I have one branch kind of like this. Between DNA and US records, have established the link, and that their grandfather was likely a cousin (or 1c1x ) to my grandfather. My suspicion is my GGM was their GGf's sister(he died before their GF immigrated, & based on 2 unreliablec references to a possible maiden name for my GGM) or  half sister, but it could be my GGF was the brother or half brother of their GGF. All we know is they were all from "Kiev" - the one vague hint on town/district has not panned out. And not the era for on site research. But I'll keep looking as long as my brain holds out!
--
Susan Watchman
Phoenix, Az

I have been dealing with several Yizkor books over the years.  For the towns where my family or my wife's family has lived, I see books for several towns in Galicia and in Poland.  For Lithuania, I see a book for Vilnius, but not for Kaunas.  I do not see for Vienna and for none of the Czech towns where my family lived.  Would welcome advice on this.  


Tony Hausner
Silver Spring,MD
--
Tony Hausner
thausner@...

Which one of the following is more likely to be accurate?
MyHeritage result 89.8% Ashkenazi Jewish, 5.2% Balkan, & 5% Middle Eastern.
Ancestry result 98% Jewish peoples of Europe, 1% Levant, & 1% Southern Italy.
Much thanks in advance for any advice that can be given.
Marlene Finkelstein

BLOCH, SCHUPAK Kursenai & Papile, Lithuania
KAMENCHEIN Kunev & Ostrog present day Ukraine
FINKELSTEIN, MILLER Warsaw, Poland

I thought my reply was posted..if so, forgive the repeat. I just discovered that my relative, Erick Liebenstein was a Ritchie boy. Also, he was a hero as I read that he and two others captured a group of armed German soldiers. Erick's father has his own wonderful story, he managed to escape from a concentration camp. I am trying to connect with Erick's son, Howard, who lives in Florida. I am so proud of my family!
--
Marla J. Schreffler- Rhode Island
mschreffler21@...

The “c” at the end is not a “ch” sound, but rather a “tz” sound:  Gawłuszowice is pronounced Gav-wu-show-VEE-tze. 

BTW - Polish uses a modified Latin alphabet as do, for example, French or German. Do you consider those to be different alphabets?  Russian actually does use the entirely different Cyrillic alphabet associated with the Orthodox Church.  Even in this bunch of inquiries, there is, once again, someone saying that a document is in either Polish or Russian.  Even those who don’t know either language, should be able to distinguish between the two if they just keep that in mind. 

Best wishes,

Yale J. Reisner
Warsaw, Poland 

Dear Friends - My grandfather, living in Vienna, was sent to a labour camp, 'Arbeitslager Wendefurt', in April 1938 (a few days before his son's wedding!)

We know that he was deported, with his wife, on a transport from Vienna to Riga on Dec 3 1941; presumably from 'Aspangbahnhof'. He was never seem again and is presumed to have died in the massacre at Bikernieke woods near Riga..

My research shows that the Wendefurt camp inmates worked on dam construction.

It is assumed that he was returned to Vienna at some point, so my question is - how long might he have remained in the camp? Can anyone theorise what might have happened? We have no family stories on what might have happened between these dates.

Please respond privately, unless the response is of general interest.

Shabbat Shalom

Robert W Fraser, Perth, Western Australia
Researcher 6342
girof@...

A free online meeting this Sunday, from the Sephardic Genealogical Society.

Jeosua Nunez Netto and Joseph Pereira, two Portuguese-born Jews, left a
fascinating account of their trip from Amsterdam to Pomeroom (on South
America's Caribbean coast) in 1658. Their goal was to establish a Jewish
colony on the Essequibo River. The authors appear to waver between
commercialism and salvation, Portuguese and Dutch identity. The account
captures an important moment in Sephardic history after the loss of Dutch
Brazil.

Jonathan Schorsch holds the Chair in Jewish Religious and Intellectual
History at the University of Potsdam (Germany). Among his books are Swimming
the Christian Atlantic: Judeoconversos, Afroiberians and Amerindians in the
Seventeenth-Century Iberian World (Brill, 2008) and Jews and Blacks in the
Early Modern World (Cambridge University Press, 2004). With his colleague
Sina Rauschenbach he co-edited The Sephardic Atlantic: Colonial Histories
and Postcolonial Perspectives (Palgrave, 2018).

This meeting is on Sunday 6 November 2022 at 11am in LA, 2pm NYC, 7pm
London, 8pm Paris/Amsterdam and 9pm Jerusalem. Patrons can join us on Zoom.
The link is shared at our Patreon page at: https://www.patreon.com/sephardi
Everyone else is invited to join us live at:
https://www.youtube.com/SephardicGenealogyAndHistory Please subscribe to the
channel. It helps us a lot.

Over the last two and a half years Sephardic World has become the leading
forum for learning about Sephardic history and genealogy. We have no
commercial sponsorship or public funding. There is no charge to attend our
meetings or to view our content. If you are not a patron and can afford it,
please consider supporting our work.

Best wishes,

David Mendoza
Sephardic Genealogical Society
https://www.sephardic.world/

I made a typo in my original post. I said "about 2000" when I should have said "about 2600" according to the information I have. My mistake. I have seen estimates that say 1/5 were Jewish, but that number seems to apply to just those who completed the 8 week course, where the figure is around 20% who are Jewish, but those numbers do not tell the whole story. Some did not finish, due to grades and the like. Others however may not have graduated because the Army urgently needed them, so they pulled them from the course. According to the research by Dan Gross, from 7/27/1942 to 9/20/1945, there were 19,669 who graduated any course at Camp Ritchie. Approximately 3800 did not graduate.

Just over 2100 Jewish Ritchie Boys were sent overseas. Just over 220 were known not to have been sent overseas.

The three largest birth place among Jewish Ritchie Boys were:
America: 781
Germany: 1103
Austria: 339
Those three countries alone account for 2223 Jewish Ritchie Boys

--

Josh Freeling
North Carolina

Nov. 13 1:30-3:30 PM EST The JGS of Greater Boston presents Dr. Kelly O’Neill – Into the Archive: Voyagers from the Russian Empire to the United States

Free for JGS of Greater Boston members, $5 for non-members.  Information at www.jgsgb.org

Jessie Klein
Co-President
JGS of Greater Boston
president@...

Dear Mr. van Frank,

One of my relatives spent a year at Hospice de Scheut home located at 32, rue de l'Orphelinat in the commune d'Anderlecht in Brussels (https://journals.openedition.org/cmc/1046). She was arrested in August 1943 and brought to Kazerne Dossin in Malines/Mechelen prior to being transferred to Scheut because of her age (she was 66 yeas old by then) while the rest of her family perished in Auschwitz-Birkenau. Could that information be of any help to you ?

Here is some information I found about the Home de Miravalle in Boitsfort :
https://monument.heritage.brussels/fr/Watermael-Boitsfort/Avenue_Georges_Benoidt/22/37428
https://journals.openedition.org/cmc/592

Best regards,
Philip Hesske, Paris (France)

Like many others I have seen the movie and read the book.  What I was surprised to learn in Josh's writeup above was a) how many Richie Boys there were and b) that the vast majority were not Jewish.  I had always presumed that it was practically an all-Jewish unit.  Live and learn.  
--
Herschel Sheiness
San Antonio, Tx
jsheines@...

Absolutely overdue, in my opinion.

If anyone is interested in reading the text by Congressman Trone, it can be viewed at https://trone.house.gov/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/TRONE_061_xml.pdf


--

Josh Freeling
North Carolina

Family History Today: Clued In - Case Studies from Sherlock Cohn, The Photo Genealogist

Thursday, November 10, 5-7 pm Eastern Time (U.S./Canada) 

At its core, genealogy research is detective work. In this fun and informative talk, Sherlock Cohn, the photo genealogy sleuth, will explore how and why it is important to find the clues our ancestors left for us in our family photos. Participants will learn what clues an expert looks for in photos, how to organize your approach to dating and interpreting photos, and how to match photo information with vital records. Additionally, Sherlock will present how she solved “The Case of the Mistaken Date,” demonstrating how accurate dating, photo identification, knowledge of fashion, and records matching can illuminate our ancestors’ lives and help us solve some of our vexing genealogy mysteries.  At the conclusion, she will help attendees begin the process of analyzing their own family photos. Note: The deadline to submit a family photo for potential analysis has passed. 

Tickets: Pay what you wish. Register to receive a Zoom link here. 

 

This program is sponsored by the Ackman & Ziff Family Genealogy Institute at the Center for Jewish History. 

--
Moriah Amit
Senior Genealogy Librarian, Center for Jewish History
New York, NY
mamit@...

Arthur,

This has been a good puzzle. I assume the Jaroszowka you speak of is the town as named when your ancestor was on the move, so before WWII, at least. Thus I would search for these locations on historical maps. Searching for the first two locations provided above by Sherri turn up nothing on historical images. So searching for the third location, first from the modern Google map takes me to a location in the former area of Austrian Galicia. This is contradictory to your suggestion of a location in Russia. But take a look at this screenshot from an 1878 map: 


The spelling is pretty clear. This village is east of the town of Gdow, (G'dov) a few miles. Here is a larger screenshot:



Notice Jaroszowka in the lower right corner. 
Here is a link to the map: http://easteurotopo.org/indices/zoom/zoomviewer.php?indexname=galiciaindex&displayname=Wieliczka%20Und%20Myslenice&attribution=the%20Library%20of%20Congress&year=1878&fileurl=c5_Wieliczka%20und%20Myslenice_LC_1878.jpeg&coordinates=c5

I hope you find this useful.

Hap Ponedel
Eugene, OR
hapsky@...
http://easteurotopo.org/

I am putting together a keepsake of my ancestors and a relative said of my great-grandfather: "He loves Saturdays and attends shul religiously.  After shul, he returns home to a nice lunch, takes a nap, and heads downstairs to argue his socialist views with his communist neighbors." 
I would like to put this into context and have tried to look into this, but would like to know if anyone can explain in a nutshell what the discussion at that time between socialists and communists in the Lower East Side in the mid 1920s.  Thank you so much.

Johanna Pertuis