Publication of “Skala on the River Zbrucz,” a translation of the Skala Yizkor Book

In 1978, the Skala Benevolent Society (SBS) published a Yizkor [memorial] book called Skala. The book was written by the town’s (shtetl’s) former Jewish residents who either had survived the Holocaust or had been born in Skala and previously had emigrated. Its purpose was to honor Skala’s Jewish community, which had been annihilated by the Nazis and their cohorts. Most of the contributors to the original book were the survivors themselves, who felt a deep inner compulsion and moral obligation to those who perished, to tell the story of Jewish Skala and to share with their children and future generations their memories of suffering, struggle and loss. The Yizkor book was written primarily in Yiddish and Hebrew and was largely inaccessible to many modern researchers, most of whose families came from this shtetl. Skala on the River Zbrucz, a translation of the entire Yizkor book into English, now has been published by the Skala Research Group (whose members are investigating their roots in Skala) and the SBS.

Situated in eastern Galicia and once ruled by Austro-Hungary, the town of Skala was part of Poland during World War II. It now is called Skala Podil’ska and is part of Ukraine. The Skala Yizkor book includes articles, photographs, and documents on the history of the town’s Jews from the 15th century up to and including the Holocaust, when the Jewish community was completely destroyed. This material recalls a once vibrant shtetl, its people, the environment in which they lived, their hopes, dreams and struggles for survival. The Yizkor book also describes the tragic events of the Holocaust, stories of those who survived and provides a list of Skala’s Holocaust victims and survivors. The English translation contains a new chapter about the town’s righteous gentiles who saved Jews during the Holocaust, as well as photographs showing Skala as it is today. It is a precious legacy that deserves to be preserved.

For copies, please contact Tony Hausner, thausner@gmail.com .

The book will be distributed to contributors at a luncheon to be held on May 16, at 12 p.m. at the Darna Restaurant , 600 Columbus Avenue (89th St.), New York, NY 10025.

Immigration at the Museum of Family History: A Review of Two Current Exhibitions

For those of you who haven't yet visited the Museum's exhibition titled "A Multitude of Immigrants," may I suggest you do so at your convenience.

The online exhibition contains eleven articles written between 1891 and 1910, and published in such New York City newspapers as the Daily Tribune, the World and the Sun. The articles are interesting in many ways, particularly if you're curious as to how these newspapers portrayed the "flood" of immigrants that passed through New York City ports around the turn of the twentieth century, as well as how they tried to regulate the inflow.

As a sort of "companion" piece to this exhibition, please visit "Castle Garden and Ellis Island: Ports of Immigration." Here you may read any or all of the dozen newspaper articles that talk about the history of Castle Garden and Ellis Island, all written and published between 1887 and 1909.

When read as a whole these articles give us a chance to "taste" the sentiment of the time toward immigration and the Jewish immigrant specifically.

You can find the exhibition "A Multitude of Immigrants" by clicking here.

You can find the exhibition "Castle Garden and Ellis Island" by clicking here.

A Review of the Searchable Cemetery Databases in the Metro New York Area

Now that I've announced the presence of a database for burials at New York's Knollwood Park Cemetery, I thought that this would be a good time to review the number (ten) of searchable, online burial databases that are currently available for Jewish cemeteries in the metro New York area (including New Jersey).

There are ten such databases online at present, though there are actually only eight, as the cemetery database for Mt. Carmel includes the burial data for both the nearby Hungarian Union Fields Cemetery and Knollwood Park Cemetery. Below, along with name and town location of each cemetery, I've also included the approximate number of burials in each. The sum total of burials included within all these databases mentioned below are more than 810,000. I know of no other cemetery in the New York metro area that is currently creating their own searchable cemetery database.

New York:

Mt. Hebron Cemetery, Flushing, Queens, http://www.mounthebroncemetery.com/, 217,000 burials.
Mt. Zion Cemetery, Maspeth, Queens, http://www.mountzioncemetery.com/, 210,000 burials.
Mt. Lebanon Cemetery, Glendale, Queens, http://www.mountlebanoncemetery.com/, 88,000 burials.
Mt. Carmel Cemetery, Glendale, Queens, http://www.mountcarmelcemetery.com/, 69,000 burials.
Mt. Judah Cemetery, Ridgewood, Queens, http://www.mountjudah.com/, 54,000 burials.
Mt. Ararat Cemetery, Lindenhurst, Suffolk, http://www.mountararatcemetery.com/, 45,000 burials.
Knollwood Park Cemetery, Ridgewood, Queens, http://www.mountcarmelcemetery.com/, 17,000 burials.

New Jersey:

Riverside Cemetery, Saddle Brook, http://www.riversidecemetery.org/, 65,000 burials.
Mt. Moriah Cemetery, Fairview, http://www.mountmoriahcemeteryofnewjersey.org/, 29,000 burials.

Knollwood Park Cemetery Burial Data Now Online

I noticed today that Mt. Carmel Cemetery (Glendale, Queens, New York), which has taken over supervision of the nearby cemetery Knollwood Park Cemetery(in Ridgewood), has finally put online the information about the Knollwood Park burials.

There are currently over 17,000 burials listed now and I am assuming that this is the current number of burials at the cemetery. You should be forewarned, however, that most of the dates of death, especially the deaths pre-2000, are not included. These dates are simply listed as 1/1/1900, which is the default date for the database. I have no idea why this happened or if it will be fixed in the future.

The Knollwood Park burials are listed as Cemetery Section 5 within Mt. Carmel's website. Sections 1 and 2 are of the main "old" Carmel Cemetery; Section 3 is of the New Carmel Cemetery (down the road), and Section 4 is of the (former) Hungarian Union Fields Cemetery. You can find the burial data for these five sections combined as one on the Mt. Carmel Cemetery site at www.mountcarmelcemetery.com . I imagine if you find a burial for Knollwood Park and would like to know the actual date of death for someone, you can telephone either Knollwood Park or Mt. Carmel; I'm not sure if one or the other or both have that information.

Would You Like to Display Your Pre-War Family Photos from Europe in a Museum?

The Museum of Family History proudly displays more than a thousand pre-war family photos from Europe. Hundreds of followers of the Museum have e-mailed the Museum scans of their precious family photos, wishing to not only share images of their family members and ancestors with all of us, but to simply honor their memory. Once in a while someone even sees a connection between their family tree and the family tree of the person who posted their family photos and both parties are put in contact with each other.

Also, placing one's family photos within the Museum's "Postcards from Home" permanent exhibition allows one to share their photos with other family members living in different parts of the world, saving them the dilemma of how to send a cousin, for example, a family photo without having to make copies, etc.

So your family photos are always welcome. Within the "Postcards from Home" exhibition, the photos are organized not only by country and town name, but also by family surname, so someone with a particular interest in a country or town or surname can make a specific search.

How does one submit photos for inclusion within the Museum's website?

First, of course, you must scan each photo and document into a folder within your computer, preferably scanning them as jpegs. The Museum prefers that you not send it originals for obvious reasons. If you haven't a scanner, there are many drugstores that have them, and you may scan your photos there by their photo department onto a CD and you can subsequently mail the CD to the Museum.

Then, after you've scanned the photos into a designated folder, you can send them to the Museum in groups of ten or twelve or more depending on the size, at postmaster@museumoffamilyhistory.com . You might want to send a second email at the time to the same e-mail address, letting the Museum know that the photos are on their way. In the subject heading of the e-mail that contains the photos, you may wish to type, for example, "Sam's family photos." I will let you know when I receive them.

If you can identify any/all of the people in each photo, please do. Assign a country and town name to each photo, so at least for the Museum's Postcards from Home exhibition, they can be placed correctly within the exhibition.

If you know the date the photo was taken, or can approximate it, please do. Surely you will not know the name of each person, and you may not have a clue as to the date, but do what you can. Perhaps you can label the photos to reflect their name, or family name. Preferably no spaces should be left between words witin the file name (if possible).

If a particular photo is from a photographic studio, e.g. it has the name of the studio/photographer imprinted at the bottom of the front of the photo mount, don't crop it; simply send the complete front photo, etc. If there is a lithographic design on the back of the photo that tells us the name of the studio, its address, etc., please send that too. There is also no need to touch up the photo as the Museum does that to its satisfaction.

If the photos are simply of life in a town and you don't know the names of the people in the photo, that's fine. Best to e-mail all the photos to the Museum and let me decide what I can and cannot use.

That should do it. If you have any questions, please write to me at steve@museumoffamilyhistory.com and ask.

You can visit the Museum's "Postcards from Home" exhibition at www.museumoffamilyhistory.com/pfh-a.htm .

The Museum's "Great Cantors" exhibition

The Museum of Family History now has filled its "Great Cantors" room with short bios, photos, sound and video clips of eight well-known cantors, i.e. Cantors Yossele Rosenblatt, Mordechai Hershman, Gershon Sirota, Moshe Koussevitzky, Zavel Kwartin, David Roitman, as well as Richard Tucker (pictured left in 1933, the famed tenor who was also a chazzan) and Moishe Oysher (a chazzan as well as star of a number of Yiddish films.)

You can visit the "Great Cantors" room at www.museumoffamilyhistory.com/cantors.htm .
Webpages about other well-known cantors will be added to the room in the near future.

Cantor Rosenblatt sings in "The Jazz Singer"

Cantor Yossele Rosenblatt appeared as himself in the 1927 talkie "The Jazz Singer" starring Al Jolson. As the first entry into the Museum's "Great Cantors" room (which may be found by visiting the Museum's plan for its Second Floor), a webpage has been created so you may enjoy a film clip of this performance.

You will see Al Jolson as the character Jakie Robin, attending the Rosenblatt concert while conflicted between his desire to become an entertainer and the wish of his father, a Cantor, who would like Jakie to follow in his footsteps. In this YouTube video, Cantor Rosenblatt sings a secular Yiddish song.

One can find the aforementioned page by clicking here.

Cemetery Project Q & A: Markers at Baby's Gravesites

Recently, someone wrote to me with a question about baby markers, and how to keep the gravestone from completely sinking into the ground over time.

The question was:
"I recently had a baby marker created but the monument dealer/installer never heard of adding cement around the bottom of the stone and doesn't see how it prevents the stone from sinking. My question to you is: Do you know where I can obtain proof to show to the dealer?"

I then wrote to Todd Ivler, the cemetery manager from Mt. Judah Cemetery in Ridgewood, Queens, New York, whom I've interviewed in the past.I know Mt. Judah has handled a good number of such burials, so he was the one to ask.

I thought his response might be of interest to some of you, as many any of us who have visited our Jewish cemeteries have noticed that these small markers often appear eroded, oriented on a slant, or are partially or completely sunken into the ground.

I don't doubt that decades ago baby markers were sometimes made of sandstone and probably not set in cement, etc., but Todd's response at least can be said to reflect the method commonly used today, at least at his cemetery. Here is his answer:

"We call a baby marker a piece of granite that is twelve inches from left to right, usually at least three feet high and about two inches thick. When placed in the ground we pour concrete in the hole first then on the sides which leaves about a inch or two around the whole stone. This helps the marker from not sinking."

You can well imagine how difficult it is to find a baby's burial site for the reasons I've mentioned above. It's one thing for a cemetery to have a searchable burial database; at least one can look up a name, even if the gravestone marker is nowhere to be found or is highly illegible. Without such a source of data, one can always of course, try contacting the cemetery office, though there is often less burial information about a baby than an adult.

You can read the complete interview the Museum had with Todd Ivler, Mt. Judah Cemetery manager at www.museumoffamilyhistory.com/qna-cem-mgr.htm .

The Museum's Film Series: Two Short Films of the Nazi Death Camps

From Saturday, April 17 through Sunday, May 9 you can view two short films about the Nazi death camps. One is part of a documentary once presented on British television, the other a Universal newsreel.

Nazi Death Camps (5 mins, 03 secs):

In April 1945, U.S. and British troops entered the Nazi death camps and filmed the horrors they found there. For decades the film was stored at the Imperial War Museum in London. This documentary was unfinished and was missing soundtracks. The directors, including Alfred Hitchcock, had developed a script to go with the pictures. Frontline, a British television program, presented this documentary unedited. It was a film the British Government deemed too grisly for release after World War II. The film has received its public debut on British television. Fifteen minutes of the black-and- white film, which was shot by the armed forces after the war. From YouTube. You can see the short film by clicking here.

Nazi Murder Mills (8 mins, 16 secs):

First actual newsreel pictures of atrocities in Nazi murder camps. Helpless prisoners tortured to death by a bestial enemy...Here Is "The Truth" (Real-life horror pictures revealing the unbelievable atrocities committed by the Nazis in their murder camps.)

Grasleben: Wounded and emaciated Yanks, captured in von Runstedt's Bulge attack of last winter, are fed and given medical care by the Yank armies of liberation.

Hadamar: Protected by gas masks, grave diggers open reeking graves at this converted insane asylum. They discover that 35,000 political prisoners had been slain here, largely by poisoning.

Camp Ohrdruf : General Eisenhower, General Patton and General Bradley can hardly believe their eyes when they view torture-gallows, heaps of charred human bodies and lime pits filled with corpses. From You Tube.

You can view the newsreel by clicking here.

The Complete Memoir of Peter Kleinmann of Munkacs

There has been a good addition to the Museum's ongoing and evolving exhibition "Walk in my Shoes: Collected Memories of the Holocaust."

You can now read the complete memoirs of Holocaust survivor Peter (Dezider) Kleinmann, who was born in 1925 in the small village of Kustanovice, about a one hour walk from the city of Mukacevo (aka Munkacs, Hungary; Mukacevo, Czechoslovakia; Mukachevo, Soviet Union; today Mukacheve, Ukraine).

Peter writes about:

Jewish communal life in Munkacs
The rise of anti-Semitism during Hungarian occupation
The Munkacs ghetto
Deportation
Existence in the concentration camps Auschwitz, Gross-Rosen and Flossenburg
The Death March
Liberation

There are a good number of photos included, both of family, scenes around towns, a sanitorium in Switzerland, and also of the camps.

You can begin to read his memoirs at www.museumoffamilyhistory.com/wims-kleinmann-01.htm.

More about Peter Kleinmann, including video testimony, will be made available to you sometime this year once the Museum's "World War II and the Holocaust" section has been augmented and made ready for viewing.

The submission of more such memoirs to the virtual Museum of Family History are also welcome and will be considered for inclusion within the Museum's "Walk in My Shoes" online exhibition.

MOFH Film Series: Now Playing until April 18th

Now showing within the Museum of Family History's Film Series, through April 18th:

Film no. 1:

Archival film from 1936 showing the Jewish district of Kazimierz in Krakow (3 mins, 26 secs). Most of these buildings can be visited today and are in a similar condition - only the people who walked those streets are long since gone.

The original [version] of this film is in the Polish film archives in ul. Chelmska in Warsaw. -- From YouTube.

Note that there is another version of this film on YouTube that states the film is of Kazimierz in 1938-9, not 1936.

This short film "The Jews of Krakow's Kazimierz District," can be found at www.museumoffamilyhistory.com/fs-krakow-kazimierz.htm .

Film no. 2:

From the exhibition "The Jewish Ghetto," coming to you at the Museum of Family History sometime in 2010:

"The Ghettos of Dąbrowa Górnicza and Będzin" (10 mins, 51 secs):

A film in two parts, shot in the ghettos of Dąbrowa Górnicza and Będzin, probably at the beginning of the ghettos.

Dabrowa Górnicza is part of the Katowice conurbation. Jews settled in Dąbrowa Górnicza in the middle of the 19th century. There were 4,304 Jews living in Dąbrowa Górnicza according to the 1921 census (11% of the total population).

The German army captured Dąbrowa Górnicza on 3 September 1939. In the fall of 1940 several hundred young Jewish men were deported to slave labor camps in Germany. Several hundred more were deported in the course of 1941. At the end of that year a ghetto was established. On 5 May 1942, the first deportation took place in which 630 Jews were taken to Auschwitz and exterminated. In the second deportation, conducted on 12 August 1942, another few hundred Jews were sent to their death in Auschwitz. On 26 June 1943, the ghetto in Dąbrowa Górnicza was liquidated and all its inmates were transferred to the ghetto in Srodula (a suburb of Sosnowiec), the only ghetto still existing in Upper Silesia. It too was liquidated and all its inhabitants, including the Jews from Dąbrowa Górnicza, deported to Auschwitz and killed.

According to the 1921 census, there were 17,298 Jews in Będzin or 62.1 percent of its total population. By 1938, the number of Jews had increased to about 22,500.

Situated close to the border, Będzin was quickly captured by the Wehrmacht. On 7 September, persecution of the Jews began, with the instituting of economic sanctions. On 8 September, the Będzin synagogue was burned, and the first massacre of local Jews took place.

The ghetto was founded in May 1942 but deportations had started as early as October 1940. Despite cooperation with the occupiers as is shown in this film, several large deportations took place in 1942. The last major deportations took place in 1943: 5,000 were deported on 22 June 1943 and 8,000 around 13 August 1943. About 1,000 remaining Jews were deported in the subsequent months. A rising took place in August 1943 which was put down and the ghetto was eliminated.

This film is held in the Polish film archive in ul. Chelmska, Warsaw. -- From YouTube.

The film can be found at www.museumoffamilyhistory.com/fs-ghettos-dabrowa-gornicza-bedzin.htm .

Film no. 3:

Jolson sings in "Hallelujah, I'm a Bum!"

The film trailer.
"The picture, some persons may be glad to hear, has no 'Mammy' song. It is Mr. Jolson's best film and well it might be, for that clever director, Lewis Milestone, guided its destiny, and the supporting cast includes Frank Morgan, the beautiful Madge Evans, the pathetically comic Harry Langdon and that veteran of Keystone days, Chester Conklin. It is a combination of fun, melody and romance, with a dash of satire, all of which make for an ingratiating entertainment..."-- From the New York Times, Feb. 9, 1933.

Don't forget to visit the Museum's large Al Jolson exhibition titled "The Immortal Al Jolson" (and see and hear many more videos, not to mention more than forty sound clips) at www.museumoffamilyhistory.com/ajolson.htm .

ERC Lecture Series: The Development of Yiddish Literature Since the Czernowitz Conference

From Iosif Vaisman, in his description of the first Yiddish language conference:

The First Conference for the Yiddish Language, also known as the Tshernovits Conference, opened on Sunday, August 30, 1908. The Conference was convened to discuss very important topics, formulated in the ten point Conference agenda. To what extent the Conference succeeded in finding the solutions to any of these ten problems has been a subject of discussions (sometimes quite fierce) ever since. A simple look at the agenda is sufficient to see that many issues have yet to be resolved:

1. Yiddish spelling
2. Yiddish grammar
3. Foreign words and new words
4. A Yiddish dictionary
5. Jewish youth and the Yiddish language
6. The Yiddish press
7. The Yiddish theater and Yiddish actors
8. The economic status of Yiddish writers
9. The economic status of Yiddish actors
10. Recognition for the Yiddish language

In October 2008 Boris Sandler, Editor-in-Chief of the Forverts newspaper, gave a speech in Yiddish to attendees of the IAYC (International Association of Yiddish Clubs) conference about the development of Yiddish literature since this 1908 conference.

A transcript of his talk on this subject is available now in English and can be found within the "ERC Lecture Series" at the Museum's Education and Research Center.

You can read a transcript of his talk at www.museumoffamilyhistory.com/iayc2008-sandler.htm .

Wily Marriage Makers of the East Side, 1905

The schatchens, i.e. the matchmakers, of the lower East Side in a 1905 article in the Los Angeles articles were described as both good and bad.

The schatchen is almost invariably of one type. He is not very tall; he is bearded, patriarchial and intensely Yiddish. he walks silently and watches every chance passerby with eyes that are both furtive and keen. He slips in and out of places almost without making his presence felt. When he speaks it is with a marked desire to please, but with strangers he is cautious and slow of tongue...

The article further states that the schatchen--

is a busy, prosperous man, with a good business and a large following of clients, and he has developed his ancient and picturesque trade along the modern lines of commercial America, but withal he remains the schatchen--the matchmaker, the trafficker in young men and maidens, the indefatigable, serene, obsequious, popular marriage broker.

However, the article's author states, there are also crooked, swindling schatchens, who are "next to impossible to arrest or convict."

So then if you are interested in learning about the good schatchen and the bad schatchen, please read this article. The article can be found at www.museumoffamilyhistory.com/les-marriage-makers.htm .

"Glimpses of Yiddish Czernowitz": A Forverts Film

A new film comes to you from the Forverts, i.e. the Yiddish Forward newspaper. The film is in Yiddish but has English subtitles. You can see the film's trailer at www.museumoffamilyhistory.com/sr-30-yiddish-czernowitz.htm .

Here is a description of the film:

Bukovina—land of the beech tree spreading its branches across the Carpathian Mountains with its turbulent rivers and rushing streams. More than one generation of forest merchants and cattle drivers in partnership with the local peasantry drew their livelihood from the land. Czernowitz was blessed with resonant names—the Big City, Little Vienna, Jerusalem on the Prut, Jerusalem of Bukovina.

Short, but abundant visually, this filmic essay expresses critical historical moments of Jewish life in the city and region, from the first Jewish language conference to the torment of the Transnistrian deportation and subsequent decline of Jewish life in the post War period. Featuring contemporary interviews alongside original archival images, the film presents Czernowitz through native personalities such as fabulist and pedagogue Eliezer Steinbarg, beloved actress Sidi Tal, drama critic Moyshe Loyev, writer Josef Burg, poet Beyle Schaechter-Gottesman, and linguist Prof. Wolf Moskovich.

Glimpses of Yiddish Czernowitz is a visual tale of an all but lost Jewish community. The film awakens our longing and calls us back to seek out the traces of that city of our dreams—the Jerusalem on the Prut.

Documents of Auschwitz Death Camp Doctors Found

I just found this article on the Internet and thought it might be of interest to my blog readers. Also, if you haven't yet read the testimony from Joe Rosenblum, an inmate at Auschwitz who worked in the Auschwitz hospital while Mengele was there, please do. The link is www.museumoffamilyhistory.com/mengele-speaks.htm .

Here then is the article I mentioned:

By MONIKA SCISLOWSKA, Associated Press Writer

WARSAW, Poland – Food coupons for some of the notorious Nazi doctors at the Auschwitz death camp — including perhaps the sadistic Dr. Joseph Mengele — have been found in the attic of a nearby house, where they had lain unseen for decades.

Also found in the attic were other documents relating to the lives of Nazi officials, including death certificates and a map.

Some sugar coupons bear the names of Horst Fischer and Fritz Klein, doctors who were executed for their crimes after the war, Adam Cyra, a historian at the Auschwitz memorial museum who is looking through the documents, said Monday.

"The sensational value of this discovery is in the fact that these original documents, bearing the names of main murderers from Auschwitz, were found so many years after the war," Cyra said.

Cyra said he believes a June 1943 coupon for a small amount of sugar probably was assigned to Dr. Joseph Mengele, who was infamous for his sadistic experiments, but the writing is unclear.

A February 1944 coupon for 0.28 kilograms of butter is made out for a Dr. Mergerle. There was no SS doctor by that name at camp, so Cyra believes a clerk misspelled Mengele's name.

Doctors and pharmacists at the camp conducted pseudo-medical experiments on the inmates and helped select Jews arriving at the camp for either labor or death. Mengele escaped after World War II and evaded capture for the rest of his life.

The documents — almost 300 in total — were found in the attic of a house being renovated in the town of Oswiecim, where the Nazis built the Auschwitz-Birkenau camp.

The homeowner, who has requested anonymity, made them available to historians at the Auschwitz museum on Friday, museum officials said. They believe the house was used by an SS officer during the war, but it is not clear which one.

Historians have checked through some of the documents but have more to pore over, museum spokesman Pawel Sawicki said.

The material does not document crimes committed at the camp.

The documents include a German-language map of the area around Oswiecim and a death certificate for Adolf Kroemer, a pharmacist at Auschwitz, saying he died of a heart attack in February 1944.

About 150 blank food coupons and death certificates were also found, Cyra said.

Between 1940 and 1945 more than 1 million people, mostly Jews, were killed in the gas chambers at Auschwitz or died of starvation or disease while forced to perform hard labor at the camp.

Jewish Welfare Board Cares for 100,000 Fighting Men, 1918

This 1918 article begins with:

The Jewish Welfare Board is a win-the-war organization that is helping the United States government to build up the morale of more than 100,000 Jewish men in the army and navy. It is a national body cooperating with and under the supervision of the War Department Commission on Training Camp Activities.

The board was created by the joint action of representatives from some ten or twelve national Jewish organizations to meet the emergencies precipitated by the war. The organizations represented in its councils are: Agudath Ha-Rabbonim, Central Conference of American Rabbis, Council of Y.M.H. and kindred associations, Independent Order B'rith Abraham, Jewish Publication Society of America, Council of Jewish Women, Independent Order B’nai B’rith, Jewish Chautauqua Society, Independent Order B'rith Sholom, United Synagogues of America, National Federation of Temple Sisterhoods, New York Board of Jewish Ministers, Union of American Hebrew Congregations, Union of Orthodox Jewish Congregations.

You can find this article from the New York Tribune at www.museumoffamilyhistory.com/wsot-jwb.htm .

Two new films of interest showing deportations from Galicia, Lodz and Krakow

I'd like to invite you to see two more of the Museum of Family History's Film Series short films, showing at the Museum until April 4th.

At least three separate locales seem to be part of this first film, and one is supposedly a Galician village from during the war. You can also see during the last minute and a half of the film what appears to be the deportation of Jews from the Lodz Ghetto. I'm hoping that someone can confirm this for me. While watching the end of this film I felt that I was in the railroad car as people were boarding it. It's one thing to read about the deportations, or see still photos of it, or even see films about the Lodz ghetto, e.g. the film about Irena Sendler, but it is another thing to see the actual footage.

I am hoping that someone who once lived in these areas or are otherwise well familiar with the landmarks in these towns will be able to identify the town. If so, please let me know and I will tell those on the list in another posting. It is unlikely that you will recognize anyone in the film, but one never knows.

The name of the clip is "Deportations of Jews" (aka "Deportation to the Death Camps"), and supposedly the film was taken by a Nazi cameraman. For me, the film is powerfully evocative and at times eerie, especially if you choose to listen to the soundtrack which is said to have been added at a later date. The film is nearly eight and a half minutes long.

The film clip can be watched at www.museumoffamilyhistory.com/fs-deportation-deathcamps.htm .

The second film is a shorter one, but nevertheless impactful as it shows the deportation of residents to the Krakow ghetto. The link for this short film is www.museumoffamilyhistory.com/fs-deportation-ghetto-krakow.htm .

Links to the current films available for viewing within the Museum's Film Series can be found at www.museumoffamilyhistory.com/mfh-films.htm .

Emile Zola Backs up the Jews

"Zola Backs Up the Jews" in an 1896 article that appeared in the New York Sun newspaper via Le Figaro, backs up the "brotherhood of man." An interesting read from someone who staunchly defended Captain Dreyfus.

You can read the article at www.museumoffamilyhistory.com/mfh-zola-01.htm .

The article is actually an open letter written and signed by Zola. It begins this way:

For some years I have been following the campaign that men are trying to carry on in France against Jews with increasing surprise and disgust. To me it has the appearance of a monstrosity. I mean something beyond common sense and any idea of truth and justice, a foolish and blind thing that would put us centuries back, a thing that would end in the worst of all abominations, a religious persecution, covering all countries with blood. And I wish to speak out.

In the first place, what is the accusation against Jews? For what are they blamed? Many persons, even friends of mine, say that they can't endure them, that they can't touch their hands without feeling their flesh creep with repugnance; it is a physical horror, the repulsion of one race for another, of the white man against the yellow man, of the red man against the black man.

I will not inquire whether there does not enter into this repugnance the distant anger of the Christian against the Jew who crucified his God, a whole secular inheritance of contempt and vengeance. After all, physical disgust is a good reason, the only reason even, for there is no answering people who say to you: "I hate them because I hate them, because the very sight of their noses puts me beside myself, because all my flesh revolts at feeling that they are different and opposed to me."

There are now one hundred and twenty interesting articles available for your perusal. Please visit the archives at www.museumoffamilyhistory.com/archive-newspaper.htm to see what might be of interest to you.

ERC Educational Program: "Through the Eye of the Needle - Fabric of Survival"

The Museum of Family History both develops its own and supports the educational programs and activities of other individuals and organizations. One such external education activity comes to the Museum via the children of Esther Krinitz, whose exhibition of lovely embroideries of scenes of her former home in pre-war Europe can be found among the Museum's "Reflections of Memory" sister exhibitions.

Sisters Bernice and Helene grew up with the stories of their mother Esther's courage and suffering as a child during the Second World War. Years later, after their mother began to turn her stories into a narrated series of fabric art pictures, they realized that art and story combined had enormous power. They believe that together, art and story could help people understand not only what war and intolerance are, but also how it feels to those who endure them.

The primary goal of their Art and Remembrance's educational programs is to open the minds of school-age children to the powerful experiences of victims of social injustice, as narrated through art. Through guided study on the works of A&R artists, students will be encouraged to reflect upon and gain a greater understanding of important issues such as cultural diversity, prejudice, the Holocaust, and other historical and contemporary manifestations of racism. Through the study of narrative art, A&R also hopes to empower children to share their own stories, and to learn about various techniques that will enable them to do so through art.

You can find their educational activity by clicking here.

In Brooklyn's Ghetto, circa 1905

With the opening of new bridges and subway routes from the lower East Side of Manhattan to the outlying boroughs, such as Brooklyn (or Kings County), thousands of Jews moved to these areas in hopes of finding better living conditions, e.g. less overcrowding and cheaper rents.

In the article published in the former Brooklyn Daily Eagle newsaper, a report is given as to Jewish life in Brooklyn, most notably the Williamsburg section.

The start of the article is its introduction:

"For eleven months two young women settlement workers and college graduates have been living in the heart of the Brooklyn Ghetto. They have been received as residents of this interesting colony of strange people with strange habits. These two observing students have become acquainted with the methods in the daily life of the Yiddish folk with whom they have cast their lot. The things they have seen and the reforms they have instituted are related in this article, written by one of them. As they will continue for some time to make their home in the district they have chosen as their field of labor, it will be apparent why their names must remain unpublished."

You can read the article in its entirety by clicking here.

Report from the Liberated Lodz Ghetto

"Good morning, gentlemen, we are from the Ghetto here. There are only 878 of us left."

These are the words that were spoken by Dr. Albert Mazur, a nose and throat specialist who survived the Lodz Ghetto. He was interviewed by a news correspondent not long after the liberation of the Lodz Ghetto.

The Ghetto had been liberated on January 19, 1945 by the Soviet Army, and the article in which this quote appeared was published less than three weeks after the Ghetto's liberation. Mazur had been one of the dozen of the 160 Jewish physicians in Lodz who had survived. He gave a report to a correspondent about the horrible conditions in the Ghetto -- the disease, death and deportations that occurred there.

You can read this short article which will be a part of the Museum's future "Jewish Ghettos" exhibition which will be readied for later this year. The article can be found at www.museumoffamilyhistory.com/ce/ghetto/lodz-a1.htm .

Pre-World War II Film Footage of Krakow and Bialystok

The Museum has added two more film shorts to its new Film Series, on view from now until March 21st. These films are of Bialystok and Krakow before the advent of World War II....:

1. "Jewish Life in Bialystok 1939" (10:04): Produced by Shaul and Yitzhak Goskind of Sektor Films, Warsaw. In 1939, this short film displays Jewish Bialystok the way it was in 1939 before the German Army invaded and occupied the city. The film is narrated in Yiddish with English subtitles. The narration ends with the following: "Come visit Bialystok. You won't regret it." -- Bialystok was invaded by the German Army that September.....
www.museumoffamilyhistory.com/fs-bialystok-01.htm

See the Museum of Family History's listing of Bialystok material at www.museumoffamilyhistory.com/lee-bialystok.htm

2. "Jewish Life in Cracow (Kazimierz) 1939" (3:08): Krakow before the war. Background music by Abe Schwartz's Orchestra: "Yosl, Yosl, " 1925.
www.museumoffamilyhistory.com/fs-krakow-01.htm

See the Museum of Family History's listing of Krakow material at
www.museumoffamilyhistory.com/lee-krakow.htm

The full list on view at the Museum until March 21st can be found at
www.museumoffamilyhistory.com/mfh-films.htm

Compare and Contrast: Short Films of Kovno, Riga and Lwow from Before and During World War II

From World Jewish Communities: Kovno, Riga and Lwów... Three short films on view within the Museum's Film Series program through March 21.

How quickly a Jewish community can be upended, a city transformed from a 'peaceful' thriving 'metropolis' to one of destruction, occupation, imprisonment and death. Within this World Jewish Communities Film Series, you will have an opportunity to 'compare and contrast' life in the aforementioned cities cir 1939, i.e. shortly before the Second World War began, and life not long after these cities were invaded and occupied as the destruction of both people and property reigned.

Before World War II:

"Jewish Life in Kovno, Riga and Lwów" (9:42). This documentary was made in the early spring of 1939, just months before the start of the Second World War in Europe. Narration in Yiddish.
Click here.

During World War II:

"Lwów Lemberg 1941" (2: 38). This 1941 8 mm film depicts the Germans entering Lwów (Lemberg in German). You can see attacks against the Jews there, as well as provocative acts. Before the war Lwów was part of Poland, but was annexed by Russia on September 22, 1939. This time, the film short is narrated in German. From YouTube. Click here.

"German Troops in Riga" (8:29). World War II, German troops near Daugavpils (Dunaburg) moving to Riga (Latvia). Fights and the liberation of Riga. Communist war crimes, Nazi behavior to Latvian Jews, Nazi propaganda, Fights near Liepaja (Libau). Again the narration for this film short is in German. From YouTube. Click here.

The Museum of Family History's "Yiddish World Under the Stars" presents -- "Tevye the Milkman" (1939) -- Two Clips in Yiddish

Tevye is a dairyman in the Russian Ukraine early in the 20th century. He lives in a cabin outside Boyberik with his wife Goldie, his widowed daughter Tseytl, her two children, and his younger daughter, the unmarried Khave. Khave is being courted by Fedya, a Christian, the son of a local government official. Tevye warns Khave against romance and marriage outside her faith, but Fedya is persuasive too. What will Khave decide, how will Tevye react, and when the Tsar initiates a pogrom, will Tevyes friends come to his defense? Can the stubborn Tevye reconcile his heart and tradition? On the other hand....From YouTube. You can view these two clips by clicking here. Last showing March 21.

Don't forget to visit the Museum's Great Artists Series exhibition about Maurice Schwartz and his Yiddish Art Theatre.

Al Jolson Film Festival: "Show Business at War"

During the Second World War, many in show business did what they could to support the troops and the cause.

On May 21, 1943, a short film titled "Show Business at War" was released. It was part of an effort put forth my various studios to show the newsreel audience the progress of the Hollywood war effort.

Many Hollywood stars appear in this newsreel, one of whom is Al Jolson, who is seen and heard singing "Mammy" to the troops. Many others in show business appear in this film.

You can see the short film by clicking here.

Don't forget to visit the Museum's large Al Jolson exhibition titled "The Immortal Al Jolson" (and see and hear many more videos, not to mention more than forty sound clips) at www.museumoffamilyhistory.com/ajolson.htm .

This short film will be shown only at the Museum through March 21.

"Rites of Passage": A New Museum of Family History Exhibition

The life of a Jew is often filled with rituals that mark a significant change in his or her life or social status. These rites of passage may take many forms but each is deeply woven into the Jewish tradition and culture. These rites may be ceremonies that surround seminal events in a Jew's life, such as childbirth, when he or she becomes a bar- or bat-mitzvah, gets married, to the day when he or she inevitably passes away.

In this exhibition, the religious and secular significance of each event is discussed, stories are told, often through the words of those who experienced these events, or perhaps through their progeny.

What is a mohel? What is the significance of becoming a bar mitzvah? In "Rites of Passage" you can read about what a Polish Jewish wedding was like in the very early 1900s and see an early ketubah as well as a wedding invitation. Even though divorce is not a rite of passage, a page is devoted to the description of Jewish divorce in early 20th century Poland.

Then, what of death? Here you can read about how Jews in Poland buried their dead in the early 20th century, read about the Chevra Kadisha, the significance of the Jewish burial, mourning period, unveiling and the family cemetery visit. You will see, for instance, a photo of Solomon and Ester Rabinovitch at Ester's mother's gravesite. Solomon was the builder of the Great Synagogue of Bialystok which was tragically destroyed during the war. Coincidentally, this photo was taken just a day before the Germans marched into Bialystok in September of 1939.

As is the goal of the Museum, a number of personal stories as told by those who lived in Eastern Europe before the Second World War are interspersed within this exhibition, with the occasional story of Jewish life within the United States.

You can visit this informative and interesting exhibition by clicking here.

The Yizkor Book of Zambrów, Poland: The English Language Version

The United Zembrover Society would like to welcome you to its English translation of the Zambrów Yizkor Book, or Book of Remembrance. The UZS is one of a dwindling number of still-active landsmanshaftn (mutual aid societies), more than one hundred and thirty members strong. Most all of its current members are proud descendants of Zembrovers. They each feel a need to stay connected to their heritage, and because of this meet twice per year in New York City to share their common bond, to do what they can to preserve the memory of their beloved family members and "ancestral town." The UZS is still going strong, more than one hundred years after it was first established.

The Zambrów Yizkor Book was first published in 1963 by the combined societies of those who were descended from the Jewish community of Zambrów, Poland. Zambrów was a once-vibrant community which, like so many Jewish communities that once existed in Europe, was wiped out by those who once sought their complete annihilation. These descendants of Zembrovers-- both those who were born and once lived in Zambrów, as well as those who were their progeny -- at the time of publication lived in various parts of the world such as the United States, Israel and Argentina.

This Yizkor Book does an excellent job in preserving the memory of the past history of Zambrów town, from its origin and the first sign of Jews in the community (at least in the early seventeenth century), to its presentation of a plethora of accounts of various aspects of Jewish life there. Colorful descriptions of many personages of Jewish faith who once populated Zambrów make for excellent reading.

This English translation project is projected to take from three to as many as five years and is fully funded and driven by the United Zembrover Society. After each translated section has been read, proofed, edited and proofed once again, it will be added to the current translation. When finished, the Society hopes to create hard copies, bound books available by purchase by its members or anyone else who wishes to learn more about the history of Jewish Zambrów.

The Yizkor Book translation is just one aspect of the Museum's World Jewish Communities permanent exhibition. You can learn more about what other material of interest exists at the Museum about Zambrów by visiting the World Jewish Communities Zambrów at www.museumoffamilyhistory.com/wjc-zambrow.htm .

You can read the Zembrover Yizkor Book in English, i.e. what has been translated to the present day, by visiting www.museumoffamilyhistory.com/z/zyb-01.htm , or simply use the link provided on the World Jewish Communities Zambrów page.

Nu for You at the Museum's Screening Room: "Four Seasons Lodge" (2008)

From the darkness of Hitler’s Europe to the lush mountains of New York’s Catskills, Four Seasons Lodge follows a community of Holocaust survivors who come together each summer at their beloved bungalow colony to dance, cook, fight, flirt ­ and celebrate their survival.

Beautifully photographed by a team of cinematographers led by Albert Maysles (Gimme Shelter, Grey Gardens) and Justin Schein (No Impact Man) this unexpectedly funny film confronts sobering topics like aging, loss and the legacy of the Holocaust, capturing the Lodgers’ intoxicating passion for life as the fate of their colony hangs in the balance.

In an inspiring and startling documentary, a remarkable tribe whose members are fast disappearing come together for one final summer in the Catskill Mountains - they’re Holocaust Survivors with a captivating joie de vivre and a bracing sense of humor.

Four Seasons Lodge is a counterintuitive film tied to the Holocaust, one that captures the Lodgers' intoxicating passion for living, in bracing contrast to lives harrowed by loss. The documentary is about tightly bonded friendships and the quest for peace in spite of haunting memories, as experienced through compelling people and the richness of their intensely close lives.

This vivid, inspiring, and unexpectedly funny portrait reveals the indomitable spirit of a singular community. “This is our revenge,” one camper explains. “To live this long, this well, is a victory.”
You can view the film preview at www.museumoffamilyhistory.com/sr-29-four-seasons-lodge.htm.

Memoirs of a Lida Partisan and the Bielski Unit

The original Hebrew language memoir of Chaim Basist of Lida, Belarus (once part of Poland), has now been translated into English and is available online for the first time at the Museum of Family History.

"The Story of the House of Plotnik-Monco-Basist" is a gripping tale in detail of family genealogy in Lida, Belarus and its environs and the Holocaust. Chaim Basist's story includes the hiding in the forests with the Bielski partisans of he and his family, and once surviving finding a permanent home in the new land of Israel.

The full English translation, as well as the original Hebrew version, can be found within the Museum's exhibition "Walk in my Shoes: Collected Memories of the Holocaust." The memoir can be found at www.museumoffamilyhistory.com/wims-basist-01.htm. A link can be found there for the Hebrew version.

New Video Clips for Four Jewish Documentaries

The Museum of Family History has recently introduced four new film clips to its Screening Room:

--The Warsaw Ghetto 1940-1943 is documentary project that features three films. The main film is 912 Days of the Warsaw Ghetto (37 min.), and the two short ones are Children in the Ghetto and Warsaw Ghetto Uprising. These films were created for the Jewish Historical Institute as part of its permanent exhibit on the fate of Warsaw's Jews during the period from 1939 to 1945. They present the daily lives and deaths of those imprisoned in the ghetto, their hopes and efforts to survive, their armed resistance and struggle, and finally their total extermination. Unique Polish and German archival materials were used in the preparation of these films.

To see the film preview, simply use the link for film no. 24 that can be found within the main Screening Room page by clicking here.

--Paint What You Remember: Mayer Kirshenblatt left Poland for Canada in 1934. Fifty-six years later, at age seventy-three Mayer began to paint his childhood memories of prewar life in Opatów. Before Second World War Opatów (or Apt in Yiddish) had ten thousand inhabitants, more than half of them Jewish. Nowadays, little is remembered of the shtetl character of the town and of its Jewish population wiped out entirely by the Holocaust.

In this film the audience is taken on a journey through a world, which existed seventy and eighty years ago, and back to today's world. We witness how the local population in Opatów interacts with perhaps the first Jew they ever meet – a person who represents a heritage so central in the history of the place, and yet so obscure to the people who live there today. Just as the people of contemporary Opatów, the viewer are introduced to a rich and vibrant world of Jewish rituals, celebrations and sorrows, holidays and funerals, trade and poverty – all this told and painted by an eye-witness, one of the very few remaining descendants of a lost civilization.

Sadly, Mayer passed away this past year, but his life and his passion for recreating the shtetl life that once existed in Opatów lives on in not only the aforementioned film of his work, but also within two exhibitions the Museum has created. Please visit both the Museum's main Kirshenblatt exhibition, as well as his work relating to the Jewish holidays.

--Tell Me Why: What one thing that is most difficult to discuss, and which happens to only so few of us... love. We dream of it, we struggle to find it... and want to believe that if we only do, the world will become a better place. But what if love comes to us at a time we ought to forget? What happens when love is intimately linked with tragedy?

A Polish Jew, Jurek Kamieniecki was just shy of 20 when the Second World War broke out in Poland. Together with his wife Stella they managed to survive the first year of the German occupation with the help of their Polish friend Janusz Malinowski. Janusz helped Jurek enter the Polish Home Army (AK) resistance and provided him and his family with false IDs. Thanks to this, in early 1940 Stella found asylum in the territories occupied by the Soviet Red Army. Though Jurek managed to illegally cross the border to see his wife, he chose to go back to the Polish partisan troops and continue resisting Nazi occupation.

To read more of the film's synopsis and see the film clip, please
visit www.museumoffamilyhistory.com/sr-27-tell-me-why.htm.

--The Last Witness: The documentary spins a tale of Samuel Willenberg's life. He was twenty at the outbreak of the armed revolt on August 2nd of 1943 in the death camp of Treblinka in Poland. As a result of the revolt four hundred out of a thousand inmates managed to escape Treblinka. Sixty-seven of them survived the war. The narrative, however, is here and now, against the background of today's Poland and Israel.

There were only three armed mutinies in the history of Nazi death camps. The first one was in Treblinka, the second one in Sobibór on October 1943 and the third was in Birkenau (Brzezinka) in October 1944. The mutinies were caused by the world's indifference towards the Holocaust. Claude Lanzman told the Sobibór revolt story in his "Sobibor". The ‘Last Witness’ is the first film to tell the story of the Treblinka revolt. You can see the video clip at www.museumoffamilyhistory.com/sr-28-last-witness.htm.

"Ghosts of Home: The Afterlife of Czernowitz in Jewish Memory"

Marianne Hirsch and Leo Spitzer have written a book about Czernowitz and the Museum, within the context of its Yiddish Vinkl Bookstore, has put online a synopsis of the book along with the book's preface. Here is a synopsis of the book:

The 20th century is over. Yet displaced survivors of its horrific wars and murderous “ethnic cleansings,” and their descendants now scattered throughout the world, are still haunted by the places they or their ancestors once called “home.” Many have made it their mission to research familial and cultural pasts, to revisit ancestral homes and to retrace the steps of lost family members, even when their initial information is scant. This longing for the past continues well into the twenty-first century and, in fact, is fueled by the enhanced possibilities for research offered by the Internet and even by DNA and genetic testing. Many important and minor sites that have long ceased to exist enjoy an active afterlife on the world wide web with websites devoted to them, listservs with growing memberships, and lively communities exchanging pictures and stories about their own or their parents’ past. This desire to reconstruct lost worlds seems to cross-generational, national, and ethnic lines.

We write about the afterlife in memory and history of one such place, Czernowitz – a city in Eastern Europe where, until its shattering and dispersal in the era of the Second World War, a large and assimilated -- predominantly German-speaking -- Jewish community once flourished.

Initially fascinating to us was the fact that Czernowitz, as a political entity, had in fact ceased to exist in 1918, with the collapse of the Austro-Hungarian Habsburg Empire in the aftermath of World War I. Yet throughout its subsequent iterations – Cernauti under Romanian rule, Chernovtsi, under the Soviets – its Jewish inhabitants continued to live there as though not much had changed. They held on to what the Habsburgs had been able to offer Jews – emancipation and the promise of social integration and equality, in exchange for linguistic and cultural assimilation to Austrian ways of life. Even those who survived deportation and immense suffering under fascist/Nazi domination continued to maintain and to transmit to us -- the postwar generation -- strongly positive, nostalgic memories of a tolerant multi-ethnic city and culture that had long disappeared in reality. At the very same time, however, they also transmitted traumatic memories of persecution, deportation, displacement, and the loss of home.

Ghosts of Home follows several generations of people from this city and their descendants. Through interviews and oral accounts, memoirs, family albums, objects and memorabilia, and through a number of trips to present-day Chernivtsi (now Ukraine), we tell a multi-stranded story about twentieth century European Jews. Parts of that story are familiar: the story of Jewish assimilation and secularization, of the German-Jewish symbiosis that was to turn so tragic, of the encounter between fascism and communism, of the lure of Zionism and Hebrew, and the equally powerful lure of diaspora nationalism and Yiddish, and, of course, the story of the Holocaust. But, situated at the crossroads between East and West, and between the Soviet and Western spheres, Czernowitz also offers unknown stories about the fate of Europe’s Jews: stories of resilience, rescue and survival, of choices made in impossible circumstances, of the continuation of normality under extremity, of the perpetuation of the dream of multi-ethnic tolerance against immeasurable odds. In this first historical account in English of Czernowitz, we bring this dream to life, but we also show how the search for the past can result in active engagements with the present, even when that present is located across the world.

You can read the preface of the book at www.museumoffamilyhistory.com/yv-ghosts-of-home.htm .

New to the MOFH Film Series: The Jews of Mukacheve, 1933"

Until March 7 you can see the complete film about the Jews of Mukacheve (also known as Munkacs and Munkatch) in 1933, including the two clips previously shown at the Museum as part of its Film Series:

"Wedding of Frime Chaye Rivke Spira - daughter of Grand Rebbe Eleazer Spira of Munkatch, author of Minchas Eleazer (d. 1936), to Rabbi Rabinowitz in March 1933. She was the mother of the present Munkatcher and Dinover Rebbes. Complete version.
Includes other scenes of Jewish life in Munkacs, Hungary, both of secular and religious Jews. 1. Wedding. Huge crowds of well wishers gather in the streets on the occasion of the wedding of the Munkacs Grand Rabbi's 18 year old daughter, Frime Chaye Rivke. The Munkatcher Rebbe makes a speech in Yiddish exhorting Jews in America to continue to keep Shabbos (to observe the sabbath day). The wedding party then enters the synagogue grounds, and the cantor sings blessings beneath the wedding canopy (chupah). The wedding concludes with festive hasidic music. Newspaper accounts indicate that some 20,000 people attended the celebrations. 2. Secular Jewish children singing in Munkatch. 3. Traditional Religious Jewish children studying in Orthodox Religious School in Munkatch. 4. Book peddler and weaver in Munkatch. 5. Secular Jews dancing in Munkatch." -from YouTube.

The film can be seen at www.museumoffamilyhistory.com/fs-mukacheve-03.htm .

New to the MOFH Film Series' Al Jolson Film Festival: "Jolson Sings 'Kol Nidre'"

From now until March 7 you can see and hear Al Jolson sing "Kol Nidre."

This clip comes from the 1939 film "Hollywood Cavalcade" which features many stars such as Don Ameche and Alice Faye. The Jolson clip appears in the following scene: Don Ameche walks up to the front doors of the Criterion Theatre and asks a man standing outside, an employee of the theatre, if he can get a ticket. The man says it is standing room only, and if he doesn't mind standing, he can go in. What's playing? The 1927 film "The Jazz Singer" -- a "Vitaphone Singing Picture" starring Al Jolson as Jakie Rabinowitz, a cantor's son who wants to be in show business and not follow in his father's footsteps. Ameche walks in to the back of the theatre and hears Jolie begin "Kol Nidre." He looks up to the screen and sees and hears Jolie, replete in cantorial garb, complete the prayer.

The film clip can be seen at www.museumoffamilyhistory.com/fs-ajff-03.htm .

New to the MOFH Film Series: The "Dance of Death" from "The Dybbuk"

From February 20 to March 7, The Museum of Family History's Yiddish World presents --
The "Dance of Death" from "The Dybbuk," a 1937 Yiddish film:

"From the 1937 Yiddish film, directed by Michal Waszynski, original music by Henoch Kon. The Dybbuk, or Between Two Worlds (Yid. דער דיבוק אדער צווישן צוויי וועלטן) is a 1914 play by S. Ansky, relating the story of a young bride possessed by a dybbuk — a malicious possessing spirit, believed to be the dislocated soul of a dead person — on the eve of her wedding.

The Dybbuk, is considered a seminal play in the history of Jewish theater, and played an important role in the development of Yiddish theatre and theatre in Israel. The play was based on years of research by S. Ansky, who travelled between Jewish shtetls in Russia and Ukraine, documenting folk beliefs and stories of the Hassidic Jews.

In 1937, the play, with some changes in the plot structure, was filmed by director Michał Waszyński in Warsaw, starring Lili Liliana as Leah, Leon Liebgold as Hannan (Channon, in the English-language subtitles), and Avrom Morevski as Rabbi Azrael ben Hodos. The film adds an additional act before those in the original play: it shows the close friendship of Sender and Nisn as young men. Besides the language of the film itself, the picture is noted among film historians for the striking scene of Leah's wedding, which is shot in the style of German Expressionism. The film is generally considered one of the finest in the Yiddish language.

The Dybbuk was filmed on location in Kazimierz, Poland, and in a Warsaw studio, in 1937."

Video and description from YouTube.

The film clip can be found at www.museumoffamilyhistory.com/yw-dybbuk-01.htm .

Material Needed: Jews in the Spanish Civil War

The Museum of Family History is constructing a small, online exhibition about the Spanish Civil War (which occurred between July 1936 and April 1939), especially how it affected the Jewish population both there and abroad, both as participants, e.g. soldiers/volunteers, or as civilians, and how in its aftermath created refugees, some of whom might have who immigrated to such countries as France and elsewhere.

The Museum would very much like to include personal stories from those who lived through this conflict, as well as a third person accounting of Jewish life in Spain and other locations during this period who were involved in this civil war. Perhaps you had family, e.g. from the U.S. or elsewhere, who volunteered to fight in this war, or who lived in a Spanish territory during this time.

If you lived through this period and have a story to tell (or have stories written or recorded as told to you or others from a family member or friend), or if you have photographs, family or otherwise, taken in these countries, etc., and would like to participate in this online exhibition, please contact the Museum directly at exhibitions@museumoffamilyhistory.com .

Great Britain Proposes a Jewish Colony in East Africa, 1903

In August of 1903 the sixth Zionist Congress was held in Basel, Switzerland. Dr. Theodor Herzl, president of the Congress, announced to those attending that Great Britain, in view of the failure of the plan to establish Jews on the Sinai Peninsula, had offered to the Zionists a large tract of territory in East Africa for colonization by the Jews, who would have an autonomous government under British suzerainty, or control.

You can read more about this proposition in an article published in the New York Daily Tribune. Just click on the link www.museumoffamilyhistory.com/zionism-africa-01-dt.htm . Several more articles on this subject, including one that tells about the rejection of this proposition, will appear at the Museum in the coming weeks.

The Museum's Education and Research Center Map Room: Topographical Maps of Poland and more of the 1920s and 30s

Are you curious to see what the topography was like around the town or city in which your family lived while in Eastern Europe before World War II? Would you like to know what small towns and villages existed within a particular area before World War II?

Displayed within five web pages within the Museum's Map Room are more than one hundred topographic maps of various regions in Poland, along with some from Belarus and the Ukraine. Most maps shown have been divided into a right half and left half. All of the maps were drawn and produced between World Wars I and II. It is interesting to note the names of the various towns and villages in the surrounding areas as they appeared before World War II, as well as of course the varying topography within each region. The range of coordinates are given for each map, or rather for each two maps shown, as most of the maps shown are split into two halves.

Please visit www.museumoffamilyhistory.com/maproom-1.htm .

A Look Back at the Coney Island of Yesteryear: A MOFH Video Presentation

Hurry, Hurry, step this way, for a nostalgic visit to the Coney Island of yesteryear!

The Museum of Family History invites you to spend an hour looking back at the once magnificent beach, boardwalk and amusement areas in Coney Island (from 1905 to 1952!), located in Brooklyn, New York. All videos come to you courtesy of YouTube. These films should be watched using Internet Explorer (though feel free to try using another browser!)

Here's what you can see for just one thin dime :

First, tag along with a group of young ladies from Miss Knapp's Select School as they spend the day at Coney Island in 1905.

Second, see Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle and Buster Keaton in the silent film "Coney Island." The clip shown features Beautiful Luna Park in 1917.

Third, For many decades the beach and boardwalk at Coney Island in Brooklyn, New York was the place to be on a hot summer day. There were also side shows and amusement parks with plenty of thrill rides, not to mention Nathan's famous hot dogs. See a YouTube video of the Coney Island of the 1940s and get a sense of how our family members who lived in the New York metro area spent their time more than five decades ago.

Fourth, you will see some of the Coney Island "freak show," which includes fire eaters, dancing girls and more, cir 1940s and 1950s.

Last, but not least: "Coney Island, U.S.A." (1952): "An impressionistic view of a day in the life of Coney Island from the desertion in the early morning to the hysteria at midnight. Commentary by Henry Morgan."

Come one, come all!!
The videos can be found at www.museumoffamilyhistory.com/mfh-coneyisland-ytv-01.htm .

MOFH Film Series: Now Showing, for Two Weeks Only

The current short films available within the Museum's Film Series will no longer be available for viewing beginning this coming Monday. Starting today, to be shown for two weeks, you may see the following:

"Immigration: An Instructional Film" (10:22).
Produced by the Encyclopedia Britannica Films, Inc. in 1946, this short film "reviews the history of immigration to the United States up to the restrictive law passed in 1924. A dramatized scene in a European steamship office is used to show the economic, political and religious motives for immigration. Contains scenes of Ellis Island and New York City in the early 20th century." This film plays only with Internet Explorer; however, a link is provided to another site that should enable you to play this film with other browsers.

See the Coney Island of the 1940s! (9:22).
For many decades the beach and boardwalk at Coney Island in Brooklyn, New York was the place to be on a hot summer day. There were also side shows and amusement parks with plenty of thrill rides, not to mention Nathan's famous hot dogs. See a YouTube video of the Coney Island of the 1940s and get a sense of how our family members who lived in the New York metro area spent their time more than five decades ago.

The Al Jolson Film Festival - "Broadway Highlights: Intimate News of the Gay White Way" (10:39).
This short takes us down Manhattan's Broadway in 1935 with five stops where interesting events are occurring. First at Jack Dempsey's Restaurant, there is a testimonial dinner to famed band leader, the "King of Jazz" Paul Whiteman; second a stop at the Winter Garden Theatre where there is a casting call for Earl Carroll's Vanities; third, a stop at the Hollywood Restaurant where Sophie Tucker performs "Some of these Days"; fourth we get a peek at opening night of "Ceiling Zero," a 1935 play with Osgood Perkins and Margaret Perry, performed at the Music Box Theatre on 45th Street. The final stop on this tour is the NBC building at Radio City, where there is a rehearsal for "Shell Chateau," one of Al Jolson's radio programs, with the Victor Young Orchestra and starring boxer Max Baer. Two months after this broadcast, Max Baer would lose a famed fight to down-and-out James J. Braddock (The "Cinderella Man" bout.)

World Jewish Communities: "Buying a Religious Book in Mukacheve" (1:08).
In this 1933 film clip, you can see students leaving a yeshiva and one boy seeking to by a religious book.

You can find links to these films at www.museumoffamilyhistory.com/mfh-films.htm .

MOFH Film Series: Last Day for Viewing

Tomorrow, Sunday, February 7th, will be the last day that you can see the following short films and clip as part of the new Museum of Family History's Film Series. After Sunday these films will be replace by new ones, which in turn, will only be available for viewing for two weeks (starting today):

"It's Your Story" - National Museum of American Jewish History (11:45).

The Museum, located in the heart of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania (address: Independence Mall East, 55 North 5th Street), is scheduled to open sometime during the Fall of 2010. Here you may view a nice introductory short film produced by the Museum. The Museum's website can be found at www.nmajh.org. YouTube, fast download.

The Museum's Al Jolson Film Festival - "Hollywood's Famous Feet" (8:40).
[Please note that this film clip is large and may take two minutes or longer to fully download.]

With Al Jolson doing the narration, this short presents the story behind the famous footprints and signatures outside of Grauman's Chinese Theatre in Hollywood, and many of the top names in Hollywood are on hand to view the proceedings, including John Wayne, Ralph Staub, Donna Reed, Gene Autry, Edgar Bergen, Sid Grauman, Ken Murray and John Stahl... -- per IMDb. Festival film clips come courtesy of the International Al Jolson Society (IAJS).
IAJG website: www.jolson.org .

World Jewish Communities: "The Children of Mukacheve Sing 'Hatikvah'" (0:53).
In this pre-war film clip, you can hear a couple of hundred children of Mukacheve, Hungary sing the wonderful anthem "Hatikvah."

You can find links to these clips as well as links to future film series entries at www.museumoffamilyhistory.com/mfh-films.htm .

The Evolution of the Immigrant: The Exodus of the Jew to the Upper East Side and its Causes

This 1903 article that appeared in the New York Daily-Tribune discusses the participation of Jews in the speculative real estate boom on the Upper East Side of Manhattan, which in this case refers to the area north of 59th Street.

The article states in part:

"The story of these men adjusting themselves to conditions and places is similar to that of nearly every Hebrew who once was recorded as an immigrant at Ellis Island. It is difficult for the Hebrew immigrant to forget the section of the city where he found himself and his family most welcome on arriving here. As years passed his affection for the section—the lower East Side—grew greater, if anything, and this fact was and is revealed nearly every week in many ways. Financial success caused many Hebrews to take homes uptown, but vast throngs of Hebrews who are now called wealthy, and who came to this country as immigrants, have up to the present time stood proof against all temptations to become identified in any way with any other section of the city than the lower East Side. Suddenly these Hebrews have changed "about face," and they have decided not only to become owners of tenement and flat houses in the section on the East Side north of Fifty-ninth St., but also hereafter to make their homes in that section. Is not this, indeed, an interesting spectacle in realty affairs, and an important real estate movement in the history of this city?"

This is article number 117 within the Museum's Newspaper Archives. It can be found at www.museumoffamilyhistory.com/les-upper-eastside.htm .

New for Poland Researchers

For those of you with an interest in the Polish towns of Augustow and Wizna, please visit the two pages I've created for these towns.

On the Augustow page you will find two calendars published by the Yagustower Progressive Association (W.C. Branch no. 77 from 1919 and 1925).
link: www.museumoffamilyhistory.com/lndsmn-augustow-01.htm .

On the Wizna page you will find an image of a pin created by the society for its members. You'll also see the photos of the gates of the society's burial plots in New York and New Jersey with a link to the unique surnames list for Wizna for all New York and New Jersey Wizna society burials. www.museumoffamilyhistory.com/lndsmn-wizna-01.htm .

Don't forget that the Museum has a page that lists the towns in Poland that are associated with the many online exhibitions at the Museum. Link: www.museumoffamilyhistory.com/poland.htm .
Also for the area of Bialystok www.museumoffamilyhistory.com/bialystok-region.htm.
There is also a Lithuania page at www.museumoffamilyhistory.com/litvak.htm .

Other recent additions mentioned in previous blog posts:

The Lodz Ghetto Cemetery Burial List:
www.museumoffamilyhistory.com/ce/ghetto/ghetto-xyz.htm .

From Kishinev to Bialystok: A Table of Pogroms From 1903-1906:
www.museumoffamilyhistory.com/ajc-yb-v08-pogroms.htm .

Instructions Imprinted on Letter Cards sent from Concentration Camps:
www.museumoffamilyhistory.com/ce/cc/cc-instructions.htm .

Instructions for sending letters, material and money to concentration camp inmates

I have received a number of translations of instructions for senders of material, money, etc. to camp inmates. These instructions were imprinted on postal cards used at concentration camps such as Auschwitz. They are instructions for those who would receive these cards from those who were incarcerated in a camp. One such translation, from an Auschwitz card, is shown below. It should be noted that such instructions were standard, as I have similar or the same exact instructions imprinted on cards from other camps such as Buchenwald, Dachau, Mauthausen, Ravensbruck, Sachsenburg, Sachsenhausen, Theresienstadt et al.

I have been informed that the Sachsenburg concentration camp was the first concentration camp to provide printed lettercards for prisoner correspondence, beginning in 1935. Of course, letters that came into and out of the various camps had to pass through censors. Often times the actual stamps on the cards were removed by the censors to see if there were any secret messages hidden under the stamps.

Below then is a translation from an Auschwitz letter card, though as I've stated, the instructions are similar or the same for other camps. By the way, I have examples of such instructions from the mid to late thirties through at least 1944. You can see other examples of such instructions at
www.museumoffamilyhistory.com/ce/cc/cc-instructions.htm . Here then is the translation from the Auschwitz letter card:

The following orders must be observed at letter exchanges with prisoners:

1) Each preventive detention prisoner is allowed to receive and send each month two letters or (post)cards from his relatives. The letter to the prisoners must be readable, written with ink, and can contain only fifteen lines per sheet. Only normal sized letter sheets are permitted. Envelopes must not be lined but simple. A single letter can contain only five stamps of 12 Pfg (= Pfennig). All others are forbidden and will be seized.

2) The sending of money is not allowed.

3) It is important that in the sending of post or the transfering of money, the exact address must consist of the name, the date of birth, and prisoner's number. If the address is not exact it will be returned or destroyed.

4) Newspapers are allowed but must be ordered at the post office of the K.L Auschwitz only. ( K.L = Konzentrations Lager).

5) Sending of parcels is not allowed since prisoners can buy anything in the camp.

6) Requests to the direction of the camp to free from preventive detention (ie. imprisonment) are pointless.

7) Permission to speak or to meet with prisoners in the Concentration Camp is absolutely not allowed.

The Commandant of the Camp.

Within the 'Pale' of Jewish Russia, cir 1910; More for Ukraine Researchers

The Museum of Family History now has for you a 1910 newspaper article from the Herald-Republican of Salt Lake City, Utah.

Entitled "Within the 'Pale' of Jewish Russia" and written by B.T. Marshall, this article should be interesting to Ukraine researchers for a number of reasons.

First, the author of the article talks about the Jews of Kiev (spelled 'Kief' in this article), and how, despite the persecution and atrocities committed against them in the past, showed much resilience to that point and "now control the best shops, factories, theatres, etc..."

Secondly, the author talks about the Jews of Odessa; this includes an "interesting" quote from a non-Russian Jew there.

The author also describes what he believes to be the cause of the pogroms and describes Jewish life in the Pale, in the military, etc.

Thirdly, this article talks about the overall state of Russian Jewry in the Pale of Settlement during this time period. It should be an interesting read for you.

This article is one of more than one hundred articles in the Museum's Newspaper Archive which can be found at www.museumoffamilyhistory.com/archive-newspaper.htm. The article itself can be found directly at www.museumoffamilyhistory.com/eej-pale-01.htm.

More for Ukraine researchers:
The listing of much of the Museum's material of interest to Ukraine researchers can be found at www.museumoffamilyhistory.com/ukraine.htm.

And don't forget the Duma Report and listing of pogroms (1903-6), many of which occurred in what is today's Ukraine. This can be found at www.museumoffamilyhistory.com/ajc-yb-v08-pogroms.htm.

Unique surnames for burials in New York associated with society plots for nine Ukrainian towns. Learn the town names by visiting the Recent Updates page at www.museumoffamilyhistory.com/update.htm.

Lastly, you can see and hear a minute audio clip of a few dozen Jewish children in Mukacheve, Ukraine (Munkacs, Hungary) sing "Hatikvah." The link is www.museumoffamilyhistory.com/fs-mukacheve-01.htm. The last day that this clip will be available at the Museum is February 6, so see it before it goes offsite.

Congregation Shearith Israel, a.k.a. the Spanish-Portuguese Synagogue, of New York, cir 1897

Congregation Shearith Israel, also known as the Spanish and Portuguese Synagogue is located in New York City, and has used five buildings during its long history as places of worship. The congregation's first synagogue was readied for worship in 1730 on Mill Street (though the first Spanish and Portuguese Jews arrived in New York in 1654).

The fifth building used as a synagogue by the congregation was located on West 70th Street, beginning in 1897.

I have just put an article from the New York Daily Tribune (dated May 23, 1897) on my Museum website that discusses not only the dedication of the building, on West 70th Street, but also describes events there (Services) as well as such notables as Rev. Dr. Sabato Morais (Philadelphia), Rev. Nieto and Rev. Mendola De Sola (of Montreal). An interesting read.

The article can be found at www.museumoffamilyhistory.com/syn-nyc-shearith-israel-01.htm.

I hope to put on more interesting articles to researchers with Sephardic roots. A listing of the Museum's more than one hundred articles can be found at www.museumoffamilyhistory.com/archive-newspaper.htm.

Lodz Ghettto Cemetery Burial List

In advance of the Museum's large online exhibition later this year about many of the Jewish Ghettos of Europe, I thought it would be good to make available to you two lists comprised of nearly fourteen hundred names of Jewish residents who perished in the Lódz Ghetto and were buried in the cemetery there. You needn't look up a specific person's name in a database; they are all there for you to see on a single web page.

These lists are by no means complete, as there were no doubt many more of our ancestors who died in the Ghetto and were buried there. However, these lists might just help some of you who had family in the Ghetto during World War II with your Lódz family research. The lists give the names of the deceased, and often the father's name, the date of death and age at death.

The lists come to you courtesy of the Lódz Jewish community through the agency of Yad LeZehava (YZI) in Kedumim Israel and with the dedicated cooperation of the officers and men in the IDF 'Witnesses in Uniform' Program.

The lists can be found at www.museumoffamilyhistory.com/ce/ghetto/lodz-ghetto-cemetery.htm.

Brooklyn's 16th Ward Ghetto in 1899

Another article, this one from an 1899 edition of the Brooklyn Daily-Eagle, in which a reporter is taken on a tour of the then Sixteenth Ward--the Brunswick/East Williamsburg area of Brooklyn--and reports on the deplorable conditions he found there. The article starts in part:

There are many sweatshops in the Sixteenth Ward Ghetto which, from time to time, have been inspected by the Health authorities of this borough.... Great numbers of garments, cheap and costly, such as are worn by men, women and children, are made in these shops, and these goods are sold in every borough of Greater New York. For this reason, my reader, if for no other, you have a personal interest in this Ghetto, as you will see even by even brief reflection. For the germs of deadly disease maybe conveyed long distances in clothing. The makers of these skirts, cloaks, shirts, trousers, overcoats and children's clothing are, for a great part, Polish and Russian Jews, who toil in such unsanitary shops....and [they] live in miserable little rooms of poorly constructed old wooden tenements. Hundreds of these toilers cannot speak English, are unfamiliar with our laws and customs, have come from lands in which oppression and dire poverty drove them into wretched habitations from which pure air, sunshine and the water necessarily to cleanliness were shut out....

You can read the full article at www.museumoffamilyhistory.com/bklyn-16thwardghetto.htm.
You can chooose from more than one hundred other articles published around the turn of the twentieth century at www.museumoffamilyhistory.com/archive-newspaper.htm.

Museum's Cemetery Project: New Unique Surnames Lists Ready for Viewing

The gravestones in the following society plots have been photographed and the names of the deceased recorded. The plots are listed by the name of the town that is associated with each plot.

You can find the links to these lists at www.museumoffamilyhistory.com/cp-townlist.htm. If you find a surname of interest and would like the photo sent to you, please email the Museum at postmaster@museumoffamilyhistory.com and indicate the surname and the town associated with the listing. Here are the towns:

Budanov, Ukraine
Lokachi, Ukraine
Bitola/Monastir, Yugoslavia/Macedonia
Pukhovichi, Belarus
Khoshchevatoye, Ukraine
Stavishche, Ukraine
Divin, Belarus
Pomoryany, Ukraine
Shargorod, Ukraine
Novogrudok, Belarus
Raygorodok, Ukraine
Shumskoye, Ukraine
Voynilov, Ukraine

There are other society plots for each town located within other cemeteries within the New York metro area, but these burials are from Beth Moses Cemetery only in Pinelawn, New York. There are no plans to photograph the other plots for the towns noted.

The Jewish Children of Mukacheve, Hungary Sing "Hatikvah"

I have added a third short film (fifty-three seconds) to the current MOFH Film Series showings.
You can now see and hear a couple of hundred Jewish children sing "Hatikvah" in pre-World (1933) War II Mukacheve (Munkacs), Hungary. The link is www.museumoffamilyhistory.com/fs-mukacheve-01.htm. The clip is in an mp4 format and is best seen and heard using Internet Explorer.

MOFH New Film Series

As most of the Museum's fans already know, there is a great number of both audio and video clips on display within the Museum. One may, for instance, watch any of more than two dozen video clips--previews created from documetaries with a Jewish theme. The link is www.museumoffamilyhistory.com/screeningroom.htm.

There are also many, many sound clips that are also available for "your listening pleasure." You may access the lists of all the audio and video content found within the Museum by visiting www.museumoffamilyhistory.com/multimedia.htm.

The Museum of Family History, always wishing to add more interesting features and content, would like to announce the creation of its new "MFOH Film Series," which will present short films or clips shown nowhere else on the Museum's website. What is different about this Series--as opposed to other content on its site--is that these films will only be available for a short period of time, i.e. usually from one day to one week, and then it will no longer be available at the Museum for viewing.

The dates of each film showing will be stated on the Museum's Film Series page.
From Sunday, January 24 to Saturday, February 6th, you can see two short films (those who visit the Museum blog may have an earlier viewing of these two films beginning today).

The first two filma available for viewing are (the duration of the clip is indicated within the parentheses):

"It's Your Story" - National Museum of American Jewish History (11:45).
The Museum, located in the heart of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania (address: Independence Mall East, 55 North 5th Street), is scheduled to open sometime during the Fall of 2010. Here you may view a nice introductory short film produced by the Museum. The Museum's website can be found at http://www.nmajh.org/.

The Al Jolson Film Festival - "Hollywood's Famous Feet" (8:40).
With Al Jolson doing the narration, this short presents the story behind the famous footprints and signatures outside of Grauman's Chinese Theatre in Hollywood, and many of the top names in Hollywood are on hand to view the proceedings, including John Wayne, Ralph Staub, Donna Reed, Gene Autry, Edgar Bergen, Sid Grauman, Ken Murray and John Stahl... -- per IMDb. Festival film clips come courtesy of the International Al Jolson Society (IAJS).
Website: http://www.jolson.org/. This clip is presented to you in an mp4 format, so hopefully you will be able to watch it. Please be patient and wait for it to load--it make take one minute or longer, depending on the speed of your Internet connection. More Jolson Festival clips will follow after February 6.

You can access both short films by using the links provided at www.museumoffamilyhistory.com/mfh-films.htm. Future films will be included on this webpage in the near future.

The Museum of Family History, a New Member of the Association of Holocaust Organizations

The Museum of Family History is pleased to announce that it has been accepted as a member of the AHO, i.e. the Association of Holocaust Organizations. The AHO has, as its members, over two hundred and eighty organizations, including the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum and the Museum of Jewish Heritage.

According to the AHO, The Association of Holocaust Organizations was established in 1985 to serve as an international network of organizations and individuals for the advancement of Holocaust education, remembrance and research.

The AHO website can be found at http://www.ahoinfo.org/.

Call for Material: "The Jewish Ghetto" and "Never Forget: Visions of the Nazi Camps"

Many new online exhibitions are being planned for 2010 at the virtual Museum of Family History. Two such exhibitions are entitled "The Jewish Ghetto" and "Never Forget: Visions of the Nazi Camps."

"The Jewish Ghetto" will feature information about and photographs of many of the ghettos that once existed. There will also be first-hand testimony given by some of those who were forced to live in these ghettos during the Second World War, not only in written form, but also as short audio-visual clips.

The Museum depends on people like you for material to build its exhibitions. So, with that in mind, the Museum would like to send out a "call for material" to all of you for any material you possess that you think might fit in well with this exhibition. It is preferred that you not send any original material and that you send what you have as jpegs or Word documents by email.

Have you photographs of any of the ghettos? Written testimony from someone who lived in a ghetto (or perhaps you yourself lived in one)? Have you either audio or video testimony, where you recount your experiences in the ghetto? Are you the translator of a Yizkor book that contains testimony of those who lived in a ghetto?

If you have any questions, please contact me (Steve) at steve@museumoffamilyhistory.com .

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Another exhibition in the works is an augmentation of an ongoing exhibition of the same name that currently contains photographs taken within the last ten or so years of the former concentration camps of Europe, which today mostly serve as memorials and museums. The new exhibition "Never Forget: Visions of the Nazi Camps" will be similar to the "Ghetto" exhibition in that it will tell about many of the concentration, labor and transit camps in both first- and third-person.

The Museum is looking for testimony for this exhibition as well as that of the "Ghetto" exhibition. The Museum also needs current-day photographs (ie. within the last two decades) of many of the former concentration, labor, and transit camps. The Museum has a limited collection, but is in need of more, i.e. photographs of former camps not included within its current collection. If you have any such photographs, please contact me at steve@museumoffamilyhistory.com first before you send them, in order to make sure that they are needed.