Pauline (left) and Clara Shulman (right) and unknown (center) in Mlynov circa
1915-1916. Courtesy of Karen (Brodsky) Passero.

I have also personally interviewed the children and grandchildren of these Mlynov immigrants to Baltimore, particularly, Ted Fishman, and Audrey Goldseker Polt, whose parents came to the US in 1920 and 1924 respectively. Both have been family historians and collectors themselves and have been able to recall many stories their parents told and share photos of life in Mlynov that they preserved. A few individuals from Mlynov and Mervits made it to the US after 1924 with help from relatives and later as displaced persons. Their stories have appeared in books by their descendants and in video interviews online. The memories and photos from these American immigrant families are also fragmentary in nature and also passed through the filters of time and the American experience as they were remembered and retold.

The upshot is that we do not have any “pure” first hand memory of Mlynov and Mervits and thus we can only glean together an understanding of what life was like there, from the bits and shards of memories that have been passed down to us.

There is a temptation, even among survivors, to compare Mlynov and Mervits (and perhaps all shetls) to Fiddler on the Roof, which has become emblematic of shetl life and experience in general, and which captures the intimacy, conflict and themes that roiled Russian Jewish life among shetl Jews. And to some extent the comparison is surely helpful. Still, there seems to be something important and powerful about aggregating what we do know about this particular shetl and the people who lived there, in this particular time and place and trying to imagine what life was like there for those from whom we are descended. If nothing else, the act of imagination and the exploration of our specific families’ histories and memories deepens our own understanding of what our ancestors wanted to remember and recall of their experiences from whence they came; and we don’t have to imagine all our ancestors to be Tevye, Golde and their daughters and every shetl to be Anatevka.

The memories that have reached us from Mlynov have passed through the gauntlet of time; they have been preserved because they meant something to those who survived, and thus they tell us something about what mattered and what did not, as much as they do about Mlynov itself, as those who left Mlynov adjusted to their new lives in Palestine and later Israel and the United States. In documenting what they left behind, we pass on something to those who follow as we engage in our own acts of imagination.

The memories of Mlynov and Mervits, therefore, have to be understood as recalled by and refracted within, not only, a post-Holocaust context, but also after the 1967 Six Day War, in which Israel fought off its Arab neighbors and triumphed. Both of these events naturally colored the way that Mlynov and Mervits were remembered by those who once lived there, but now lived in Israel or in the United States. Many families that had migrated to either the US or Palestine lost family and relatives who had been left behind in Mlynov and Mervits. A few survivors from Mlynov and Mervits made their way to Israel and the United States and began to tell their stories.

The production of the Mlynow-Muravica memorial book came in 1970 as American and Israeli Jews were deepening their understanding of and grabbling with the enormity of the Holocaust. The ‘67 War in which Israel the underdog fought off the Arab neighbors successfully and conquered the expanded territories deepened the pride of Americans who increasingly saw Israel and the Holocaust as twin themes of American Jewish identity in a post ‘67 context. Many of the photos in the Memorial book capture the Zionist youth groups in Mlynov, which must have grown in importance locally in Mlynov as Zionism was becoming a more important theme in Russian Jewish life in the early 20th century. But the memorial book does not capture, as an example, much about the possible influences of Haskalah (“enlightenment”), Socialism or Hasidism that were also present in Mlynov at the time, though hints of these influences can be found in the stories and memories of those who lived there.

The memories of Mlynov and Mervits in the past were all recorded in this period post 1967. They naturally evoke nostalgia for what was lost and for experiences the writers recalled as children and younger adults, when they experienced those who were left behind and never left. These memories recall both the difficulties of sheltl life, the challenge of finding work and making a living, the antisemitism they sometimes felt, and the restrictions imposed on them as Jews by the local Count who loomed large in their memories.

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