No Stone Unturned 12/8/2014. Jeżów, Poland, a shtetl between Lodz and Warsaw. A Tale of Two Lost Cousins, the Holocaust, and Obsession

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1 Fayga Galas, circa 1945 No Stone Unturned My mother believed that she was the sole survivor of the Galas family. A Tale of Two Lost Cousins, the Holocaust, and Obsession by Fayga Galas, Deborah Long My family Jeżów, Poland, a shtetl between Lodz and Warsaw Found surviving cousins in Sweden in

2 Book of Residents: Jezow obtained from the PSA Book of Residents: Lodz Lodz Ghetto Database (Jewishgen.org) From the USHMM Survivor Registry 7 8 2

3 February 2010: I write to the International Red Cross and International Tracing Service Zypora Rafaeli geb. Galas verw. Rubinstein born in Jezow April 2010: I receive this response with two attached forms. RUBINSTEIN, Cypora According to this inquiry, your cousin survived persecution and was living in Israel [in 1964]. 9 Cypora s first married Mendel Rubinstein; now married to Mordechai Rafaeli. Birthdate: June 14, 1908 in Jeżów Last address before arrest: Woljanska 159 in Lódz Status when arrested: married Date of second marriage: 1950 in Haifa Originally deported to the Ghetto Lódz, fled from the ghetto at the end of 1941 to Rogow where she hid with a peasant until the end of the war. After liberation she went to Lódz in 1945, from there for a few weeks to Stettin (today's Szczecin). At the beginning of 1947 immigration to Palestine, held from the beginning of 1947 to May 14, 1948 on Cyprus, after that immigration to Israel. The trip to Israel started in Italy in 1947, but was interrupted by the stopover on Cyprus. Address at the time of filling in the form: Kfar Chassidim near Haifa. 10 Cypora was married and living in Israel in 1964! With the second document, I discovered something else: The son was killed in action in Israel. Google: Kfar Hassidim is a moshav or farming village

4 Over the next two years, I reconstructed Cypora s family s Holocaust story and the aftermath. Cypora, Mendel and and their son s timeline LODZ, POLAND BIALYSTOK SIBERIA BUKHARA, UZBEKISTAN Mendel Rubinstein m. son Cypora Galas Mordechai Rafaeli 13 Mendel Rubenstein on a card from the USHMM File of Jewish Refugees in Tashkent (Record from February, 1942) Last name Rubenstein First Name - Mendel Middle Name Shlyomovich Year of birth 1904 Profession boot maker Nationality Jewish Residence before evacuation Zhitomyr region, city Berdichev Place of work before evacuation Shoemaking plant, bootmaking dpt Current add: Namangan region, city of Chust, Uzbekistan Current place of work: chrome production plant as cleaning man 14 Son s timeline Cypora s timeline PALESTINE BUKHARA? LODZ & SZCZECIN, POLAND CINECITTA ITALY CYPRUS ISRAEL 14,000 miles 15 13,200 miles 16 4

5 How did I find these details? Enter my roommate, Natalie Mendelsohn Cypora s son s name was Reuven Gush Etzion Yizkor Book for the Children of Tehran reveals more about Reuven s life in Israel. He loved talking about his mother. He ran with her toward the train but was pushed to the crowd and lost grip on her hand. He called Mother, mother! But she didn t hear him and Reuven never saw her again. He was pushed along with all the other people fleeing on to the train. I was already a lost boy, orphaned from my mother. Gush Etzion s strategic location made it a buffer against a southern assault on Jerusalem. The area soon became a battleground. The Palmach sent a platoon of soldiers who were massacred en route by Arab militants

6 Children of Tehran And what of Cypora s fate? Jewishgenner: Cypora died on March 1, 1996 in Neve Efal retirement home. She is buried at Kfar Chassidim. The end of the story? Questions remained. Cypora lived almost 30 years after her second husband. How did she spend her years? Where and how did Cypora s son Reuven live on his own from age 12 to 16? Why did the records indicate that Cypora was in Rogow (near Jeżów) after the war, hidden by a peasant, but Reuven s Palmach obituary stated that Cypora and her first husband were with Reuven in Russia? Are you sitting down? In the vault: o-documents related to Reuven s Gush Etzion combat o-a photo album containing more than 40 family pictures, many of them in pre-world War II sepia tones, some of them labelled! It took many months to get copies of the photo album

7 Two photos are an enigma. The Red Cross comes through again. David Zander in After the war Cypora went back to Poland and found that no one survived. Jewish Brigade helped her go to Germany, then Italy, then to Palestine on the Moledat, but the British deported the passengers to Cyprus. Reuven was in Palestine living on a kibbutz. He left there to be a driver to make money so that he and his mother could start life again. Cypora arrived in Israel one month after her son died. Cypora went to Haifa to live near her first husband s cousin and was introduced to and married Mordechai Rafaeli. Cypora became pregnant in 1950 but was encouraged by doctors to abort this baby, perhaps because Cypora was 42. When Mordechai died of cancer, his children sued for the estate. Cypora was a difficult, stubborn, hard, bitter woman, rarely finding joy. She died in a nursing home. 27 Kohava chimes in. Cypora s only visitor was a socialist. Cypora did not talk about her past, except about her son. She cried all the time: she was alone and poor. Ironically, Cypora was in the same retirement center as another surviving cousin of my mother s. Neve Efal retirement center 7

8 January 2013: A trip to Israel First stop: Palmach Museum A note in the box: the name of a home health worker who had assembled the family photos into the album and brought it to the Museum after Cypora s death. Another photo was in the collection: Cypora s Israeli identity card taken when she first came to Israel in 1948 at age 40.. A visit to Yad Vashem yields an astonishing surprise 29 And another one! 30 Mt. Herzl: Reuven s resting place Kfar Chassidim Emblem at top right: Israel Defense Forces Reuven Rubinstein Son of Cypora and Menachem Fell in battle in Neve Daniel on March 27, 1948 at the age of 16. May he rest in peace. Reuven lies in the middle among his compatriots; lower row; third from left

9 A visit to David Zander David had prepared for this visit by gathering pictures of Cypora and her family all of them blessedly labeled. Here lies Cypora Rafaeli Daughter of Reb Yisrael Galas of blessed memory A woman of good deeds who knew pain and suffering A volunteer for I.D.F. (Israeli Defense Forces) soldiers Died on March 1, 1996 May she rest in peace Here lies My dear and unforgettable husband Mordecai Rafaeli Son of Reb Hovisch Died on October 21, 1967 at age 66 May he rest in peace Leah Zander with Cypora, right, late 1950s Atlit: Museum of Clandestine Immigration A detention camp established by the British, 12 miles south of Haifa. Established to prevent refugees from entering Palestine. The Moledet Cypora stayed on Cyprus unil May 1948, the day that Israel became a state, unaware that her son had died six weeks earlier. Tens of thousands of Jewish immigrants were interned at Atlit, surrounded by barbed wire and watchtowers. Now a museum

10 Atlit Database: Another surprise Reuven s Aliyah card It was Reuven who was at Atlit, not his mother. The photo was from the Yizkor book More questions Enigmatic reference on Cypora s compensation papers about a Rogow peasant who hid her 39 More questions How Cypora and Reuven were able to contact each other during her Cyrpus interment but she didn t know that he had died Why Cypora s relatives in Haifa knew her well enough to introduce her to her future husband but did not know of Reuven, or if they did, why they did not take him in when he came to Palestine. In 1959, when Cypora wrote in her YV testimony that things would have turned out differently had she been able to arrive in Israel sooner, she had no idea that she would lose her second husband 8 years later and that she would live another 30 years. Would her life have been different had her son lived? Her son s photos show a scared boy and an unhappy, angry teen. Would he have joined the Palmach if his mother had been able to join him a year earlier? Would he have died at Gush Etzion? If my mother and Cypora had known of each other, would they have been friends? Would they able been able to give each other comfort? 40 10

11 Rest in peace Cypora Galas Rubenstein Rafaeli Reuven Rubenstein Usual Resources Yad Vashem database (yadvashem.org) USHMM survivor registry International Tracing Service (ITS) Red Cross Jewishgen (JRI-Poland, in my case) Shoah Foundation Institute visual testimony Yizkor Books "During the Holocaust, they took the names away of the people, each with their own soul, and they put numbers on their arms. The job of a Jewish genealogist is to replace those numbers and give them back their names." Arthur Kurzweil - Jewish Genealogist Lesser Known Resources Books of Residents from Polish State Archives Zionist archives Google maps, telephone directories Chevra Kadishas (burial societies) Together newspaper HIAS, Joint Archives DP camps records Compensation claims (HEART claims, recently) Immigration records, including ship manifests Jewishgen s SIGs Footnotes Museums: ask to speak to archivists and librarians Nothing like feet on the ground Is there anything else I should be asking for? Are there any other documents or resources that may provide an answer? 43 11