WWII Letters and Documents - Found Online

Last month, I wrote how I found out that my great-great grandfather's brother's family ended up in Moscow and that not only were he and his wife buried in Moscow, but so was at least one of their daughters, Bluma/Lyuba Tolchinsky Frolov, who would have been my great grandfather's half first cousin.  A reader pointed out that the Bluma/Lyuba's husband wasn't actually buried in the cemetery and had been killed in WWII.  Using that tip, I found information about the husband's service--as well as a handwritten letter that Bluma/Lyuba wrote to try to discover what exactly had happened to her husband.

Letter from Lyuba Frolov, 1944

Email Subscribers - Moving to New Platform

If you're receiving this via email, thank you for subscribing!  Feedburner, which has been sending these automated emails, is stopping email service in July, so I've migrated my list over to MailChimp.  Today only, you should get this from both Feedburner and MailChimp, but assuming everything works well tonight, you'll only receive emails from MailChimp from this point on.

 

Chava Lefand Appeals to Another Czar

My 5th great grandmother Chava Lefand left quite the paper trail. I've made several posts about her legal journey to try to get her sons out of being conscripted (after having lost at least 2 young sons to the draft). You can read about some of her previous attempts here, here and here.  In that first post, she wrote to Czar Nicholas in 1854.  Nicholas died in 1855, and in 1858, Chava was still pursuing her case, and she appealed to Czar Alexander II.  Don't mess with Chava's kids!

Chava Lefand's Case (on Alexander II's Letterhead)