In hopelessness all attempts to recover past are similar to efforts to
understand meaning of life. One feels like a newborn that tries to catch a
basketball – it slips through the hands.
Josef Brodsky “Less than 1”
A heart beats even when it should tear apart.
Cheslav Milosh. “Elegy N.N.”
Road to
father’s home
(trip journal)
Introduction
Age keeps off us from childhood events but brings us closer to our parents.
Maybe one should go a part of the path to feel their state in the different
moments of life. I started to think about my roots about 3 years ago.
Timidly at first then more often I was thinking about visiting the place of
birth and youth of my father because it happened that I’ve never been
there…
It was known that shtetl Frampol, where my father
Freider
Sanya Moiseevich is from, does not exist on the map of Khmelnitskiy
region (former Kamenets-Podolskiy), Ukraine. It wasn’t clear if this
shtetl disappeared, was renamed, or maybe what was left of it had got
another name. Through Internet I found where it is located now and that its
new name is Kosogorka.
We arrived to Khmelnitskiy region by a train that was going from Moscow to
Lvov. When saying “we” I mean myself, Freider Mikhail Sanevich, and my
wife, Larisa Nikolaevna (Larisa). Now we live in Chelyabinsk city, Russia.
We knew
beforehand that we would have difficulties with language and transportation
there. So we’ve been able to communicate with an organization that manages
many parts of Jewish social life in 2 Ukranian regions - Hmel’nistskiy and
Ternopolskiy. Its name is Khmelnitskiy Regional Welfare Fund “Hesed-Besht”.
When I talked by phone with its director Igor Ratushniy I was promised
complete support and help during our trip in the places of our ancestors.
We’ve been given a car with a driver Vitaliy and a guide Ludmila Pisklova.
It’s impossible to list all Ludmila’s job activities but her formal job
title is a librarian but really she is also a local historian, a tour guide, a
cameraman and a director of small performances, and a designer of different
materials for the fund “Hesed-Besht”. She was helping us with all problems
including finding a hotel and translating from the Ukranian language.
Monday, May 28th 2001
Khmelnitskiy City, “Hesed-Besht”
We’ve found a room in the “Eneida” hotel. It’s a three-star hotel
that is located in the city central plaza. It had everything we needed even
the well-known defect in the post-Soviet countries such as complete absence
of hot water during summer months for easier repairs. Our room had a
bathroom, TV, and refrigerator.
After we’ve settled in the hotel we’ve reviewed the materials from the
“Hesed-Besht” fund and got some short facts about Jewish community of
Khmelnitskiy city. The community was created mostly not from original
citizens because all those people were killed during World War II. Before
the war about 40,000 Jews lived in Proskurov (former name of Khmelnitskiy
city before 1954) that was 50% of the whole population. Current community
members are people who arrived to new factories and their descendants. The
fund has an account of 2,000 Jewish families. Evidently there are mixed
families too.
“Hesed-Besht” organizes the culture life of all Jewish community in the
city including holiday celebrations, Jewish education, language studies and
local history work. At the same time it also acts as a support center for
poor, elder and sick people. It provides them with food, drugs and fuel,
repairs their home supplies, helps with transportation, and organizes
different activities for elder people The fund’s office is greatly
decorated, has many interesting materials including information about
soldiers of WWII and even a museum. The two-story building is just
beautiful. One can feel great informal work atmosphere of the whole team and
organizational talent of the director Igor Ratushniy. We didn’t meet him
because he was on a business trip but the results tell about him anyway.
This fund is located also in the center of the city very close to our hotel
“Eneida”. The day we arrived was a Jewish holiday called “Shvuas”
(“Shavuot”). There was a large number of socializing people inside the
fund building.
During
our time at “Hesed-Besht” we’ve been allowed to use their computer
database of the registered people. We haven’t found our nicknames.There are
only two Jewish families in the Yarmolintsy district that is located nearby
Kosogorka. We’ve decided to ask Mikhail Danilovych Lahterman to be our guide
in Kosogorka.
Khmelnitskiy City, Regional Archive of Khmelnitskiy Region,
Statistical Committee, Local History Museum
After visiting “Hesed-Besht” we arrived to Regional Archive that was
near our hotel on the Grushevsky street, 99. Former Ludmila’s connections
with a personal of the archive have helped us to access an archive easily
but it didn’t have any birth, death or marriage records during Soviet
period and other documents were not well systematized. The cause was of
course the war during 1941-1945. According to the personal all census
records are stored in Statistical Committee and old birth, death and
marriage records are stored in the local Civil Registry Offices. In general,
work with archives requires special knowledge of the archives and the
Ukranian language. Regular archivists perform searches according queries for
the assigning state pensions and do not conduct any genealogical researches.
Our visit to Statistical Committee was not successful either because they
had just general census data. They even didn’t know that Frampol was
renamed to Kosogorka and when the settlement spot was changed.
After that we went to Local History Museum desiring to find out a documental
connection between Frampol and Kosogorka. Ludmila has good contacts there
too. We’ve been given the book called “Printed materials of Podolsk
Arch-Diocese Historic-Statistical Committee. Issue 9. Parishes and churches
of Podolsk Arch-Diocese.” edited by Evfimiy Szinskiy and printed in
Kamenets-Podolsk in 1901. The books said about Frampol that a climate is
healthy and ground is a black earth. “Frampol appeared in the beginning of
eighteen century because of large road from Kamenets-Podolskiy to Proskurov.
It was quickly settled especially by Jews. Frampol had 595 houses in 1894 of
which there had been 565 Jewish houses, 13 shops…” No descriptions of
renaming have been found.
Khmelnitskiy City, City Tour
After our visit to the Local History Museum Ludmila has conducted a tour
around the city center for us. The city is very clean, green and traffic is
not intensive. Maybe it seems this way because there are some streets made
especially for pedestrians. One street actually is completely closed for
cars. The beautiful central plaza has a great building with tower. It’s
regional Rada. There are fir-trees in front of the
building.
There are only a few Jewish houses left. (
house1,
house2,
house3).
Even those left have been redecorated outside. Mostly the facades of the
lower levels have been changed. Upper levels still have beautiful
decorations, patterns and other special façade features. One of the houses
has handsome door with metallic grid. Generally even these houses don’t
look very old. I think they were built in the beginning of 20-th century.
Main street was called Maranzovka (after rich Jew Maranz that owned houses
on this street) and renamed to Proskurovskaya now. Current building of the
Art Museum is distinguished on this street; it was “
South
Russian Industrial Bank” before. There is a
private
house of a Jew Derevoed nearby where he had a pharmacy; it’s now a
post office.
“Hesed-Besht” is currently restorating a memorial on the site where Jews
killed during 1920 pogrom were buried. In 1920 during several hours 1600
Jewish people were killed by robbers. Texts and bas-relieves of the monument
are being conciliated, and construction stairs cover the monument itself.
The memorial is planned to open in 2001.
After the
city tour it was already late and we’ve been resting in our hotel room. The
weather during this day and all the following ones was not appropriate for
long walks; it was cloudy, often with showers and freezing wind. Looks like
the weather in the Khmelnitskiy region is not stable during month of May.
Tuesday, May 29th 2001
From my childhood I remembered some strange names of father’s birthplace
like shtetl Frampol, town Yarmolintsy (the Yarmolintsy district). It seems
that is was a small part on a far end of the earth where only Jewish people
lived. At the same time the shtetl was seen as a big village because my
father walked on those street, conducted long walks to a school, stole
apples from the neighbor’s garden and watched as his father, a shochet
(Jewish ritual slaughterer), worked.
The Yarmolintsy Town
And now we are on the way to the current Kosogorka. In the beginning we’ve
arrived to Yarmolintsy. Our path was going thru the good highway. There are
many green trees on the both sides of the road such as poplars, acacias, and
chestnuts. Yarmolintsy is a large settlement with 15-20 thousand people but
most of the houses there stand in the greens.If one looks more precisely one
can see that houses are very accurate, mostly made of brick. We’ve arrived
to Mikhail Danilovych Lahterman and became acquainted with him and his wife,
Klavdiya Mikhailovna. Originally she is from Leningrad (called
Saint-Petersburg now), she has moved to the motherland of Mikhail Danilovych
then where they have grown a son and a daughter and even have grandchildren
and great-grandchildren now. Their children live nearby, so the apartment
door is never closed because their grandchildren and great-grandchildren do
not allow their grandmother and grandfather to be bored. We hadn’t stayed
long in the comfortable Lahterman’s apartment (it’s an apartment in the
2-story building for several families) but we’ve felt the peaceful and
agreeable atmosphere in their home.
Mikhail Danilovych was born in 1927 and left the village along with Soviet
Army in 1941. Nevertheless the war left a big trace in his family – his
father was arrested and killed in Frampol where Mikhail Danilovych have been
many times as well. During the war he lived with his mother in Bucharia and
then he was recruited to the Soviet Army in 1944. He finished the war in
Kenigsberg.
Possibly we were messing up some of family’s plans for that day but
Mikhail Danilovych has agreed to help us in Kosogorka anyway. He’s changed
the clothes and we’ve looked at his war badges. During the trip Mikhail
Danilovych has made every possible efforts that we can get all available
pieces of information from the natives of this district. We felt that he is
authorative old inhabitant of this district and that he has good warm
relations with surrounding neighbors.
The Kosogorka Village (Frampol)
Childhood years are always bright and joyful even if they are not very
nourishing. My father didn’t talk much about his childhood possibly
because of the absence of good listeners. The Frampol shtetl had a Jewish
school where my father studied for 5 years. Last 2 years he studied in the
Ukranian school and I remember it was not inside that shtetl. Many villagers
died in 1933 when the great hunger came. Father’s father Moisha (I was
named after him actually) died in 1935. Father’s mother name is Brana (My
sister is named after her as well as Bronislava). She was often sick and
couldn’t supply enough food for the family conducting small trades. My
father also had an older sister and younger brother.
The distance between Khmelnitskiy and Yarmolintsy is 35 km and we’ve
covered it in 20 minutes. There are another 15 km further to Kosogorka. The
signs with the names of the known villages was passing by Tomashevka,
Semenovka…and suddenly the sign with big letters appeared – KOSOGORKA
(translated as small oblique mountain) though we were expecting another 2 km
before the village. We’ve made
pictures
of it and the main sign before entering the village as well. The road
was going up not very steeply confirming the word “gorka” (small
mountain) in the village’s name.
Once we’ve arrived to the top of the mountain the plain open square
appeared, it was about 150m long and wide. It was almost empty except for
the several covered trade tables that were empty and not used any more as
we’ve found out later. The one-story municipal building stands in the
right corner of the square.
Mikhail
Danilovych said that Jews lived exactly here, in the middle of the village. I
knew that Jews usually lived in the center of the settlement but it looked
like that there is not enough space on this square for 1000 Jews who lived in
Frampol before the WWII. Ukranian houses stand outside of the square on
steeper sides of the mountain. By the way, the mountain is really oblique (“kosaya”)
and it has some steep and flat parts. Houses stand far from each other with
kitchen-gardens nearby, and chickens, gooses and turkeys walk near the houses.
All
houses are well-built, some of them made of brick. Many green trees grow
in the area and the surrounding view is just beautiful.
In
the municipality we’ve talked to a head of administration. He didn’t
have any lists of inhabitant staff before the war and even didn’t know when
and why the settlement was renamed from Frampol to Kosogorka. We wanted to
talk to old village inhabitants and he allowed us to visit his secretary
Garbuz Tat’yana Bronislavovna. Tat’yana Bronislavovna couldn’t remember
the year of renaming as well. She only remembered that an attempt was made to
rename Kosogorka back to Frampol about 10 years ago. But younger inhabitants
who had all the documents with stated Kosogorka name were against the name
change.
She has
taken us to her mother and other elder people who lived during 1920-941 years
and could possibly remember Sanya Freider, who ran on these roads, by his last
name and the photos. They could not recall him that day, human memory is not
perfect.
Kosogorka
has 290 houses now but young people leave the village because they can’t
find work there. Jewish population does not present at all. Actually only one
Jewish house is left with standing out rails by the windows on the second
floor. Evidently there was a balcony before. The fascists hanged 5 Jews found
in the surrounding area right on these rails. Another four Jews were hanged on
the tree near this house.
We’ve
talked to the oldest inhabitant in the village Ksenya
Grigorievna Polonar (her maiden name is Lizun) who was born in 1909. She
couldn’t recognize my father of the photo but told stories about joined life
of Jews and Ukranians. They were members of different farming cooperatives,
Jewish and Ukranian, but sometimes worked in both. Villagers communicated with
each other using both languages, Ukranian and Yiddish. Ksenya Grigorievna even
said one phrase in Yiddish to our surprise indicating she still has a strong
memory. One can feel that very friendly relationships existed in the community
before 1941. We’ve made a photo of the oldest inhabitant in the village and
wished her vigour and good health. We asked Ksenya Grigorievna and others who
we talked to about the place of killing the Jewish people. Everybody mentioned
the Yarmolintsy railstation.
All
inhabitants talked to us in the Ukranian language; we thought before that it
would be easy to understand most of their speech for us as people from Russia
but apparently about half of the words sounded unfamiliar. Ludmila talked to
people and then translated everything for us. Accordingly when we talked in
Russian it seemed that they understood us with difficulties.
My
father had very good grades in school. He knew mathematics and Jewish grammar
well, and from time to time he wrote letters in Yiddish during his whole life.
Last 2 years of the 7-year education he studied at the Ukranian school. He
helped Ukranian pupils with mathematics and in their turn they helped him with
the Ukranian language. I remembered only one teacher’s name –
Harlamb. Teachers from the Jewish school also gave lessons in the Ukranian
school.
We were shown a
pre-war Jewish school building that was located near the synagogue, the
synagogue was not preserved itself. Former school building is a one-story
barrack that is currently used as the community
club. An obelisk with the names of the villagers who died at the fronts
during WWII is located near the school’s building. I’ve made a photo with
Larisa, Tat’yana Bronislavovna, Ludmila, and Mikhail Danilovych near
the obelisk.
The Ukranian school
building also still exists and it was recently repaired for use as a middle
school. We’ve met a director of the school Onapryuk Petr Anatol’evich
who exited from the second school’s building that serves as a high school.
He explained to us that the school has 60 students. Students conduct a
research of the village’s history but pre-war photos and community lists
have not been saved. The director pointed to the heap of bricks nearby and
said that a thick stone wall with an arch that looked very old was found
inside one of the destroyed Jewish houses. I’ve read that there was a square
trade wall in the center of the shtetl that existed from 18-th century.
Actually it was the first thing I was trying to identify upon entering the
village.
Tat’yana
Bronislavovna remembered the director of the Ukranian school named Harlamb who
also taught the German language. He was her teacher too. Harlamb died in 1965.
This man lived through the tragedy because during the war fascists caught and
killed his guiltless daughter who was hiding in the village. And his wife,
Sofia Zalevna, died merely old. Harlamb was the school director before 1941
and after the war. He had a great influence on the children of Frampol and
then Kosogorka. His grave together with the wife’s grave is located on the
Jewish cemetery; we’ve seen it later.
The Kosogorka Village (Frampol), Jewish Cemetery
My grandfather Moisha was buried on the cemetery near the shtetl. My
father moved to Leningrad searching for work in 1937. He left his mother, older
sister and younger brother in Frampol. I don’t know if he came back to
Frampol before 1941. In 1940 he was recruited to the Soviet Army and he
served in Siberia that’s why he started the war near the Kalinin city in
1942. He didn’t get any letters from the relatives during the war.
We’ve made a last observation of the square where the houses of the
Frampol shtetl stood a while ago and were directed to the Jewish cemetery.
We couldn’t see it during our arrival to the village because it’s
located downhill about 50m to the left of the road sign. A monument to those
who were killed during WWII stands near the cemetery entrance. It shows 7
Jewish last names, the
heavy
plate fell off and lies on the ground. One of the last name says O.
Freider, of course it’s some unknown to me relative because there were
only about 2 families in Frampol with such last name and besides, this last
name is rare too.
All graves are located on the territory of 1 hectare. There are about
150-200 tombstones with inscriptions in Hebrew I think. One part of the
tombstones fell off and another sunk into the ground. Looks like it’s a
cemetery from 20
th century because number of graves approximately
equals to the number of Frampol’s inhabitants in the beginning of century.
We haven’t noted any traces of vandalism. We made pictures of about 15
tombstones that didn’t require any special preparations for making a
photo. We only cleaned them little bit using a scraper and a brush. Usually
there was no inscription on the reverse side of a tombstone. We’ve been
somewhere near to the grave of my grandfather but couldn’t identify it
because nobody could read the inscriptions on the tombstones. Both
front
and
rear
sides of one of the tombstones were in very good condition.
One of plates was
inscribed in Russian; it was the plate of the Harlamb’s wife, Sofia Zalevna
Harlamb. (1905-1955) His undecorated grave was right beside hers. With guilty
feeling Tatyana Borisovna said twice that it’s a shame that his grave does
not have the appropriate tombstone.
In whole, the
cemetery is in good shape. Unfortunately we didn’t ask whether a number of
tombstones decreased during and after the war or maybe they’ve been used for
the cooperative’s needs. There are some auxiliary buildings of some villager
at the far end of the cemetery.
The Yarmolintsy railstation, Mass Grave
My father participated in the capturing of Bucharest and Budapest; he
finished the war after capturing of Vienna. He returned home in the summer
of 1945. After arriving to the village he found that all his relatives were
killed by fascist and buried in the large ditch half-alive.
I’ve already heard such words as “the ground was moving” and “there
were pools of blood” which said now Mikhail Danilovych. My father also
heard these words then. We’ve repeated his path to the military base
territory that is situated in 200m from the Yarmolintsy railstation. In the
beginning this sorrowful path was covered by those who were taken on carts
from Frampol, Sharovka and Yarmolintsy. These people lived in giant 3-story
barrack waiting for their death. This scary building still stands and looks
with empty windows on the world… Nobody could force themselves to use it
again. People say that it has mines inside but I think the real reason is
different. It’s frightful not only enter inside but also even the look of
it is scary.
After some waiting time an officer has come and according his order
a
soldier has opened gates for us to drive in the military base. The
territory of the brotherly grave is surrounded by a concrete fence. There is
100m long path that goes to the main monument, a victim with open hands.
Memorial
plate has
the
inscription that says “ 55 thousands of peaceful people were killed
here in October of 1942 year.” Behind
the
monument there is a grave where killed prisoners of war have been
buried.
On the left from the
path, about 30 m from the main monument, another
monument stands in the shape of bouquet of stems. It’s built in regard
of the killed Jews. “Time link is broken…” There is even another
monument on the right side. 18 thousands Jewish people are buried in these two
graves only because they were guilty of being Jews. My grandmother Brana and
her children are between them.
The memorial is well
cared and is in the good shape. Mikhail Danilovych said that soldiers and
veterans bring wreathes of memory every year on May 9th. Because of
time limitations we had neither flowers, nor wreath. We’ve made photos of
these monuments. One can’t be there for long time but can hardly forget this
place.
The Yarmolintsy Town, Old Jewish Cemetery
We’ve arrived to an old Jewish cemetery situated in a forest near a road
to Kadievka. This cemetery was founded in 1910. It’s not in the good
shape. Its state was improved during cleanup actions conducted by “Hesed-Besht”.
Ludmila told us about this fact. Most of the tombstones and plates are
broken and fallen down. Latest inscribed tombstones are in Russian and dated
by 1978 year.
A monument and two graves are very distinguished between others; these are
graves of the people from the “Joint” organization killed in 1920. They
are professor Israel Fridlander (1876-10.07.1920) and rabbi Bernard Kantor
(1892-10.07.1920). According to the inscriptions on the tombstone they came
here with missionary goal to help Jews suffered during the civil war. The
monument was placed by “Joint” in 1923 and restorated by
“Hesed-Besht” in 2001. The son-in-law of Mikhail Danilovych rendered a
big help for this restoration. I’ve made photos of
Larisa,
Ludmila and separately
Mikhail
Danilovych near this grave
The Yarmolintsy Town, Local Historian Alexander Semenovich Snegur
Some of the village inhabitants and Mikhail Danilovych remembered that the
local historian Alexander Semenovich Snegur also was showing an interested
about killed people during the war. We’ve visited the regional Art and
Learning Studio where he works. He explained that he is currently preparing
lists of peaceful inhabitants who were killed during the war in this region
for a publication. Upon understanding who we are he has shown the lists to
us. Our last name was not on the list. We added name of my grandmother.
Alexander Semenovich studies also a history of Jewish shtetls in the
Yarmolintsy district. He gave us a list of such shtetls: Mihampol (Mihalpol),
Sharovka, Solobkovzi, Frampol, and Yarmolintsy. Also he gave us his book
about history of Yarmolintsy as a present. He seemed to be very passionate
and enthusiastic person. We wished him good luck in such difficult task.
Our trip program was finished for today and we came back to Khmelnitskiy.
Wednesday, May 30th 2001
The Yarmolintsy Town, Civil Registry Office
We also have planned to visit Kamenets-Podolskiy. On the way there we drove
through Yarmolintsy and decided to visit the Civil Registry Office where we
hoped to find some archive papers about our relatives during 1917-1941
years. Unfortunately the whole archive disappeared during German occupation.
An archivist has surprised us by asking very particularly about the reasons
to see the papers. It seems she thought that we seek this information to
find some material benefits. When we have said that we are searching for any
traces of our relatives and gathering information about them she has fall in
silence. We could see that she was very surprised by that fact. Well, one
who goes in search of ancestors should take an account of this behavior
also. We have asked when Frampol was renamed to Kosogorka. According
documents it happened in 1954.
The Kamenets-Podolskiy city, Regional State Archive
We drove about 70 km from Yarmolintsy to Kamenets-Podolskiy by the
picturesque road. The surroundings were hilly and very green. White acacia
was in bloom. Small rivers appeared from time to time. Some of those carry
waters to Dnieper and other part after the upper region goes south to
Dniester.
The archive building is located in the old part of Kamenets-Podolskiy near
the old city hall building.
Current archive’s address is:
Ukraine
Kamenets-Podolskiy
Polskiy rynok, dom 14, apt.16.
Telephones are (03849) 2-10-25, 2-33-88.
A while ago we’ve
sent a request from Chelyabinsk to this archive asking to make a search by
Freider last name between the whole population of Frampol, Kamenets-Podolskiy,
Starokonstantinov, and Kuz’min (north). This archive stores papers before
the year of 1917. Also we knew about the extensive work of the archivist Zina.
As we found out
during our meeting her full name is Klimishina Zinaida Mikhailovna. She has
got our letter. And she listened to us in person this time and promised to
perform the search. Apparently we need to redirect our request about
Starokonstantinov and Kuz’min to another archive in Zhitomirsky region
because these settlements belonged to Volinskaya government district and not
to the Podolsk government district before the year of 1917 . We agreed to
continue our communication about the search results via email.
Also we’ve met a
director of the archive. He has advised us to find in Regional Archive of
Khmelnitskiy the documents in about pre-war schools because they may have
lists of students. Also he proposed to look through lists of voters before the
WWII.
The Kamenets-Podolskiy city, City Tour
We’ve visited only middle-centuryold part of the city. A central plaza has
a City Hall building. Main attraction of the city is
a
church built in the gothic style that stands on the top of a hill. This
church was build during Poland rule over the Podolia region. Beautiful
interior and some interesting objects (the church was a museum before)
attract tourists. Turks ruled this city for 27 years and had a time to
convert this church to a Muslim minaret. After Podolia was returned back
under the rule of Poland a statue of Saint Mary was placed on the top of the
minaret to make it Christian again. Currently 1000 Catholics live in the
city. They are main parishioners here. We’ve listened to a guide
explaining many interesting things about the church interior. There is a
monument of pan Volodievsky outside the church. According the novel by G.
Senkevich he was a famous Polish activist. As we’ve seen later he died
during the defense of Kamenets-Podolskiy fortress.
This Kamenets-Podolskiy fortress is situated on the island of the Smotrych
River (Dniester’s tributary). It’s the Museum of History now. Now the
river does not seem to be big and powerful and one can hardly imagine how it
could defend the fortress against enemies. It runs in a picturesque canyon.
The fortress is connected with a main land by
the
Turkish Bridge. When standing on the high walls of the fortress one can
see a beautiful view of steep river banks and old houses that look like
stairs going down to the river. Some of those houses were Jewish houses. Far
away one can see a simple building of the Synagogue that is currently in
repairs. The city itself is very green and lively. We walked on the fort’s
walks, went up to the watch tower by the spiral staircase, saw the river
through loop-holes on the fort’s walls. Ludmila told us about the city and
its attractions.
Here our trip to Kamenets-Podolskiy has finished and we returned back to
Khmelnitskiy. On the way back we’ve made a request to the Regional Archive
about lists of pre-war schools hoping to get them on the next day. Besides
that Ludmila gave us documents that are actually the protocol of a military
committee written during opening of the mass grave in Yarmolintsy in 1944.
Thursday, May 31st 2001
The Khmelnitskiy City, Regional Archive of Khmelnitskiy Region
We’ve had only several hours before we need to leave and we’ve spent
them in the archive looking through the documents of regional education
department. It was mainly correspondence with school directors. Most of the
letters were not in Russian but in Yiddish. It was so strange because
Yiddish was never accepted as official language but, of course, Jews were
the main population for 100-200 years before 1941 and they were natives in
these districts. We don’t know Yiddish and accordingly could not extract
any useful information from the documents.
We've also received document that was mentioned above. The short description
from it: “ In Frampol Jewish settlement was surrounded by a barbed wire,
Jews were kept in this ghetto. They eat bread with water, starving. At the
end of October of the year 1942 group by group they were taken on the carts
to the barrack building at the military base near the Yarmolintsy
railstation. Three days they lived without water and food. Some could not
carry this and hanged themselves or jumped out of the windows. After that
fascists started to gather 50 people outside the barrack near the large
ditch and shoot them using automatic guns then took next group and continued
to shoot them… During the grave opening a ground pieces were found in the
people mouths that indicates they have been in pain for long time. Witnesses
said that the ground was moving for several hours…”
My father never came back here after 1945. He visited Kiev several times
and sometimes a thought about going here came but he could not do it. My
father died in October 1991. During his last years he was very sick, he was
an invalid of war; all his life he lived with the bomb’s splinter in his
lung but a pain from the never healed scar was always stronger…
We always feel
guilty before our parents possibly because they leave before us. Father, where
are you, I flew to your home that does not exist anymore…
We left Khmelnitskiy
by train to Moscow. During these three days we’ve seen a lot at the
ancestors’ homeland. We couldn’t find documents with the names of our
ancestors, nobody remembered them. But still I think that not much have been
changed during these 60-70 years in a place where was Frampol shtetl. 200
years ago Jews came to this beautiful mountain, here they lived, prayed,
married, grew their children trying to teach them good, lived in poverty but
joyfully, and after their death settled on the cemetery nearby. The Pale of
Settlement didn’t allow them to change their homeland in the Imperial
Russia. The 1917 revolution withdrawn these limitations and it was a cause of
slow dying of the shtetl and its manner of living. Young people were walking
or moving out. But this process could be going slowly and gradually, so that
even we would have a place and people to visit. Criminal fascism broke the
existence of this whole world…
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