My Relatives from Kosov

Introduction

Searching for dead Holocaust relatives is a little like tumbling dominoes, in that once the first one falls, then the rest will usually tumble neatly into place. For the longest time I had only a faint idea of what happened to my mother’s 10 brothers and sisters, 6 of whom perished in Kosiv, Poland, now Ukraine. My mother was one of Lena Kuchler’s "100 Children", and was depicted in Ms. Kuchler's famous book of like title, also made into an NBC primetime movie starring Linda Lavin.

But what of her father Ezra, and her siblings Nissan, Leib, Mendel, Shimon, Chaya & Esther, all who met various disastrous fates in Kosiv? (Her mother, Ethel nee Feiger, died of tuberculosis right before the war.)

The first historical domino fell almost a year ago, when my buddy Seth in Israel called to tell me to check out the Victims Section of the Yad Vashem website. I told him I was familiar with that section and that the only testimony was my own which I had placed there years ago during one of my trips to Israel. He told me they had just uploaded new testimony from their archives from the ‘50s, when Jews were coming in droves from war-torn Europe. Sure enough, he was right, and to my gaping surprise, I found 2 additional Pages of Testimony, from a Baruch Engler and a Yehoshua Gertner, both unknown to me. They described in Hebrew exactly what happened to Nissan, Shimon & Esther, which confirmed what my mother had always surmised was the case. Though I wasn’t sure how to handle the information or its exact significance, I did know something was now very, very different.

With this new information, I called a guide who I had used in Israel and asked him to locate Engler and/or Gertner. He was able to learn which town each came from, but sadly discovered that both were dead. However, he did find out that Engler had two sons in their 70’s, living in Israel.

Within the week I contacted one son, Gidon Engler, an Israeli physicist. He remembered nothing about Kosiv since he was hidden at age 5 (same age as my mother) in a bunker with his brother and father. The only thing he could tell me was that his son-in-law, Ori Gersht, is a photographer now living in London, and has fashioned his life’s artwork from the forests of Kosiv. He regularly photographs the forests, as it has become his belief that the trees of Kosiv bear silent witness to the atrocities of its hills. He photographs in a blurred fashion to echo the uncomfortable vision that existed of Jews being shot into open pits dropping lifelessly onto each other, which he exhibits in his New York and Tel Aviv galleries. Ori is not a survivor, so could tell me little about the Kosiv of old, but reassured me that it was now safe to travel openly in Ukraine.  My mother, who lives in New England, was able to visit his NY gallery, and a book of his Kosiv photos now sits on my own coffee table.

The second lead was more fruitful. Though Yehoshua Gertner, head of the Judenrat in Kosiv, died an unmarried man, Yad Vashem informed me that he had written a book with his nephew, Danek Gertner about the history and Jewish decimation of Kosiv. They mentioned that this book was more informative than the typical Yizkor book. My friend Seth was easily able to get it from them and ship it to me. As I opened it, I tried to figure out why I'd never heard of it, and later learned that it was originally written in German by Danek, who settled in Austria. He'd started his own company which flourished into a major conglomerate From his financial success, he contributed to Yad Vashem, allowing them to translate his book into English. (My recent trip to YV confirms that many buildings bear Danek’s good name of blessed memory.) I read it the night I received it and confirmed the details of the death of Nissan, my mother’s brother, as well as the deaths of Nissan’s wife and 2 children, killed by Ukrainians after the war. But the trail evaporates as much as it appears, and I shortly learned thereafter that Danek had passed away just months before. Yad Vashem put me in touch with Danek's nephew Alex, who now runs the company, and we began to correspond by email. Alex had no memory of Kosiv as he was born in Austria, but told me that he had visited Kosiv with his Uncle Danek. He wasn't optimistic that I would find any answers, but did reassure me, as Ori did, that it was pretty safe to travel in Ukraine these days. My confidence was building. I just needed to soothe my mother’s fears.