The Second World War
Julius, age 19 with a violin given to him when he was very young. He had perfect pitch, was self taught, and carried the instrument where ever he went.
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4 brothers (Reiter), except for Julius, all perished in the Holocaust.
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Julius Reiter holding granddaughter, Ilana Melhoullam, daughter of Bonnie Reiter, (Julius and Adele's daughter).
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mother, Beile Reiter,
1893-1943
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father, Benzion Fineman,
1886-1943
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monument to the people of Mielnica who perished in the Holocaust, c 1961
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See chapter 9, page 8, 1935, the 95th reunion of the Kudryncer Landsmanshaftn Benevolent Society. "I had copied a few documents from the Warsaw archives to take with me and by some miracle it turned out that Jonas' maternal grandparents were Reinsteins, listed on the records I brought. From then on we were "kindred spirits". Jonas couldn't believe I had documents with so much information about his family.
Jonas Linden(baum) told me that I had a cousin, Julius Reiter(1914-1996), born in Mielnica, Poland, who survived the war and lived in Miami, Florida with his wife Adele, daughter Bonnie, and granddaughter, Ilana. He told me Julius was the grandson of Frima and my grandfather Fischel's brother, Rachmiel Reiter (1863-1942), see picture, chapter 8, 1926. Frima and Rachmiel (long, white beard) are in the center of the middle row.
I wrote Julius an introductory letter explaining who I was and that I know of him by way of Jonas L. and the Mielnitza documents I received from 2 archives in Warsaw, Poland. Julius called me after receiving the information. At first he was quite suspicious, questioning how I could know so much about him and if I was a relative, why then had no one in my family looked for him/family all these years. After I explained that I was very young during the war and my parents hadn't told me or my siblings anything about having family in Europe, Julius, in appreciation, sent me these precious picture -memories of his family.
Julius told me that when the Russians invaded Mielnitza in 1939, people began running to the border of Ukraine, trying to get to Russia, including his parents, Julius, and his brothers. The Russian soldiers grabbed Julius and other young men off the street and took them to the Russian army. Julius was assigned to the cavalry to care for the horses, thus surviving the war. His family was not as lucky.
When the Germans took over command in Mielnitza, German soldiers broke into Frima and Rachmiel's home. They began beating Rachmiel to death which lasted three hours because, although he was in his 80s, Rachmiel was a large and strong man. Frima, sitting in a chair watching this horror take place, had a stroke. The German soldier placed a pistol in Frima's mouth and killed her. All of the Reiter and Blitzer families living in the town were killed.
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