Family Taksa

Contributed by Fred Bortz: I have this attached family picture from Khodorkov in 1910 (date based on when relatives emigrated). My mother, Rose, the next to youngest child of Ephraim and Faige Levis Taksa, was born in 1907. Ephraim, soon followed by his heart-broken eldest daughter, Nechama, died in 1911-13 and were buried in Khodorkov. Faige died in 1921 and is buried in Pittsburgh PA. The eldest child, Louis (b. ca. 1887), had already emigrated to the USA before the picture was taken.

Fred’s cousin, Susan O’Dee, adds: My grandfather Morris is the second tallest man in the back row. He came to the US in 1912 to escape conscription in Ukraine. My father is the youngest, and only one still living, of his five children. I can confirm one of the things Fred mentioned; my father said the family owned a business and “had money”. Per my father, Morris was able to leave Ukraine to study music; he served as a cantor in more than one synagogue.

Family Brenayzen

Contributed by Larry Brikman: After the war, the family moved to Kiyev. My great grandparents were killed in Khodorkov during the Holocaust.

Top row: Tsilya (Tzivia) Brenayzen b. 1912, Boris Brenayzen b. 1909, Riva (Rivka) Brenayzen b. 1907, Abram (Avrohom) Brenayzen b. 1914
Bottom row: Tanya (Toiba) Brenayzen b. 1918, Ester (nee Novominskiy) Brenayzen b. 1887, Mekhl Brenayzen b. 1883, Yakov Brenayzen b. 1920

Family Ruvinskiiy

Contributed by Cheryl Tallan:

Family Pekarsky

Contributed by Mike Karsen: The birth record (May 22, 1876) of Moshko Pekarsky shown here documents that he was born in Kotelyna and that his father, Shloime Losevitch Pekarsky, was from Chodorkov.

Family Thomas

Contributed by Toby Basan Thomas: I have a written family history from a family member that lived in Chordokov, along with my grandmother, Bertha Litvak, and going back down the line. I simply scanned the pages that talk about life and personal occurrences in Chordokov. My great grandmother was born there in 1851 and my grandmother in 1896. She came to the U.S. in 1913, so I'm estimating that this history takes place approximately between 1895 and 1913.

Interview by Toby Basan Thomas

The photo is of my cousin, who was visiting from the U.S. She is with a relative that still lives near Kiev, though we don't know what has become of her since last year. In the photo, they're going house to house in Chordokov looking for directions to the cemetery.

I don't know the name of this river in Chordokov, but my grandmother used to tell me about how it would freeze every year. Her brother made her a pair of ice skates when she was a child. It appears they have dammed up the river since then.

The rest of the photos are of a few houses in Chordokov.