Subject: Plunge
From: Elaine Bush <erbush@...>
Date: Sun, 14 Jun 2009 10:30:38 -0700
X-Message-Number: 3

Here is another informative article on Plunge:

http://www.jewishgen.org/yizkor/Lita/Lit1589.html#Page1592

Someone once helped me date this piece to the 1950s using the
reference to the Great Fire. According to this writer, my REST family
had roots going back to the 17th century in Plunge. I'm still
working on those early years!

Elaine Bush
Pleasant Hill, CA

The article that Elaine Bush cites, although included in a book ("Lite")
published in 1951, dates not >from the 1950's but >from the late 1930's.
Only a tiny fraction of the Jews remaining in Plunge survived the
murderous pogrom perpetrated by Lithuanians after the Soviet retreat
in June 1941.

There is no way an article published after 1941 describing Jewish Plunge
could refer to as many as 2,000 Jewish inhabitants. There was a "great
fire" in Plunge sometime between 1930 (when my father left Plunge for
America) and 1936 (when he went back to visit his parents as a newlywed
with my American-born mother). During my father's absence, his original
family home was destroyed in the fire and was re-built, with financial
help >from American relatives.

Hillel Raymon
Highland Park, NJ