Minde Atlas died in Pakroy in 1919 or 1920. The vital statistics records of Lithuania during these years are sparse and do not exist for Pakroy: after the First World War it took quite a long time for the communities in Lithuania to re-organise and conduct birth, marriage and death records. In most shtetlach these were resumed only in 1923.

In May 1920 identity cards were issued in Pakroy. Minde Atlas's name does not appear on the list of Pakroy residents who were issued with them while on 5th May Israel Atlas was issued with Identity Card No.85126, Golda Frieda with Identity Card No. 85127. As the family had returned from the Ukraine in August 1918 (see later), Minde must have died between then and May 1920, probably in the first few months of 1920. In fact, I remember Mum saying that when her mother was very very ill, obviously approaching death, she told a visitor that Mum was in her 23rd year. This tallies. She must have been buried in the Pakroy Cemetery but the cemetery was vandalized in 1941 and the inscriptions on most of the few remaining stones are illegible.

Minde and Israel Atlas had a total of seven (maybe six) children but only Mum – Golda Freda – survived till adulthood. This is the reason why Mum was called Alte: by tradition the name Alte (or Alter in the case of a boy), meaning old or elderly, is a talisman for old age.

These are the details of the children:

Sorre Ette born 13th July 1895, died 15th April1189617
Mikhel born 24th October 1894, died 9th September 1896
Avraham Meir, born 19th November 1896, died 11th December 1896
Yaacov Meir no date of birth, died on 5th February 1896.
This means that in one calendar year four children died!
Golda Freda born 8th June 1898 (Rosh Hodesh Tamuz), died 27th August 1970 (25th Av)
Leah Merre born 21st September 1900, died 16th August 190l.
Sorre Toibe born 18th July 1902, died unknown date

[One could list alternative spellings for the Morgenstern daughters: Minde, Sarah (Sorr), Miriam (Merr), Leah (Leila), Rachel (Roch) and Chana]

I found a letter dated March 1953 from a Mrs. J. Nash of Alliance, Ohio, who was  who was born in Pakroy; this letter was written in Yiddish to her friend in Johannesbug who sent it on to the mother of Ada Merkel of Cape Town, and I quote the part that referred to Mum: "I used to play with her when I was small, she was older than me. She married when she still lived in Pakroy. She comes from very fine people. Her father was highly educated, he was friendly with my father. Her mother was a very wonderful woman, high class as we say here. She was an only child and she was called Alte“.

We do not know many details of Mum's childhood. Her family was welloff and we can assume that she was carefully brought up and probably overprotected because all her siblings had died in infancy or early childhood. Ronna Morafkin told us that the minute rain started falling she was taken indoors. Yitzhak Fishel Chechinovsky ("Check"), the Rabbi's son, told us that she used to play with Feige-Liebe (later married to Mr. Uzvolk, she was a cousin of Dovid Katz, see further); Feige-Liebe was very tall and Mum was very short, and people used to call them "Shabbes Hagodel and Kurtze Freitig". Mum told me that she had a private teacher who I think taught her Russian; I don't know if there were any classes for Jewish girls in Pakroy in those days. By the way, Mum did not learn knitting, crocheting or embroidery.