Summer 2016 JUNE JULY AUGUST September

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1 Summer 2016 Meetings are held on Sunday afternoon at B nai Yehuda Beth Sholom (BYBS) 1424 W. 183rd St. Homewood, Illinois Our Board meetings are at 1:00 open to all paid members Our General meetings are at 2:00 members and guests welcome Meetings are free to members; $2.00 donation for non-members JUNE NO meeting JULY 10 Oak Lawn Library we will meet at the library 1:30 NO board meeting this afternoon NOTE TIME CHANGE 1:30 Kathy O Leary, Oak Lawn Librarian and genealogist, will guide us through their genealogical library. What would help our research? What is on their computers? 9427 Raymond Ave, Oak Lawn 95 th Street between Cicero Ave. and Central Ave. There is a parking lot on the east side of the building. Bring your local library card with your name on it and the first hour using a computer in the lab is free. AUGUST 7 Annual Deli Dinner SEE FLYER ON PAGE 3 Bergstein's NY Deli 4:30-7:30 pm $15.00 per person includes hot and cold drinks and dessert RSVP by July 27 to Fred and Sandy Miller Guests and friends are welcomed September 11 Following Old Picture Clues Do you have a family picture that you can not date? Was it taken in America or Europe? Penny Shnay will tell us what clues to look for. If interested, bring your picture(s) to Trudy or Penny prior to the meeting day or they can be scanned and ed to her directly or via IJGS. (Sid can scan your picture for her, if you want) Penny will use them as part of her presentation and return the picture to you.

2 Trudy's Topics As I write this, I have just returned home from a Florida visit with my 3 1/2 year old grandson. I am soooo cold. We left 80 degree weather. I really like that much more than this chilly, windy 40 degrees. I know, basically, it was a mild winter. It is renewal time (page 7). Hope you will be joining us for another year of interesting programs. If you have a suggestion for a program that you would like to hear or learn about, please let me know. Our Annual Deli Dinner (page 3). Invite your friends, family members, and neighbors. If you would like me to send them a flyer, please let me know. Summer is party time. Hope you enjoy all of yours in good health. Happy Mother's Day Happy Father's Day Happy Children or grandchildren graduations. Happy Weddings/Anniversaries Or whatever you might be celebrating. Unfortunately we also share sadness in our lives. IN MEMORY We mourn the loss of our good friend and member, Mike Lowenstein, who passed away on April 12, We will miss him at meetings. He was always ready to help when needed. Our condolences are extended to his family. Future Meetings Save the Dates September 11 Following Old Picture Clues October NO meeting IJGS Tribute Cards To purchase cards at $1.50 each please IJGS@comcast.net to arrange pick up at our monthly meeting or other prearranged time. From Our Historian If you see an article(s) in the newspapers or bulletins pertaining to our monthly meetings, please save it for our society scrapbook. You can give it to me or Trudy at a meeting. Thank you, Evelyn THANK YOU Mike's children told me that he had the program all prepared for the April meeting. In his memory, they allowed us to share the book that Mike had about the exhibit. After we shared memories of Mike, we enjoyed the book. Trent Pendley for giving us a book review of his current book, Toys in the Closet. It was enjoyed by all. IJGS BOARD MEMBERS President Trudy Barch (708) Vice President June Shifrin (708) Program committee Treasurer Sandy Miller (815) Publicity Doris Sweeney (708) Newsletter Trudy Barch (708) Tribute Cards Historian Evelyn Friedman (708) Deli Dinner committee Refreshments Evelyn Friedman (708) Web Master Sid Barch (708) Member-at-Large Fred Miller (815) Supporters Henry & Ruth Landauer Sol & Lee Yates IJGS WebPage: ijgs.iajgs.org (case sensitive) address: IJGS@comcast.net CHECK OUT OUR NEW WEBSITE. LET US KNOW WHAT YOU THINK OF IT. ANY QUESTIONS? SUGGESTIONS? November 13 The Congressional Medal of Honor lliana Jewish Genealogical Society 2 Summer 2016

3 Annual Deli Dinner SUNDAY, August 7, 2016 Bergstein's NY Delicatessen 200 Dixie Hwy. Chicago Heights, Illinois 4:30 p.m. - 7:30 p.m. Choice of 1) Meat Platter - Corned Beef and Turkey OR 2) Dairy Platter - lox, herring, and fish salads $15.00 per person Includes hot and cold drinks and dessert RSVP by July 27 To Fred and Sandy Miller Your preference of meat or dairy platter IF you would like to bring a dessert Guests and friends are welcomed lliana Jewish Genealogical Society 3 Summer 2016

4 Jan Meisels Allen IAJGS Public Records Access Monitoring Committee The next few pages are all from Jan Czech Torahs Recovered After Holocaust to Reunite February 6, 2014 by Marc Shapiro Synagogue in London will commemorate 50th anniversary of the trust that refurbished, redistributed the historic scrolls all over the world Paula Farbman holds a Torah from the Czech town Divisov that she and her late husband, Leonard, acquired for Temple Oheb Shalom. The scroll is one of 1,564 from Czechoslovakia recovered after the Holocaust. On Thursday, Feb. 6, Paula Farbman boarded a plane to London with a treasure sitting on her lap. Inside a zipped clothing travel bag and encased in bubble wrap was a Torah scroll that dated to the 1700s and was used in a small Czech town that was decimated by the Holocaust. The scroll is one of 1,564 Torahs that make up the Memorial Scrolls Trust, which is based at the Westminster Synagogue in London. The trust recently commemorated its 50th anniversary in a celebration that will reunite many of these scrolls, which have been loaned to congregations around the world. Even though the Nazis tried to destroy the Jewish people, they failed, and this is a living testament to the vitality and vibrancy of the Jewish people, said Temple Oheb Shalom s Rabbi Steven Fink, While synagogues throughout industrial and commercial towns in the Sudetenland the Germanspeaking areas of Czechoslovakia were mostly destroyed, others in the country, including in Prague, were not. After mass deportations removed most of the Czech Jewish population by early 1943, those remaining, which included half-jews and those from mixed marriages, were tasked with liquidating Jewish property in those towns. The scrolls and many other artifacts were sent to Prague, and the remaining Jews were eventually deported in 1943 and Few survived. Many of the synagogue s scrolls wound up at the Michle Synagogue in Prague and were stored in damp conditions. An American art dealer, Eric Estorick, who was living in London and traveled to Prague frequently in the early 1960s, saw the scrolls and was upset by their condition. He contacted a rabbi at the Westminster Synagogue, and a congregant named Ralph Yablon later bought the scrolls for the equivalent of $30,000. The scrolls arrived at the Westminster Synagogue on Feb. 7, The trust was established to refurbish the Torahs and loan them to congregations throughout the world. More than 1,000 scrolls were loaned to American congregations, with Baltimore City being home to at least 10 scrolls at one point. Farbman and her late husband, Leonard, acquired one of the Torahs for Oheb Shalom in We were fortunate enough not to have to live through those times in those places, but I had many of my relatives die, said Farbman. It s just the fact that this was available, and I wanted to be a part of it. According to a letter written to Oheb Shalom in 1988 by the late Frank Steiner, a Holocaust survivor who lived in Florida and helped original trust chair Ruth Shaffer, Farbman s Torah is from a small community named Divisov, which is located in the Czech province of Bohemia about 32 miles southwest of Prague. According to the letter, Jews lived in Divisov before The Jewish community established a cemetery in 1776, and it had a synagogue with a religious school and a mikvah. After 1893, the congregation could no longer afford a rabbi and joined the Jewish community in the nearby city of Benesov; it only used the Divisov building on High Holy Days. At the time of the writing, the building was a barber shop, Steiner wrote. Farbman, whose grandchildren comprise the fifth generation of Oheb Shalom membership, is flying to London with her four children and their spouses. She said neighbors and friends have been moved to tears upon hearing the story. This is such a wonderful thing; everyone I ve spoken to, their eyes fill up, she said, noting that a non- Jewish neighbor cried when Farbman explained to her the Torah s significance. Fink said Oheb Shalom uses the Torah on Erev Yom Kippur, and one of Farbman s sons holds the Torah at the service. Rabbi emeritus Donald Berlin was at the congregation when the Torah was acquired. He was familiar with the Czech scrolls since he was rabbi at Temple Emanuel in Roanoke, Va., in the 1960s, when it acquired one of the Torahs. This is a way of maintaining an aliveness of both Torah and Judaism and of those people [from Divisov] all at once, he said. lliana Jewish Genealogical Society 4 Summer 2016

5 Baltimore s connection to Jews from Germany, Hungary and Czechoslovakia goes deeper than these scrolls, said Berlin. As a thriving entry port to the United States for German Jews in the 1800s and then again for Jews fleeing Europe in the 1930s, Baltimore had a large German-Jewish community. Oheb Shalom was one of the congregations where many of them identified, explained Berlin. But almost all of the people had relatives that were murdered in the war. Oheb Shalom even had its own survival story: Two sisters were reunited when one came to Baltimore after surviving the Holocaust, joining her sister who fled before the war. These connections are exactly what the Memorial Scrolls Trust hopes to foster. With the scrolls distributed around the world, those from the trust want them to be recognized for the treasures that they are. Now, we re trying to stimulate conversations to use these scrolls to tell the story of the Holocaust, said Susan Boyer, the U.S. director of the trust. This mission has changed, and now it s to make that connection [within the congregations] and to not let these scrolls become forgotten survivors. Boyer said many congregations have made connections with the villages their scrolls are from, and she has even attended a bat mitzvah in Moravia, where a scroll was brought back to the village that it came from. Part of Boyer s job, a volunteer position, is to keep track of the scrolls, quite a task in recent years with a number of American congregations closing and merging with others. They re very, very precious and very important, and their importance grows with each year, she said. Evelyn Friedlander, chair of the Memorial Scrolls Trust, said that a couple hundred scrolls have been lost. We re constantly doing detective work, she said. Friedlander planned the commemoration, which she expects to bring more than 200 people to the Westminster Synagogue. Guests are bringing more than 40 Torahs with them. What s so special about [the scrolls] is the fact that they re alive; they re used, said Friedlander. Congregations that these Torahs came from are no more. Very few Jews survived from all of these small towns. Only scrolls are such a potent memorial to these people. French Civil Registration Records France has a long history of civil registration of births, marriages and deaths--starting in It covers people of all denominations. French records also include "margin records"-- these are hand-written notes that may lead to additional records. Records of civil registration are typically held in registries in the local town hall, with copies deposited each year with the local magistrate's court. Records over 100 years old are placed in the Archives Départementales (series E) and are available for public consultation. Many Departmental Archives have placed portions of their holdings online, often beginning with the civil records. To read more about French civil records see: Most civil registration records, however, are accessible only by knowing the town, identifying the department that now holds those records and locating the online holdings of the Archives Départementales for your town. One place to search for these are: original url: However, online access to the indexes and digital images has been restricted to 120 years by the Commission Nationale de l'informatique et des Libertés (CNIL)--due to concern over privacy. This restriction has been in effect since late Forbidden access on the Internet includes the publication of certain information about people, whether living or dead. That information includes: racial or ethnic origins, political opinions, philosophies or religions, memberships to groups or associations, health, sexuality, crimes, convictions, imprisonments AND marginal notes on civil registrations. The prohibition of including religion or ethnic origins impedes searching for Jewish records. To read more on the CNIL edict see: original url: ip_p ip_&tt=2&bt=0&bts=0&st=37&zu=http%3A//frenchgenealogy.typepad.com/genealogie/2011/01/commercial-genealogy-vs-privacy-the-french-perspective.htmlJJ lliana Jewish Genealogical Society 5 Summer 2016

6 France and US Agree to Compensate Holocaust survivors and Family Members Deported by SNCF During Nazi Occupation Tens of thousands of Jews were moved by SNCF to Nazi camps, including Pithiviers, during World War Two The French and United States announced a $60 million fund to compensate holocaust survivors and family members for those deported by France s state rail company, SNCF during the Nazi occupation. The fund will be financed by the French government and managed by the United States. According to the Washington Post the United States is waiving its administrative fee for administration. It will be about $100,000 for each survivor and tens of thousands for spouses of those who died in the camps or since World War ll. Amounts for heirs of camp survivors who have since died are to be determined on the basis of the number of years those survivors lived after their liberation. Eligible claimants can choose annuities rather than lump sums. French legislators still have to approve the agreement. The agreement includes the US government to work to end lawsuits and other compensation in US Courts against SNCF. SNCF is bidding for high-rail and other contracts in the US which can be very lucrative for SNCF. One such contract could be worth $6 billion for light rail in Maryland. State legislators in a number of states have tried to punish SNCF for Holocaust-era actions. SNCF transported 76,000 French Jews to Nazi concentration camps. While SBNC expressed regret they say they had no control over the operations during Nazi occupation. The French government has paid $6 billion in reparations but only to French citizens and some deportees. The new agreement will help compensate US, Canadian, Israeli and some others not eligible for the other French reparations. The French have other international accords with Poland, Belgium, Britain and Czech Republic over compensation for deportation of victims. Paris Police Records Exhibit Brochure on 1942 Round Up Of Jews In Paris The opening archives of the biggest World War II deportation of French Jews was opened up to public view for the first time. It coincided with the 70th anniversary of the Vel' d'hiv roundup by Paris police of over 13,000 Jews over two days--july 16-17, 1942 before being bused to the French camp at Drancy and then taken by train to the Auschwitz. death camp. The exhibit produced a 60-page brochure--only in French --with photographs of some of the documents in the exhibit. IAJGS received permission to post the brochure to our website. It is a VERY large file 30 MB. The brochure is posted to the IAJGS Resources, genealogy links under holocaust and may be accessed directly by clicking on this link: The records are kept at the Mémorial de la Shoah 17; rue Geoffroy-l'Asnier Paris, France. The link to the Mémoiral de la Shoah is also on the IAJGS website under resources: holocaust list and may be accessed by clicking: French Town Unveils Judaica Treasure Hidden During Holocaust A town near Strasbourg [Alsace] France unveiled a treasure trove of Judaica items that were hidden during the Holocaust. They were found during a renovation of a former synagogue. The items are now located at the new cultural center of Dambach-la Ville a town of 2,000 residents near Strasbourg in the Alsace region of eastern France. Included in the found precious Judaica items were wimples or mapot strips of cloth wrapped around the babies during circumcision and decorated with their names. The oldest one dates to A torah scroll dating to 1592 was also found. The majority of Jews in this area were evacuated by the French government during World War II-resulting in the majority of residents surviving the War. To read more about this go to: Original url: TROVE newspaper collection The National Library of Australia s TROVE newspaper collection has recently added 53 historical newspapers to their collection bringing the number of newspapers over 650. The Trove Collection has over 8 million digitized pages of Australian newspapers. Access to the collection is free. To access them go to: lliana Jewish Genealogical Society 6 Summer 2016

7 The Royal Australia Air Force Casualty Database The Royal Australia Air Force Casualty Database has upwards of 10,000 names. It also has links to official websites such as the Australian Defence Force, Royal Australian Air Force, Commonwealth War Graves Commission and more. The site includes a list of the disposition of graves marked as "Unknown Australian Airman" in Commonwealth War Graves Cemeteries from the Second World War. It also includes photographs of grave markers for those RAAF personnel with known graves. Go to: where you can access the search mechanism as well as the many associated links. Judaica Europeana Judaica Europeana is a growing network with currently 30 institutions: libraries, archives and museums in Europe, Israel and the US. Judaica Europeana is led by the European Association for Jewish Culture working closely with the Frankfurt University Library and the National Library of Israel. It provides integrated access to digital collections which document Jewish life in Europe via Europeana, Europe s digital platform for cultural heritage. To date the project has made available online 3.7 million items. It can be searched in 30 languages and by geographic area. One can find books, photographs, manuscripts to the culture of Jews. To view the website go to: They also have a free electronic newsletter: Renewal Family membership dues will be accepted at the deli dinner or summer meetings for our society year July 1, 2016 to June 30, 2017 ILLIANA JEWISH GENEALOGIGAL SOCIETY Renewal of Family Membership dues for our society year July 1, 2016 to June 30, 2017 is due now $ Please renew at our annual Deli Dinner or you may pay at our summer meetings or send a check payable to IJGS P.O. Box 384 Flossmoor, Illinois NAME ADDRESS (newsletters are mailed to members) CITY, STATE, ZIP CODE TELEPHONE NUMBER (HOME) CELL) ADDRESS (reminders of meetings or other upcoming interests are ed to you) lliana Jewish Genealogical Society 7 Summer 2016

8 Permission is granted for the quoting, in whole or in part, of any original article included in this issue of the IJGS Newsletter by the newsletter/journal of any other IAJGS member society, providing acknowledgment of the source is given, unless the article is identified as one that is not to be reproduced. Acknowledgment should include the title of the newsletter, the issuing society, and its date of publication. Additionally, as a courtesy, we request that an be sent letting us know that a published article is being further used. Family membership is $20.00 per year. Our Society year is July 1 to June 30. For your membership, you receive a quarterly newsletter, direction in your genealogy research, and interesting monthly meetings. Please send your check payable to: Illiana Jewish Genealogical Society (IJGS) P.O. Box 384 Flossmoor, IL ILLIANA JEWISH GENEALOGICAL SOCIETY P.O. BOX 384 FLOSSMOOR, IL lliana Jewish Genealogical Society 8 Summer 2016