My\ngreat-grandparents were forced from their home in Riga, Latvia \u2014 out of their\nculture to such a degree that their Jewish heritage was concealed from future\ngenerations. My grandmother, Shelly Talan Geary, hid her faith when she moved\nto Canada, a decision that rippled through generations that followed, and\ndiluted our Jewish culture. I had no idea about my Jewish genes, or how my\ngrandmother got to Siberia, or that she had relatives in Riga and visited them\nseveral times, as recently as 1929, then lost contact during the war. That\nalmost all of them were imprisoned in the Riga ghetto, then killed in the\nRumbula Forest massacre. That she had no contact with her mother, sister,\nbrother, and nephew, who were in Shanghai during the war, and wasn\u2019t sure that\nthey were even alive. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
All of this I\ndiscovered in the last several years, through old daguerreotypes and the\nInternet, using four online resources: JewishGen.org, Ancestry.com, Riga Ghetto\nand Latvian Holocaust Museum, and the Latvian Surname Project. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
My biggest coup was\nfinding the existence of my great-grandfather Max\u2019s younger brother, Jossel\nTalan. My biggest disappointment was finding that Jossel, his wife, and two\nchildren (21 and 15 years of age) were killed in Riga during the Holocaust. I\nwas struck with pangs of grief for people I didn\u2019t know, yet were blood\nrelations. And my mind jumped to my grandmother; had she ever met her cousins,\naunt or uncle? Did she know how and when they died? I went off on a tangent,\ndelving into the Latvian Holocaust which cut the Jewish population from more\nthan 93,000 in 1939 to 2,000 in 1945. I was overwhelmed by anger and nausea\nwhen I read about the Riga ghetto, and the two \u201cAktions\u201d carried out by Latvian\nand German soldiers, leaving approximately 30,000 Jews dead in the Rumbula\nForest on the edge of the city.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.jewishgen.org\/jewishgen\/testimonials\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/01\/sanders2_rev-1024x816.jpg\")
<\/a>(click to enlarge)<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n
The more I dug up,\nthe more I wanted to know. The names and fates of my great-grandmother\u2019s\nsisters, posed in a formal portrait. The name of Miriam\u2019s husband, my maternal\ngreat-great grandfather. The fate of the male cousin, Laza, seated beside my\ngrandmother in photos taken in Riga in 1913 and 1929. What Jossel Talan looked\nlike. Why my great-grandparents (Sophie Presmann and Max Talan) went to\nSiberia, of all places, where my grandmother and her two siblings were born.\nUnable to find the answers online, I booked a trip to Latvia in October 2018,\neager to walk in my ancestors\u2019 footsteps, and determined to uncover the\ninformation I needed to fill the blank spaces in my Jewish family tree.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
<\/a>(click to enlarge)<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n
The day I landed, I\nmet with the director of the Jews in Latvia Museum, Ilya Lensky, born and\nraised in Riga. The museum, which once housed a Jewish club and Jewish theater,\nwas impressive with its columns and intricate details on the exterior, and its\nhigh ceiling and sweeping staircase inside. Under the Nazis, the building\nbecame a soldier\u2019s club and theater, and when the Soviet occupation began in\n1944, it was the House of Political Education of Communist Latvia. As soon as\nwe sat down, I asked Ilya if he knew why Latvian Jews, like my\ngreat-grandparents, ended up in Siberia.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cBecause your\ngreat-grandparents were married and exiled in 1905,\u201d he began, \u201cit is most\nlikely they were involved in the Bolshevik Revolution and exiled. Their\nmarriage was probably expedited so that they could both go to Siberia.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I was stunned. And a\nlittle proud, thinking of my great-grandparents rebelling against the Tsar.\nThis one new revelation made Sophie and Max seem more real. It made me feel\npart of something larger than myself. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Ilya went on to\nexplain that there was a demonstration in Riga on January 13, 1905, which\nturned into a massacre. Seventy people were killed. This would have been the\nevent leading to my great-grandparents\u2019 exile. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Anti-Semitism\nunderscored Latvian society in the early 1900\u2019s, when it was almost impossible\nfor a Jew to get a position in public service. In all of Latvia, Ilya said,\nthere was just one Jewish policeman. In addition, there were official\nlimitations on Jews enrolling in universities during the late 1930\u2019s.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In the 1897 Russian\nCensus records I\u2019d found on JewishGen, Max was identified as a merchant of the\nsecond guild. Ilya told me that merchants were divided into three guilds, with\nthe third being the lowest. Most Jews were in this guild and could trade only\nwithin the borders of provinces. Second guild merchants traded throughout the\nempire, while first guild Jews were able to trade internationally.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I asked Ilya if he\ncould give me the modern street names for Max\u2019s address, as well as his brother\nand father\u2019s. Not only did Ilya know them without having to look them up, he\nalso said they must have been trading something lucrative, like timber, because\nthey both lived in wealthy sections of Riga.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Eager to see for\nmyself, I took a cab to 2 Avotu iela, where Max Talan lived before he was\nexiled. The building was old but had been restored, with an ugly, modern fa\u00e7ade\non the street level. I looked up and saw the original red brick that Max would\nhave seen, on the upper levels, and was struck by the fact that I was standing\nin the very spot he would have stood more than a century ago. Max was becoming\nmore than a black and white face on a photo.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Jossel Talan, Max\u2019s\nyounger brother, lived nearby, at 20 Elizabetes iela, a deep yellow-terraced\nhouse with white trim and intricate ornamentation. I had never seen a photo of\nJossel, yet there I was, standing in front of his house. It was almost too much\nto process.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The next day, I\nventured to the Latvian National Archives in Riga where I\u2019d sent family\ninformation a couple of months earlier. A pile of old albums and documents had\nbeen placed neatly on a table, with my name on top. The only problem was that\neverything was written in either Russian or Latvian. And the stern-faced\narchivist made it clear she didn\u2019t have time to translate, though she did say\nthe people she\u2019d included were relations of mine.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
<\/a>(click to enlarge)<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n
I waded through\npages with photos of strangers, passport stamps, and Cyrillic text, able to\npick out a few handwritten names. Schlomo, Ruven, Jossel. My great-uncle. For\nthe first time, I saw his face and recognised my grandmother and her brother in\nhis features. It was mind-boggling, like finding out you\u2019ve won an award. Only\nbetter. And it spurred me to look closer at the rest of the documents, for\nJossel\u2019s wife and children. I found nothing but his wife\u2019s name on his identity\ncard.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
On my third and\nfinal day in Riga, I visited the Ghetto Museum, located on the site of the\nformer Jewish ghetto. Before entering, I asked the attendant if he could look\nup the address where Jossel and his family lived in the ghetto. The ghetto\nhouse was smaller than I\u2019d imagined, its walls still covered in newspapers\npeople used as insulation against the arctic wind. It was hard to believe even\nfour people lived in such a confined space, let alone the more common dozen or\nso.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I doubted my\ngrandmother knew her uncle and cousins were forced into such inhumane\nconditions. Very little was revealed about the Latvian Holocaust until the\nSoviets left in 1991, almost 20 years after she\u2019d died.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The attendant said\nJossel\u2019s son, Ewsey, didn\u2019t die at Rumbula or in the ghetto. He was seized in\nJuly 1941, along with other young, Jewish men, then forced to dig up graves of\nthose killed by the Soviets. The Nazis photographed these Jews with the dead,\nand proclaimed the men had killed these Latvians. It was blatant propaganda to\nignite a pogrom against the Jews. The men, including Ewsey, were shot July 21\nin the central prison courtyard. Nobody knows where they\u2019re buried. The\nattendant also said he couldn\u2019t determine if Jossel, his wife and daughter were\nkilled in the November 30 or the December 8 Rumbula massacres.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Standing under a\nclear blue sky, surrounded by majestic birch and pine trees, nausea rose to my\nthroat, thinking of the horror my relatives must have felt, stripped to their\nunderclothes, marched to a pit, and forced to lie on dead bodies, still warm.\nThey had no funeral, there is no grave marking their lives, and nobody was left\nto mourn them. I put a stone on one of the mass graves and, as I left, my mind\nreeled with sadness and fury and a greater understanding of my obligation as\nheir to a precious legacy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
January 2020<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Ontario, Canada<\/p>\n\n\n\n
______________<\/p>\n\n\n\n
*<\/b>(front, L-R): grandmother’s cousin Laza, author’s grandmother Shelly Tallan, Shelly’s sister Nucia (in white); (middle row): Shelly & Nucia’s mother Sonia (with long braids), author’s great-great-grandmother Miriam Pressman (far right); other women are Sonia’s sisters.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\n\n\n\n
Editor\u2019s Research Notes and\nHints<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Shelly Sanders was unaware of her Jewish heritage until she was 18, and reclaimed her faith after taking Judaism classes a few years ago. Through the JewishGen Latvia Database<\/strong><\/a> , she found family members listed in the 1897 All-Russia Census – Latvia, Riga Passport and Travel Documents Registration, and Jewish Marriages in Riga database.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Other online resources that were helpful included Ancestry.com<\/strong><\/a>, the Riga Ghetto and Holocaust Museum<\/strong><\/a>, and the Latvian Surname Project<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In 2018, Shelly travelled to Latvia. A visit with the Director of the Jews in Latvia Museum<\/strong><\/a> in Riga yielded helpful guidance and information. She also visited the Latvian National Archives<\/strong><\/a> in Riga, where she found documents and photographs relating to her family. The attendant at the Riga Ghetto and Latvian Holocaust Museum<\/strong><\/a> provided additional information about the horrific living conditions in the ghetto and the mass killings by the Nazis.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Other resources helpful to those with roots in Latvia include JewishGen\u2019s Latvia SIG<\/strong><\/a> (Special Interest Group) and JewishGen\u2019s Riga KehilaLinks<\/strong><\/a> <\/strong>webpage. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Uncovering My Latvian-Jewish Roots \u201cI waded through pages with photos of strangers, passport stamps, and Cyrillic text, able to pick out a few handwritten names. Schlomo, Ruven, Jossel. My great-uncle. For the first time, I saw his face and recognised my grandmother and her brother in his features.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":2233,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[49],"tags":[51,53,55],"cc_featured_image_caption":{"caption_text":false,"source_text":false,"source_url":false},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishgen.org\/jewishgen\/testimonials\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2230"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishgen.org\/jewishgen\/testimonials\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishgen.org\/jewishgen\/testimonials\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishgen.org\/jewishgen\/testimonials\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishgen.org\/jewishgen\/testimonials\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2230"}],"version-history":[{"count":19,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishgen.org\/jewishgen\/testimonials\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2230\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2280,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishgen.org\/jewishgen\/testimonials\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2230\/revisions\/2280"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishgen.org\/jewishgen\/testimonials\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2233"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishgen.org\/jewishgen\/testimonials\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2230"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishgen.org\/jewishgen\/testimonials\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2230"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishgen.org\/jewishgen\/testimonials\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2230"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\n by Shelly Sanders<\/p>\n