These photographs were taken on a trip to Lithuania and Belarus in the summer of 2001. This trip was part of a Lithuanian Roots Tour led by Howard Margol. Lithuanian Travel arranged my personalized trip to Belarus. My guide was Svetlana Satalova of the Jewish Museum in Vilnius. She spoke Russian and Yiddish. Our car and driver, Virgilijus Pocius,  were from the Avis Company in Vilnius Lithuania. We were the guests of Monas Gordon who went with us through Myadel, Movzhany and Kobylnik. In Movzhany, we met the farmers who now own the land (the "mill and cretchma"),  previously owned by my great great grandfather, Abraham Gordon.

We were greeted in Kobylnik by Zosia Dergatch who lives on First of May Street. She made us welcome and, as we walked through the streets, she gave us the history of each Jewish house (most gone now) that stood around the market square and the adjoining Jewish streets. Zosia also showed us  albums of photographs that her father had taken in Kobylnik from  early 1900 through the 1930's. He was a professional photographer and, though the photos were faded, they gave a beautiful history of the town.

Monas Gordon and his family, in their warmth and reaching out, gave me the sense of kinship and continuity. A survivor, he maintains a Gordon presence in the region, in Myadel, that spans three centuries.