Esther (AVERBUCH) VATNICK and daughter Chaie VATNICK
This photo was taken in 1918 in Kryzhopol, Podolia Gubernia, where Esther lived after her marriage, and where
Chaie (VATNICK) AIZIM was born. - Information and picture supplied by the generosity of Eliana Aizim
Kryzhopol in Podolia
On our Pischonke Collection Point page, you can see pictures of the newly married couple Boruch VATNICK and his wife Esther AVERBUCH, he had grown up there, she was from another Podolian town of Zhabokrich. Pischonke and Kryzhopol were a short distance apart but what made this couple come to this town? Do you have any information on businesses, transportation infrastructure (train lines, trucking routes, canals, rivers, etc. that made people pick this town in which to settle? Have you seen the Business Directories that can help determine comparative sizes or used the Duma Lists that might compare tax bases, or had a researcher probe the archives for you who was able to tell you about factories, bank accounts or insurance policy holders in this area?
Boruch VATNICK was killed in a pogrom in 1919 - do you have any information on the murder victims from here - have you seen a pamphlet, read a book with details, interviewed an elderly relative who still remembered it? In 1978, I interviewed a cousin of my grandfather who remembered the pogroms of 1919. She had been a little girl in a large city in Kiev gubernia and still quivered as she told of being hidden in the large Russian stove with only her doll to comfort her, in her house in Chigirin. She remembered that her sister was hiding in a closet because she couldn't squeeze in with her and the little girl in the stove was terrified that when she finally would come out, she would find them all murdered. Memories such as these might have been shared in a letter, in a story told to nieces and nephews, or in a quiet explanation as to why we have to be kind to this slightly strange relative. Tell us the stories that you have inherited.
Esther VATNICK made her way to Brazil with her two little girls, after her husband's murder. Have you seen travel documents from others from this town - Russian passports, visas, steamship tickets, souvenir manifests, inspection cards, actual manifests, landing permits, anything at all?! Can you tell us where to find landsmanschaften records from Kryzhopol, or of cemeteries where this town is announced on the gravestones of its native sons and daughters?
If this page collected the pictures of each of your grandparents who were born or lived in this town, our shared knowledge base would also grow exponentially.
Email material for this page or for questions about this page to
Ukraine SIG Interactive Database Projects
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Click on Podolia Gubernia to learn more about the Kryzhopol's Gubernia in existence from 1796 to the 1920s.
Page created by Deborah Glassman September 2005