by Barbara Taylor Freedman

So I began my journey to Zhvanets, ’my’ village, my shtetl, where my great grandfather Hanech Shapiro and all ten of my great uncles and aunts were born. My grandmother, Bube Rifka Shapiro Taylor was married in Zhvanets. The village is so small that it is not even on a current map. When I visited the Library of Congress in Washington, DC, in the summer of 2003, to attend the 23^rd international Jewish Genealogy conference, I found a map from 1876 that shows Zhvanets and the surrounding areas.

Although the actual driving distance was short by North American standards, only 300 kilometers (186 miles), the drive to Kamianets-Podilskyi on a two lane road took five and a half hours. The trees lining the highway reminded me of drives in the countryside almost anywhere in the world. Except here I saw a few people on the road in their horse drawn carts. The day was cool. I did not see one gas station en route. Bogdan’s radio was tuned to a jazz station that I didn’t mind at all. He is also a musician and plays with a band. We would have dinner in Kamianets-Podilskyi* at the Hotel Xenia where we would be staying for two nights.

Remember camping trips? Well when the need arose, it was ladies to the right, Bogdan to the left.

Little did I realize when I started researching the Shapiro/Taylor family tree four years ago, by scribbling a few names on a napkin at cousin Sybil Howard’s home in LA, that I would actually make a trip to my ancestral village! My only thought at that time was just to get a ‘little something’ jotted down for my wonderful grandchildren, Sydney and Adrian Freedman.

As we drove, we passed many small villages. We saw almost no cars on the road. The homes are set back about 15 to 20 feet from the road and are fenced. On the road side of the fence, benches and chairs are placed where the neighbors come out to sit, chat and gossip. Cows graze in the grassy area between the fence and the road unless a larger area is nearby.

We passed elderly men and women tending the family cows as they grazed along the highway. All the women I saw wore scarves, babushkas, tied around their heads. I saw countless people of all ages working in their gardens or on larger plots of land behind their homes. This wasn’t just a pastoral scene from the 19^th Century. This was survival. 29% of the 47 million people in the Ukraine live below the poverty line. Every family in rural areas has a cow, chickens and a plot of land. What is grown is vital to their daily needs. Potatoes are a staple.

I awoke the next morning after a good night’s sleep in a very cold room despite wearing four layers of clothing, my coat and an eye shade. I was a sight to behold! The weather was quite cool and the old fashioned radiator in my room, even turned on at its highest only raised the room temperature to about 17 degrees Celsius. After a certain time of the year the heat is turned off, no matter the weather. The only window covering was a sheer lace curtain through which I watched and heard the neighbour’s chickens strutting in the garden.

Breakfast included potato pancakes, latkes, prepared the way my grandmother used to make them. Not the crispy latkes that most of us now make, but more like small oval pancakes, very light and sprinkled with sugar. The food was very good and all the tastes were familiar. A dinner of meatball soup and a main course of verenikas was Cdn $3.75. An excellent bowl of borsht was 35 cents. It was really cold in the dining room too and I ate all my meals with my coat on.

The dining room area was divided into two parts, one was a large high-ceiling space where parties were held and another cozier section which included four enclosed booths – similar to a Japanese restaurant only with Ukrainian cross-stitched red and blue embroidery on the curtains. Before checking out of a hotel in the Ukraine, the room is checked to make sure nothing is taken, even in the fancier hotel in Lviv. Believe me, there was nothing to take from the Xenia Hotel. Only one very thin towel was supplied – that’s it.

You can imagine my excitement when we finally got into the car that morning. In fifteen minutes I would actually be in Zhvanets!

To put things into some perspective here are a few statistics. In 1847 during the Czarist regime, the Jewish population in Zhvanets numbered 1619 people and according to the 1897 census, among the general populace of 5005 there were 3,353 Jews or 67% of the population. I did not expect to find any living relatives there as the Shapiro and Taylor families left between 1904 and 1912.

In 1941 the Jewish population was totally annihilated in Zhvanets and environs.

We arrived in Zhvanets quickly. Bogdan parked the car near the city hall and Svitlana went in to find the Mayor. She knew I wanted to see the Jewish cemetery and drive around the former Jewish area. He was away in Kamianets-Podilskyi that morning but Svitlana spoke to Anna Viktorivna Spivak, the assistant mayor, who phoned someone to come and give me a tour.

What a surprise when Petro Bratvanovych, a sprightly ninety-two year old former deputy principal, teacher and historian joined us. Svitlana, Anna, Petro, Bogdan and I crowded into the car and drove the very short distance to the Jewish area.

No one spoke English except for my guide, so all our conversations had to be translated. Anna had some work to do so we returned to the city hall where the Mayor now joined our group and we all continued onto the cemetery. His name is Mykola Borysovych Makovski, or Nick for short.