I, too, visited some of my ancestral towns in eastern Galicia, including Zbaraz, in late fall, 2006. By then, the dark years of the Holocaust had come and gone like a giant tsunami, its colossal waves bringing death to millions, wiping out everything, and then receding as if it never happened.

The Jewish cemetery was still shabby and untended, although I have heard that since then, it's been cleaned up, which is good. I commend the efforts of those today who hope to meet with current residents, but I could not look at any old person without thinking... did he/she play a part, or know someone who did? I have also read that the Soviets relocated many people to Zbaraz after the war, so their memories don't go all the way back. 

I was driven, in part, by an online image I had seen of a 10-feet tall cenotaph erected in 1947 "in memory of the terrible destruction which was wrought by the German and Ukraine mass-murdered, in our town of Zbaraz." I assumed that the cenotaph was in Zbaraz, because carved near the top were the words, "Here Lies Soap." Eventually, I found the cenotaph in Beth David Cemetery, in Elmont NY, after I returned to the US. Even so, my visit to Zbaraz was powerful, and sad.

Susan J. Gordon
New York  sjgwed@...      BIALAZURKER, LEMPERT, SCHOENHAUT, GEIST

Open Archives which is a Dutch genealogical website announced they have placed the passenger lists of the Holland-America Line 1900-1920 online.  Go to: https://www.openarch.nl/indexen/27/passagierslijsten-holland-amerika-lijn

Type in the name you are researching in the search box. You may not get the actual manifest but a listing of what is on the manifest. When you click on the manifest a list of passengers names appears. Click on the name you are searching then a new window appears with the source listed a passenger registers.

 

The Holland America Line (HAL) transported about one million Eastern Europeans t America from Rotterdam between 1880 and 1920.  The HAL had offices in Bulgaria, Latvia and Russia where tickets could be purchased for the train to Rotterdam, the boat to America.

 

 

Jan Meisels Allen

Chairperson, IAJGS Public Records Access Monitoring Committee

 

 

 

 

Jan Meisels Allen wrote:
Seventy-five years later a mistake has been
rectified: Jewish WW ll soldiers buried under a
cross are now buried under a Star of David
headstone at the Manila American Cemetery. This
is part of ongoing work of Operation Benjamin, a
non-profit organization which identifies
soldiers buried with the wrong religious
markers. It was coordinated with the American Battle Monuments Commission.

Thank you Jan for your post and the link to the
JPOST article about Operation Benjamin. This has given me ideas.

My maternal grandmother's brother was an
auxiliary doctor in the German army in WWI and
was killed in July 1918 in Northern France and
buried there under a cross. The story goes that
my ggfather, a very devout Jew, told the family
his son had been killed somewhere on the Eastern
front and his burial place was unknown. My
ggfather had a memorial stone set up on the
family grave in Weissensee cemetary, with an
epitaph describing his son as an
"unerschütterlich treue Deutscher" (an adamantly
faithful German) whose heart was in Israel.

Is Operation Benjamin restricted to American
soldiers killed in WWII? Does anything similar
exist for WWI and for participants in other armies?

Nicole Heymans, near Brussels, Belgium

Jan Meisels Allen wrote:
Seventy-five years later a mistake has been rectified: Jewish WW ll soldiers buried under a cross are now buried under a Star of David headstone at the Manila American Cemetery. This is part of ongoing work of Operation Benjamin, a non-profit organization which identifies soldiers buried with the wrong religious markers. It was coordinated with the American Battle Monuments Commission.

Thank you Jan for your post and the link to the JPOST article about Operation Benjamin. This has given me ideas.

My maternal grandmother's brother was an auxiliary doctor in the German army in WWI and was killed in July 1918 in Northern France and buried there under a cross. The story goes that my ggfather, a very devout Jew, told the family his son had been killed somewhere on the Eastern front and his burial place was unknown. My ggfather had a memorial stone set up on the family grave in Weissensee cemetary, with an epitaph describing his son as an "unerschütterlich treue Deutscher" (an adamantly faithful German) whose heart was in Israel.

Is Operation Benjamin restricted to American soldiers killed in WWII? Does anything similar exist for WWI and for participants in other armies?

Nicole Heymans, near Brussels, Belgium

FOCSANI, ROMANIA