Wednesday, June 24, 2015

Leonid's Story

[Notes: 1. Much of the narrative about Leonid's life an the initial search was written by Mara. 2. Many names of the youngest generations are not mentioned to protect the privacy of those involved].


It’s been a few years since I’ve been able to work on my own family history research. I’ve dabbled a little here and there when Ancestry.com had a free week, but didn’t run across any “new” finds.



But back in October, my friend, Mara, approached me about a genealogy/family history project that she needed help with. She knew I liked history and had done my own family research, so she thought I’d be a good brain to pick.



Mara had recently returned from visiting Belarus and Poland, on a trip to help young people learn about their past. They toured Holocaust sites and had the privilege of meeting individual Holocaust survivors and hearing their stories. One man, Leonid Rubinstein,  was an 87-year-old, living in Minsk, Belarus. Not only did he survive the Minsk ghetto, which he adamantly states was "worse than any death camp," but he survived five concentration camps including Auschwitz and Dachau, where he was liberated in 1945. While Leonid lived in the ghetto, he lost 28 of his family members, at the time believing that every single one of his relatives had passed away.


After the war, Leonid returned to his homeland in Belarus at 18 years old. Surprisingly, the Red Cross contacted Leonid and said that he had an aunt in America who had contacted them. Leonid's aunt and cousin, Tamara, had immigrated to America in the 1920's before the war. Immediately, Leonid began corresponding with them, and his aunt started sending him care packages. However, the Soviet Union began interrogated Leonid and reprimanded him for receiving care packages and letters from their "enemy" (America). They forced him to write a letter, which they dictated, cutting off all communication with his only living relatives.


Seeing the sorrow that Leonid had, after losing his family a second time, Mara agreed to do as much as she could to help Leonid find his family. Although Leonid had recorded his family’s history in a short book, he didn’t have very clear details about his cousin and aunt, but he was able to tell Mara four specific things about his cousin: 1.Her name was Tamara (unfortunately, he didn’t know her last name), 2. She served as an U.S. army, and was a gynecologist/doctor in the liberation of Dachau in April, 1945. 3. Her husband was also a doctor in the army (but didn’t know his name), and 4. They lived in Brooklyn, NY when they were able to write letters back and forth. He also had two photographs: one of Tamara and her husband (in military uniform), and the other of her family on her wedding day. And additional info about his parents was given as well.

[As it turned out, not all of these things were true, but I’m getting ahead of myself.]



Immediately after returning from Eastern Europe, Mara started searching. She contacted national and international archives, multiple Holocaust museums, the Red Cross, the International Tracing Service, military libraries and museums, and census records, which all yielded no results.

 

Then, after a Sukkot service, Mara shared this all with me, and I agreed to jump on board as well. I was in the middle of a busy school semester, and had been dealing with some difficult health issues, but if you know me, I cannot say no to a research project! Mara helped me pay for a month’s subscription to Ancestry.com’s World Membership, and I jumped right in. For the whole month, every spare minute I had was spent thinking, praying, and researching about Tamara and her family.



I began by creating a family tree on Ancestry.com, to see if any hints would appear. Them I posted a short description of the inquiry and the photographs of Tamara and her family on various message boards on Ancestry.com. One person responded and identified Tamara's uniform. They suggested the U.S. Army Enlistment records, found at the National Archives (NARA) and on Ancestry.com. There were four people with the first name Tamara who lived in New York when they enlisted. Two of those women were born in the former Soviet Union. The first served as an aviation cadet, but Leonid had told me that Tamara served in a medical unit so we knew she couldn't be the one. That left one Tamara: Tamara K.


I shared this information with Mara in late October. She was optimistic but also unsure how we would actually contact this Tamara or any of her relatives. Through Public Records and Phone Directory Records on Ancestry.com, I was able to give Mara a list of outdated phone numbers and addresses for all the "Tamara K's" in New York.

Mara called them, one by one. There were many wrong numbers, as I expected. For the last Tamara, there was a phone number but no area code. However, this Tamara was born in 1919, which would have lined up with Leonid's cousin's estimated age. . .


Having no luck with the phone calls, we decided that "Tamara K." was not the correct Tamara, and went back to scouring Ancestry.com for anything to “click.” I looked at census records (hallelujah for the 1940 census!), military, and immigration records on Ancestry.com; military history websites and I even went to the library and looked up books about the Army units that liberated the Dachau concentration camp, in case Tamara was important enough to get mentioned. Meanwhile, our subscription to Ancestry.com was running out.


Then, five days before the subscription ran out, I received another response from the message board, encouraging us to reconsider "Tamara K." The person also sent a link to a K family tree on another genealogy website (Geni.com). Geni’s family tree for the Klein family showed the connections I was looking for! Tamara’s mother’s name was Marya, and her father was Moti, the same name as Leonid’s father! When Tamara and Marya (Alyoshina) had migrated from Minsk in the 1920s, they (unknowingly to us), stopped in Turkey for a while. Therefore, many of their immigration records noted Turkey as their last location (which originally turned me off to a whole line of inquiry!). Crossing borders into the United States, their last name was changed. This information all came from confirming our speculation about Tamara Klein being the right Tamara. It was only then that I was able to confirm connections going both back, and forward in time. It was an amazing moment of discovery!

Immigration Record

1940 Census Record

[But back to my original side note: in all this we discovered that Tamara was never at Dachau, nor a gynecologist/doctor. She was in the U.S. Army, but served in a home-front capacity, as she was pregnant with her daughter Judith at the time. Her husband Michael K. fought in WWII, but also did not make his way to Dachau either. What we thought was vital information, was not true at all.]



With this information, I turned to Google. I found Tamara K.’s obituary (she must have been the Tamara who was born in 1919 who didn't have an area code!), as well as her daughter’s (Judith) obituary. I anticipated the fact that Tamara had passed, but I was saddened to learn that Leonid’s next best connection was as well. But through the wonders of Facebook and Google, I found out that Judith and her husband moved from New York to San Francisco to begin a social service agency, where their three grown children still work today! I sent Mara the information right away, and she began calling the siblings. Finally, after a few weeks, the oldest son called Mara back on Christmas Eve!



He was hesitant at first, but confirmed some of Mara’s questions about his grandmother, and then she sent him the photograph of Tamara and her husband. He was floored, “ Oh!! That's my Grandpa Mike and Grandma Tam! I've seen that picture before."



Through their phone call, we realized we forgot about trying to contact Tamara’s son, who is still living. So Mara emailed him, and it turns out that he had the most interest in meeting Leonid.



When Mara shared all of this with Leonid (through an interpreter), he listened quietly while she spoke, and then tears started streaming down his face. "Unbelievable, unbelievable," he said. Leonid had been trying to reestablish connections with his relatives since Belarus became independent from the Soviet Union in 1991. His last communication with Tamara and her mother was in 1946.



Leonid immediately began writing a letter to Tamara’s son, the form of communication he last had with Tamara. Everyone laughed, telling him that he could email or video chat with his American family! Later in January, they did just that, and began making plans to visit Leonid in Belarus.


In their Skype call, Leonid said,  "I would like to invite you to come to Minsk so that I can put my arms around you and hug you. I want to take you through the ghetto and show you where your great grandparents died, where your aunts and uncles died, where your cousins died." He asked, "What could 6 million people have done? Perhaps one of them could have found the cure for cancer. Perhaps one of them could have written the next great symphony....."



He implored them to continue telling the stories of those who had passed away. "Someday, I will be gone, but these stories must live on.” And said, "It's not my story. I'm no hero. All I did was survive. And because I survived, I have to tell this story---for those who have died and can't tell their stories."


Fast forward to June 2015:

Mara and her contacts in Belarus, and a camera crew stood waiting at the airport. Leonid joined them, proudly wearing a suit, and appearing 10 years younger than he had earlier. Leonid’s son was there, as well. More people began arriving: the rabbi who along with his wife started the congregation in Minsk that has cared for the Holocaust survivors for the past 20 years; the woman who had coordinated all the survivor visits; the translator. They all stood in a half circle, in front of the glass doors, waiting for Leonid's family to walk through them and into his life. 


After several minutes, the doors finally opened, and out walked Tamara’s son (with his wife), grandchildren, and great-grandchildren. The camera flashed and Leonid began meeting his family one by one. Tamara had written Leonid letters and sent care packages almost 70 years ago, and today, they were meeting Leonid face to face!


Leonid’s son planned a very special dinner, and everyone talked and showed family pictures. When the meal began, Leonid stood up for a toast: “I will not speak here about the tragedy that took place in Minsk in the ghetto. I will not even say right now how many of my relatives died. I will save that for tomorrow. Today is a day of joy. At my table at home, I always had more friends than relatives. And today, I’ve got 8 people who are my relatives, and honestly, it’s still hard for me to believe that you’re here from such a far land in America. My dear relatives. Tomorrow, I will share about the tragic things but today, I wish you all happiness and health.”


That is the story I got to be a part of. As Mara has said many times, it was like watching a miracle unfold. When I agreed to help, I had no certainty that I would find the family, but I am completely certain that the search would have failed without the immeasurable power of God behind it. God is a God of redemption and faithfulness, and He truly shone redemption into that which was lost.