Monday, May 30, 2022

Giving Them Names - Finding Names of Holocaust Victims

My grandmother was able to tell me about her mother's first cousin, Chaim Fine.  Chaim was killed in the Holocaust--as were his wife and their daughters.  But my grandmother couldn't remember the names of Chaim's wife and girls.  And after watching the Shoah Foundation video of one of her other cousins, he also just mentioned "Uncle Chaim and his children."  For more than three decades, Chaim's wife and daughters have been listed on my family tree as "Wife of Chaim Fine" and "Daughter1 of Chaim Fine," etc.  I've been able to identify and memorialize more distant relatives who were killed in the Holocaust, but these Fine cousins' names were just a huge gap.  But now I am able to give them names.

Fajn Family, 1932

Sunday, May 1, 2022

Look for Obscure Sources Too; How I Found a Written Mention of Shlomo Diment

My paternal grandfather was a Holocaust survivor.  From him and his surviving siblings, I knew they had a brother Shlomo who was murdered by the Nazis soon after his bar mitzvah.  Their older sister Kreina was also murdered, along with her husband and their young daughter.  I've found mention of Kreina in written documents--both her birth record and a form filled out by my great grandfather relating to her schooling.  But other than oral history, I've seen no written document with Shlomo's name.  But now I have.

Diment Family, 1932; 286.1.68 - Lists of residents of Czaruków gmina of Jewish nationality