlynov," (Hebrew), 53–59.

Yosef shares a number of memories of Mlynov, including the beauty of the area, the origin of the town's name and its description, the centrality of the local nobleman, "the Count," to the town's economic life and the livelihood of its residents. His account includes a discussion of the differing religious perspectives of the town's residents before shifting his focus to the growth of the Zionist Youth Groups in town.

"The Mlynov Community at the Beginning of the Soviet Occupation," (Hebrew), 283–286.

One of the few essays in the volume that delves into the period when Mlynov was occupied by the Soviets between September 1939-June 1941. Litvak recalls the hardships that fell on the community by the socialization of commerce and the general hostility towards religion and Zionism.

"Portraits," (Hebrew), 242–244

Yosef evokes the memory of four Mlynov people he remembered and admired: first, the learned Yehuda Leib Lamdan, the learned father of the famous poet, Yitzhak Lamdan, and a moral authority in the Mlynov community ; second, Yosef recalls his own father Mordechai Meir Litvak (also called Motl Meir) Litvak, who was a trusted community worker and active Zionist, and who oversaw and administered several organizations. "Though he was weighed down by worries about livelihood from his small fabric store, he dedicated a lot of his time to public activities." Third, Mordechai Chizik, "the" Hebrew teacher in town responsible for so many learning the language and fourth, Batya Mohel, who was active in Zionist youth groups and who perished with her family.

"The Litvak Home," (Hebrew), 413

Yosef reflects on his own family and especially the activities of his father who helped oversee several organizations.

"A Memorial Candle Chaia Kipergluz," (Hebrew), 242.

A short reflection on Chaia Kipergluz who was born in 1919. She suffered abuse under the Russians for her Zionist activities and then under the Germans she was killed with a group of young people for being a Communist.

Meren, Boruch, (Baltimore)

Boruch Meren was born in Mlynov in 1908 to Ben Tzion Meren and Miriam (Goldseker). His mother's father was Hirsch Goldseker, one of the five Goldseker brothers in town.

Boruch and his sister, Seril, grew up in a religious household and his father did not allow him to get involved in the Zionist Youth Group Hashomer Hatzair. But Boruch had fallen in love with his sweetheart, Rosa Berger, before her aliyah in 1933 and she was able to get him a certificate to make aliyah in 1938. Had she not done so, he would have died in the Shoah with the rest of his family. An account of their courtship is endearing and the photos he sent her open a window into life in Mlynov in the 1930s for young men who were hoping to get out.

In the meantime, life in a Kibbutz had changed Rosa and their relationship did not work out when they were reunited. Fortunately, Amelia “Milka” of the Mlynov Shargel family came from Baltimore to visit in Palestine and possibly to be matched up with Boruch. She too had been born in Mlynov and had immigrated to the US via Mexico, arriving in 1929.

While in Palestine in 1938, Boruch went to visit Moishe Fishman in Moshav Balfouria. Moishe had been born in Mlynov and had made the decision to make aliyah with his family in 1921. His leave taking was sharply etched in Boruch's mind, and in one of Boruch's essays he wrote about the rukus Moishe made in Mlynov when he made the decision to make aliya from the shtetl. Boruch reflects on that scene and the conversation he had with Moishe 27 years later when Boruch made it in Palestine too.

Boruch and Milka got married during her visit to Palestine and she was able to get Boruch papers to bring him to Baltimore where he settled and became a grocer. Amelia and Boruch had a son, Allen J. Meren, and two grandchildren.

In 1949, in search of Mlynov survivors and his own family, Boruch put an ad in the Jewish Forward. The ad was read excitedly by Liba Tesler, a Mlynov-born woman who had escaped the ghetto and survived a harrowing ordeal, moving from place to place in hiding, in a story narrated by her step-grandson. She responded to the ad and Boruch helped connect her to her cousins, the Marders, in Baltimore and other cousins in Brooklyn (George and Sylvia Barditch-Goldberg). The cousins helped Liba leave Europe and settle in Baltimore.^[6]

Boruch's parents, Ben Tzion Meren and Miriam (Goldseker) with sister, Seril. Mlynov Memorial Book. p. 456.

Goldseker Relatives in Mlynov. Seril Meren is in the back, top left.
Courtesy of Audrey Goldseker Polt.

Boruch Meren with his new wife, Milka Shargel, Hadera,Israel, 1938.
Courtesy of Hagar Lipkin.

Boruch Meren in Baltimore with David Fishman, 1941. Courtesy of Irene Siegel.

Additional reading

Read the story of young love between Boruch and Rosa Berger. Or peruse the history of Milka's family, the Shargels.

Boruch Meren's Essays:

"A Good Deed (Mitzvah)," (Yiddish), 149–152.

Boruch recalls an incident after WWI when the Bolsheviks came to town and they were distributed among the houses in town. There was a Jewish boy from Rivne among them who was placed in their home. Boruch's father learns that the young man was living with his Jewish Bolshevik girlfriend and was not married by Jewish custom and so began an effort to get them to legally marry. The story wonderfully captures the new attitude that had emerged towards the insitution of marriage under the Communists.

"An Event in the Shtetl ," (Yiddish), 188–194.

Boruch reminisces about the clean air of the shtetl, the beautiful countryside and even the slaps of the teachers. The essay is full of very palatable memories of the people of Mlynov such as the greasy yamulke's of the men and includes a humorouse story of a prank on the town's wealthy class, led by Shmuel Mandelkern, involving the bath house. The prank stirred up the class tensions in the town and evoked new Communist and labor ideas about class differences.

"Khaykl Shnayder's Gramophone," (Yiddish), 199–201.

A humorous piece about a gramophone that passed from Boruch's Goldseker relative to Khaykl the tailor, who would fill the street with the sound of music. When the young men tease Khayl about his taste in music, the gramophone disappears forever.

"The First Aliyah from the Shtetl," (Yiddish), 220–225.

Boruch here recalls the stir that Moishe Fishman made in Mlynov when he decided to make aliyah with the family. In 1938, when he was able to make aliyah himself, Boruch tracks down Moshe in Balfouria and has a conversation with him.

"The Goldsekers," (Yiddish), 245–246.

Boruch's mother was Miriam (Goldseker), the daughter of Hirsch Goldseker. Hirsh one of the five Goldseker (and Holtzeker) brothers who had large families in Mlynov and like the other Goldsekers was known as "Hirsch Slobada" because they had been in Sloboda before Mlynov. Here he puts down a bit of information about the large Goldseker clan and what he remembers about them.

"My Father Ben-Tzion z”l," (Yiddish), 255.

A short poem about Boruch's father and should be read in conjunction with his next essay explaining how his father had ended up a teacher.

"The Treasure That Ran Out,"(Yiddish), 272–276.

A sadly somewhat humorous story about how Boruch's father tried to make a living but through a series of mishaps lost his shirt and turned to teaching instead. The essay touches on the pressures to go to the black market, the lack of economic opportunities in town and the tensions between husband and wives that arose over the need to provide for the family.

Notes

[6] On the story of Liba Tesler, and Boruch's role in bringing her to the States, see David Sokolsky, Monument: One Woman's Courageous Escape from the Holocaust ," p. 93. ↩

Teitelman, Asher Teitelman

Asher Teitelman led an extraordinary life. His story of survival, told in a book length account, is especially dramatic and moving. He was born in Mlynov in 1921 and is descended from the Teitelman and Gruber family lines. His parents were Nahum Teitelman (1890–1976) and Rachel (Gruber) (1894–1980), who were also first cousins.^[7] His aunt Sonia (Gruber) Teitelman (his mother's sister) and her husband Mendel Teitelman are among the most prolific contributors to this Memorial volume.^[8]

Asher (1921–2009) was the eldest of six siblings: Efraim Fischel (1922–1942), Shlomo (1924–1942), Shifra (Teitelman) Grossman (1926–), Yosef (1928–2015), and Sara Rivkah, who died at 9 months of age. The Teitelmans had a large home by Mlynov standards that also served as a granary and convenience store. Asher's father, Nahum, operated as a middle man in the grain market. Polish farmers would come to their home to sell their grain and while they were there they would buy necessities in the Teitelman store, where Asher, as he got older, worked with his mother. At times, there could be as many as ten horses and wagons at the Teitelman home / store doing business at the same time.

Asher’s two brothers, Efraim Fischel and Shlomo, were the first two Mlynov residents killed in October 1942 shortly after rumors started about the pending liquidation of the Mlynov ghetto. Asher and his family fled initially to a non-Jewish family outside of Mlynov who had conducted business with his father. In a harrowing and heroic story, the Teitelman family found hiding places in local forests, in pits in the ground, and eventually in bunkers in the Smordva forest, where Asher joined the partisans. During the last year of the war, as they ran out of options, the family eventually were hidden in a hole underneath the threshing barn of a Polish family, the Holatkos, who were subsequently recognized in Israel as “righteous gentiles.”

After the Russian liberation of the area, Asher volunteered for the Red Army, was involved in several battles against Nazi forces and was injured on three separate occasions. Following his convalescence, he eventually rejoined his family in Mlynov. Together, the Teitelmans made their way to the displaced person camp of Bad Gastein in Austria, where Asher met his future wife, Tova Genut, the mother of his children. For a time, Asher supported the illegal smuggling of survivors into American occupied territory. The family later made their way across Europe to Paris and then on an illegal ship, the infamous "Ben Hecht," headed to Palestine. Having reached the port of Haifa, they were turned back by the British and spent a year in the British internment camps in Cyprus. Finally in April 1948, only weeks before the State of Israel was declared, they received certificates and were allowed to make aliyah.

Asher and Tova had two sons, Ephraim and Shlomo, named for the two brothers Asher had lost. After Tova passed away in childbirth, Asher eventually remarried Raya Broida. His son, Ephraim, adopted the family name "Tomer," meaning "the date fruit," the Hebrew equivalent of the name "Teitelman."

The Teitelman survivors at commemoration of the ghetto liquidation, circa fall 1944. Asher has already joined the Red Army.

Asher Teitelman in Displaced Person Camp, Bad Gastein. Courtesy of Ephraim Tomer.

Asher Teitelman with his sons and one of his grandchildren. Courtesy of Ephraim Tomer.

Asher Teitelman (center) with his siblings Shifre and Yosef. Courtesy of Ephraim Tomer.

Photo on left: Siblings (clockwise from oldest to youngest): Asher, Efraim-Fischel, Shlomo, Shifra, Yosef (seated in chair). In photo on right, Shifra is seated in the chair. Courtesy of Ephraim Tomer.

Efraim-Fischel and Shlomo, the two brothers were murdered near the start of the liquidation and the first bodies in the mass grave. Mlynov Memorial Book, p. 479.

Additional Reading

You can download the riveting book length story of Asher Teitelman's life, which also provides a window into his life in Mlynov as a child before WWII began. Right-click to download and choose "save link as..."

Understand the Teitelman family tree: Asher's parents were first cousins. And his mother's sister, Sonia, also married her first cousin. Watch this video to understand the complicated first-cousin marriages in the Teitelman tree.

Asher's Essay:

"The Massive Disaster (Shoah)," (Hebrew), 38–41.

Asher here recounts the shock among the Mlynov residents on June 21, 1941, the day they woke up to German bombing of the airfield outside of town. No one, not even the Russian soldiers who had been stationed there, expected the Germans to renege on the Molotov-Ribbentrop non-aggression pact, in which Germany and Russia had earlier agreed to split Poland in half. Nor did anyone believe that the strong Russian army would so quickly abandon its post and withdraw. But within days, the Russians retreated and the German troops occupied the town. Asher recounts the shock of the towns’ inhabitants those first days as the Nazi occupation and repression were first implemented.

Notes

[7] How are Asher's parents, Nahum and Rachel, first cousins? Nahum's father, Ephraim Teitelman, was the brother of Rachel's mother, Shifra (Teitelman) Gruber. Of course, what this means is that from Asher's perspective, his grandfather, Asher Teitelman, for whom he was named, was the father of both his parents. Confused? Watch this video to understand these complicated first-cousin marriages. ↩

[8] Rachel Gruber and Sonia Gruber were sisters, daughters of Joseph Gruber and Shifre (Teitelman). Both sisters married Teitelman men who were their first cousins and also first cousins to each other! ↩

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Teitelman, Moshe (later Moshe Tamari)

Moshe (Teitelman) Tamari^[9] was born on May 20, 1910 as “Moshe Teitelman,” in the town of Varkovitchi (Warkowicze) but his family moved to Mlynov to make a living and where Moshe had cousins. Moshe spent a good part of his youth growing up there. He became Moshe "Tamari" sometime after making aliyah in 1933 and wrote and published a number of books and stories in Israel throughout his adult life, including edited volumes about towns that had been annihilated.

Moshe's parents were Anshel Teitelman and Zelda (Pekel) and he had one brother named Asher (see photo below). Moshe's father, Anshel, was an older brother of Nahum Teitelman from Mervits, who also published an essay in this volume. Moshe lost his parents and his brother in the liquidation of the Mlynov ghetto in October 1942.

While growing up in Mlynov, Moshe developed an aspiration to be a writer like his hero, the famous poet Yitzhak Lamdan from Mlynov. In a later essay in this volume, Moshe tells the interesting story of meeting Lamdan during his return to Mlynov in 1931. In pursuing his interest in literature, Moshe was a disappointment to his family who wanted him to be a rabbi, schochet (kosher slaughterer) or gabbai. But writing continued to be his lifelong passion. During his youth, Moshe got involved in the Zionist Youth movement, Hashomer Hatzair, and went to preparatory training (hachsharah) in Warsaw. When asked later in life what led him to leave everything behind and make aliya, he said simply, “the passion for literature”.

During his preparatory training, Moshe married another woman in the training kibbutz as a means for both of them to get certificates to make aliya to Eretz Israel. This was not an uncommon practice to circumvent the limitations that the British had set on aliyah. Aaron Harari used the same technique during his visit to Mlynov in the winter of 1937–1938 to help get a sister of a Kibbutz member out of Poland. Moshe arrived in Haifa in 1933 at the age of 23 and the couple immediately divorced. He worked for a time in the orchards of Rishon LeZion and then after growing season worked in construction expanding the road from Tel Aviv to Gedera. After a stint in Netanya, where it was difficult to make a living, he moved to Jerusalem and then Tel Aviv. In 1936 he married his wife Miriam.

In 1952, he began working for the Histadrut (the General Organization of Workers in Israel). In 1963, Tamari was sent to Brazil on behalf of the World Zionist Organization as one of the first public information emissaries of the State and remained there for two years. Even after retirement he continued to write books and articles.

Moshe's parents and brother: Anshel, Zelda and Asher Teitelman. Courtesy of Ziva Dar

Evolution of Moshe Tamari. Courtesy of Zivah Dar.

The hill near Mlynov called "Mt. Sinai" which Moshe described in his essay. Here Lipa Halperin saying goodbye to the hill before aliyah, 1937. Courtesy of Miriam Aharoni

Moshe Tamari with wife Miriam. Courtesy of Zivah Dar.

Moshe (Teitelman) Tamari's Essays:

"My Hill," (Hebrew), 30.

Written as a young man, and published in a 1929 Warsaw newspaper for children, this essay reflects on a special hill near Mlynov that Moshe once thought was Mount Sinai and that remained special to him as he grew up. After leaving the area, he returns to renew his relationship with the hill, only to find men doing work on the area and ruining the magic of the place for the young dreamer. One can see in this early piece of Tamari's writing his literary and reflective side that would persist into his later life. Here he provides a window into a child's view of the world growing up in Mlynov, one that would have to be abandonned under the pressure change and adulthood. Within two years of this essay being published, his hero, Yitzhak Lamdan, would return to Mlynov for a visit that prompts Tamari to write about that experience in a later essay.

"In the presence of Yitzhak Lamdan in Mlynov," (Hebrew), 32-37.

This is a moving and evocative essay that opens up a window into the life of a young boy in Mlynov who aspired to be like his hero, Yitzhak Lamdan. Lamdan was the Mlynov boy who had made aliyah and became famous for writing “Masada”, a poem that crystalized Zionist national identity for several generations of the Yishuv.

Since Lamdan had left Mlynov for Palestine by 1920, in the wake of WWI, young Moshe Teitelman, as he was then called, did not know Lamdan personally before the latter became famous. But Moshe idolized him and describes in this essay how he used to visit Lamdan’s family home in Mlynov and treat it as if it were a kind of holy shrine.

The essay tells the endearing story of a visit by Lamdan to Mlynov in 1931 as seen through the eyes of this young boy who aspires to be a writer and who is meeting his idol for the first time. Lamdan is not the person he initially expects. With overtones of irony, loss and innocence, and the beauty of the Mlynov landscape, Tamari looks back on that momentous visit from childhood when Lamdan came back to town in 1931.

After reading this essay, it is worth reading the poetry selections from Lamdan in this volume as he imagines how much to censure his real thoughts when he visits with his father. The essay was originally published in “Gilyonot” in memory of Yitzhak Lamdan, Chesvan-Kislev, 5715 [1954].

Notes

[8] I want to thank Moshe Tamari's daughter, Ziva Dar, and great-grandson, Yoav Schwartz, for sharing with me their reflections on Moshe's life. ↩

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Teitelman, Sonia and Mendel (also called "S. M. T."), Haifa

Sonia and Mendel Menachem Teitelman were among a number of Shoah survivors from the Teitelman family and the most prolific contributors to the Memorial volume. They sometimes wrote in this volume under the pen name, "S. M. T" and contributed many essays to this volume recalling daily social life and politics in the two shtetls before the War.

Mendel was born in Mervits, the son of Abraham Teitelman (1850–1922) and Rivka (Halperin), and one of nine siblings, most of whom died in the Shoah.^[10] His year of birth is given variously as 1900 and 1905.^[11]

Sonia (Gruber) (1900–1980) was Mendel's first cousin. Her mother, Shifra (Teitelman) was the sister of Mendel's father. Shifra had married Yosef (Joseph) Moshe Gruber and had a number of children besides Sonia.^[12] The Teitelman and Gruber families were deeply intertwined since Sonia's sister, Rachel (Gruber), also married a Teitelman first cousin, named Nahum. Two sisters were thus married to two first cousins who were first cousins to each other!

Sonia and Mendel lived in Mervits where they had a grocery store. They had no children but remained close with the family of Sonia’s sister, Rachel (Gruber) and her husband, Nahum Teitelman^[13] A business relationship Sonia and Mendel had with a customer named Bogdan would ultimately be responsible for saving their lives in the Shoah, a story told by their newphew Asher Teitelman.

Sonia and Mendel spent a significant percentage of the German occupation in a hole dug out under a cowshed dug by the kind-hearted forester named Bogdan. During the day, they stood upright in the hole, which was 2 x 2 meters and approximately the height of a person, and by night they were brought inside and slept above a stove called a "pekalich". Through messengers, they were able to keep track of Sonia's sister, Rachel, and her family and at some point during the occupation, the families was reunited in the crowded pit of Bogdan.

After the Soviet liberation of the area, Sonia and Mendel, along with Rachel, Nahum and a few other Teitelmans who survived made their way back to Mlynov and were present at the ceremony to commemorate those who had been lost. With nothing left in Mlynov to keep them there, they made their way to the displaced person camp, Badgastein, in Austria. After a stay there, they made their way by illegal immigration to Palestine. riveting, first person account which has now been translated to English.

Upon arrival at Displaced Persons Camp, Badgastein. Seated (rtl) Mendel Teitelman and Sonia (Gruber), Sonia's sister Rachel (Gruber) and her husband, Nahuman Teitelman. Standing (rtl): Yosef Teitelman, Liba Schwartz, and Shifra Teitelman. Courtesy of Ephraim Tomer.

In Israel, celebrating the birthday of Nahum Teitelman (center) with wife Rachel (Gruber) to left, Sonia and Mendel Teitelman back right. Their son, Asher Teitelman, and wife, Raya, back left. Other friends.
Courtesy of Ephraim Tomer.

The Teitelmans in Mlynov in commemoration of those lost, fall 1944. Courtesy of Gerry (Zelig) Steinberg.

Mendel and Sonia, Mlynov Memorial Book p. 325.

Sonia and Mendel's essays:

"Mlynov–A Kehilla for Mlynov and its Surrounding Shtetlekh," (Yiddish), 16–24.

This essay focuses on the communal political and power structure of the shtetls in which Mlynov served as the hub of the "Kehilla", the word for the legally recognized community entity which governed the surrounding shtetls. Among the shtetls that were part of this Kehilla were Mervits, Ostruzshets, Boromel, Demidovka, and Trovits.

Of interest are the local politics. We learn here about some of the tensions not only between the different shtetls but also between the rabbis who vied for authority. Personal peeves are also evident as in the long-standing grudge by the Rabbi of Mervits against the Rabbi of Mlynov who tried to prevent him from getting his post. Also of note is the statement by Rabbi Gordon, the head rabbi of Mlynov, that seemed to anticipate his death at the hands of the Nazis.

What one has here is an intimate look at the local religious and communal politics and some of the underlying grudges and tensions that animated shtetl life. It seems tame at the moment, perhaps, in light of our own situation in January 2021, as I write this summary.

"Kehilla Mlynov–Mervits: Eradicated," (Yiddish), pp. 42–44.

Here, in this moving, heartfelt essay, Sonia and Mendel crystalize what was lost when the ghetto was liquidated. In their own words: "How can we imagine that the well-trodden footpaths, on which our brothers and sisters walked, covered with sweat and blood, are now overgrown with grass, and that no Jewish feet will ever step there again?! How can we imagine that the dear children, brought up tenderly with great efforts, are no longer there, and will never be there again?!"

Different Times in the Shtetl," (Yiddish), 99–101.

The essays contrasts life in Mervits before and after WWI. Before the War, Mervits was not treated as its own independent town and for a time was subsumed under Olyka. Over time, the town was expected to track its own births and census. Most of the residents were refugees and Sonia and Mendel reflect on how the War impacted the town and the rebuilding after that took place after the War ended.

Sources of Our Existence," (Yiddish), 102–106.

Sonia and Mendel here reflect on the various ways in which most Jews struggled to make a primitive living and how such efforts became more difficult over time under Polish rule. Topics include taxation, lending, the leasing of land and some of the differences among members of different occupations.

Community Buildings in Mervits," (Yiddish), 108–112.

The authors reflect on the relative importance of building different community structures in Mervits, especially after WWI when the town had to rebuild from scratch.As one might expect, the synagogue was of central importance but was followed by the bathhouse. The essay discusses the how the rebuilding of the synagogue proceeded. In addition, tensions between different Hasidic dynasties lead to the creation of more than one synagogue.

"Days of Celebration in the Shtetl," (Yiddish), 161–166.

A look at how the Jewish holidays were routinely celebrated in the town and some reflections on the religiosity of the shtetl members. The most interesting moments are the personal recollections of deviations from the norm, as when Mendel recalls how his grandfather would pull the beard of Hershl Goldenberg on Simhat Torah, and how a congregation member stood up and yelled "Lies" during a talk of a revisionist speaker from Mizoch during the Stawski-Arlozorov trial.

Joys And Sorrows In Mervits," (Yiddish), 161–166.

Sonia and Mendel focus here on celebrations of life and rituals of death with a particular focus on weddings, engagement and the matchmaking that led up to them. Particularly interesting is the tale appended to the end about a young widow from town who was seduced into conversion by a non-Jewish man and the rukus that took place in town, trying to figure out a way to return her to her faith.

Baking Matzas," (Yiddish), 181–185.

A delightful and moving look at how the baking of matzah was conducted and changed with mechanization when Pesakh Rimer purchased a machine. Includes a sober reflection as well on the dangerous act of baking of matzah after the German occupation, as well as the the last time matzah was baked in Mlynov after the surival of the authors.

Bread and Wood," (Yiddish), 195.

A short reflection on the struggle for basic necessities and the importance of wood in winter and bread for daily sustenance.

Notes

[10] Mendel's siblings were: Ester Gruber? (–1942), Mirel (Teitelman) Schwartz (–1942), Nahman (–1942), Nuta, Yaakov-Yosef, Yehoshua (–1942), and Mamtzi (Teitelman) Genut (1917–1985). ↩

[11] Mendel's displaced person record lists his birth year as 1905 but online family trees from relatives indicate his birth year was 1900. ↩

12] Mendel's relationship as first cousin to his wife, Sonia is as follows: Mendel->Abraham Teitelman, his father-> Shifra (Teitelman) Gruber, his sister->Sonia (Gruber) Teitelman, her daughter. ↩

[13] Mendel was also first cousin to Nahum Teitelman as follows: Mendel->Abraham Teitelman, his father-> Efraim Fischel Teitelman, his brother-> Nahum Teitelman, his son. ↩

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Veiner (or Winer, Weiner), Sunny, Haifa

Not much is known about Sonny Veiner (or Weiner) (1918-1995) who contributed several Yiddish poems to the Memorial book and was living in Israel at the time. It is not known how or when he arrived there.

There are various English spellings of the writer’s surname in online records: Veiner, Weiner, Winer. His full name from online family trees appears to be Nathaniel Sunny Winer (1918–1995) and the nickname "Sunny" perhaps came from the Yiddish "zyn" for "son." His family can be reconstructed from the list of martyrs in the Memorial book (p. 433) and Yad Vashem records.

The Memorial book indicates that the martyrs were: "Yaakov Veiner (or Weiner) (from the village of Uzhynets'), Brendl his wife, [two children] Avraham and Feiga (but his son Sonny is living in Israel)."

Yad Vashem records filled out by Sonny's widow, Dina (Mikel) Veiner, suggest a larger family. According to her records, Sonny was the son of Yaakov Veiner and Brendl (Freeman). Sonny's grandfather was Shlomo. She lists his siblings as Mordechai, Henia (Anna/ Chana), Tzipora Feiga, Khaia Lea, and Rivka. Sonny appears to also have had an uncle Meir (brother of his father Yaakov).

From other Yad Vashem Russian records that have been translated, it appears that another Veiner survived. According to records submitted by a daughter, Silva Margolin, her mother Anna (Preluck), born in 1896 in Mlynov to Zlata and Yaakov, married a Mordechai Veiner. We do not know if this is the same Mordechai who was Sonny's brother. She lived in Kursk during the war and survived in Russia and had a daughter Beracha. The latter married and had children, Hannah and Yehudah, whose families made aliyah from Russia to Israel.

There are other Veiners/Weiners in both the Memorial book and Yad Vashem records but it is not clear how they are related to this writer.

Sunny Veiner's (or Weiner's) poems:

"Poems," (Yiddish), 251–252.

Sonny shares a series of short poems he wrote from May 1942 until 1948.

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Compiled by Howard I. Schwartz, PhD
Updated:July 2024
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