Pušalotas, Lithuania

A Genealogical Odyssey - From Lithuania 1912 To Jerusalem 2004.
By Howard Margol

The following article was published in the Jewish Georgian Newspaper in Atlanta.

From left to right: Ehud Barak, Ehud's three brothers, and Howard Margol

On May 18, 1999 I was in Vilnius, Lithuania.Rachel Kostanian, Vice-Director of the Vilna Gaon Jewish State Museum, called my attention to an exceptional article that dominated the front page of the Vilnius morning newspaper. There, in bold print, was an article explaining how proud Lithuania was that the grandson of a former rabbi in Lithuania, Ehud Barak, was the new Prime Minister of Israel!

The article went on to explain that in 1912, in Pusalotas (Pushelat), Lithuania, Rabbi Ruvin Brog and his wife Freida had been murdered. Their four year old son, Mair, suffered a blow to the head but survived. Their two and one-half year old son, Isrolik, was not harmed.

The article was of great interest to me for several reasons; Pushelat was the village where my father was born and grew up and also the news about the new Prime Minister of Israel. I had done a lot of research pertaining to the Jews of Pushelat and I knew I had to learn more details about the murder.

I had already known that, in 1911, Pushelat had suffered a major fire and the wooden synagogue was destroyed. I also knew, from family stories, that Jews from Pushelat living in America, South Africa, England, and elsewhere had sent money to Pushelat to build a new synagogue. Was the money the cause of the murder or did it occur for some other reason? I had to find out the details.

The Lithuanian Archives contain hundreds of thousands of police records, court records, etc. However, a particular record is extremely difficult to find, if not impossible, because none of these types of records are indexed. In spite of that I had high hopes that the records of the murder of Rabbi Brog could be located because I had the place, the event, and the year. I contacted Vitalija Gircyte, Chief Archivist of the Kaunas Archive, and requested a search of the records.

Vitalija informed me that, even though I had the place and the event, I did not have the exact date. The year narrowed the search considerably but the task would still be a difficult one. Several weeks passed and, one day I received an exciting email message from Vitalija. She not only found the police record of the murder but the autopsy report and the court record detailing the trial of the two murderers. I was beside myself with excitement at the news. In genealogical research, getting names, dates, and places is one thing but finding records that put “meat on the bones” is another.

It took several months, and the receipt of snippets of data at a time, but Vitalija translated into English for me the key facts about the murder, the cause of death, and the testimony of the witnesses at the trial. After the wooden synagogue in Pusalotas burned down in 1911, Jews from Pusalotas living in other countries sent money to build a new synagogue. Rabbi Brog was holding the money until permission to build a new synagogue was obtained. Two Lithuanians learned about the money and broke into Rabbi Brog's house in the middle of the night in a robbery attempt. Their efforts failed as the synagogue money was locked inside a safe. Rabbi Brog and his wife were murdered in the process. After several weeks, I completed a detailed article about the murder based on the original records.

A genealogy friend, Marilyn Newman, living in Pittsburgh at the time knew I was writing the article. She grew up with a descendant of Rabbi Brog and wanted to show her my article. After receiving the article, Marilyn suggested that if I wanted to know more about the Brog family I should contact David Brog in Washington, D.C. Her friend had told her that whenever Ehud Barak visited Washington he always spent time with his cousin David Brog.

A quick search on the internet provided me with the telephone number of David Brog. I called David, introduced myself, and told him about the article. He became very excited and said he would forward it to the family in Israel as soon as I emailed it to him. That morning, the editor of the Jewish Georgian newspaper in Atlanta had informed me that they planned to publish my article and would like pictures to go with the article. “Pictures, I exclaimed!, you want pictures of a murder that occurred in 1912 in a small village in Lithuania? Impossible”!

David informed me that Mair and Isrolik were still alive, and living in Israel. Since he was going to forward the article to them in Israel, I asked David to enquire if they could send me pictures to go with the article. He replied, “No problem as he had pictures in his computer and would email them to me as soon as we finished our conversation”. Early the next morning I called the newspaper and told them, “yesterday I told you it was impossible to obtain pictures to go with my article. Turn on your computer and you will see beautiful pictures of Rabbi Brog, several pictures of Mair and Isrolik, as well as a picture of Rabbi Brog’s mother who raised the two youngsters after the murder”. Shortly thereafter, the editor of the newspaper called me back and said it was a miracle.

Mair and Isrolik, now in their early 90’s, were thrilled beyond belief to receive a copy of my article. 88 years after the murder of their parents, they finally learned the details of the murder; why it happened, how it happened, and the resulting conviction of the murderers. Their children and grandchildren were also excited to learn exact details of an event that previously, were only undocumented family stories. As a show of appreciation they offered to make me an honorary member of the Brog family.

As soon as I made a definite decision to attend the IAJGS International Conference on Jewish Genealogy, being held in Jerusalem from July 4-9, 2004, I notified one of the sons of Isrolik, Ruvi Brog. He assured me the family would welcome my visit and arrangements would be made for us to get together during my time in Jerusalem.

On Friday, July 2, 2004 I arrived in Jerusalem after 3 days in Copenhagen and 9 days in Lithuania. On Saturday, Ruvi’s brother Mooli, picked me up at my hotel and took me on a fantastic personal tour of Jerusalem. Being a former Israeli tour guide, Mooli knew where to take me, what to show me, and his explanations of everything were superb. After showing me the sights of Jerusalem, Mooli gave me an awe-inspiring view of the entire city of Jerusalem from high up on the Overlook. After that breath-taking experience, we descended and went on a walking tour of the Old City of Jerusalem. Here, Mooli really “showed his stuff” as we covered every nook and cranny of the old city.

That evening, Mooli again picked me up at my hotel and took me to his lovely home for dinner. There, I met Mooli’s wife, Lili, and two of his brothers, Ruvi and Avinoam together with their wives. A little later on Ehud Barak, their fourth brother, arrived with a female companion. As we sat around the dinner table I had to keep reminding myself where I was and who I was with. I kept thinking back to that terrible night in 1912, when their grandparents were murdered, and their father, Isrolik, was 2 ½ years old peacefully sleeping in his small wooden crib. Here I was, 92 years after the event, enjoying dinner with the four grandsons of Rabbi Brog and his wife Freida. It almost made that event of years past come alive and seem not that long ago. After several hours of warm and friendly conversation, Mooli returned me to my hotel. It was a day and an evening I will never forget.

In the late evening of July 10, I left Jerusalem and went to Petach Tikva where I was to stay with friends until leaving for Atlanta on July 13. On Sunday afternoon, my friends took me to Kfar Saba to visit with Yehudit (Judith) Zetzer Zacks. Yehudit was born and grew up in Pushelat and she knew my Aunt, Uncle, and their three small children there. Unfortunately, my relatives were murdered there in 1941. Yehudit left Pushelat for Palestine in 1935 at the age of 25. It was a real thrill to meet someone who knew my ancestors in Pushelat – family I had never met.

On Monday, July 12 my friends took me to Kibbutz Mishmar Hasharon where Ehud Barak and his brothers were born and grew up. Ruvi Brog still lives on the Kibbutz with their mother. Their father, Isrolik, passed away on February 8, 2002 at the age of 91. Mair, now 96 years old, lives in Kiryat – Haim, a suburb of Haifa. His son, Ruven, was kind enough to drive Mair down to Mishmar Hasharon, a distance of about 50 miles, to meet with me. I hope when I am 96, if I am fortunate enough to reach that age, I will be as spry and as active as Mair.

It was a real thrill for me to sit and talk with Mair and relive with him the events of so long ago. I asked him about some of his relatives who lived in Pushelat when he was growing up as I wanted to connect them with other family members from Pushelat. The depth and clarity of his memory was amazing. As Ruvi later said, “watching Mair traveling back through some 80 – 85 years, guided by Howard’s oral remarks, and succeeding in drawing a partial map of Pushelat was one of the strongest scenes I have ever experienced”. I had the same feeling as Ruvi. It made my article about the murder of Rabbi Brog and his wife, in Pushelat, Lithuania in 1912, bridge the gap of so many years and come alive.

A murder in 1912, in a small village in Lithuania, an election of a Prime Minister in Israel in 1999, and my trip to Israel in 2004, all combined to create a real genealogical odyssey.

Read more about what life in Pushelat was like and the
Murder of Rabbi Brog and his wife, Freida Shemer in 1912 in Pushelat

Read more about the
life of Mair and Isrolik after their parents were murdered