Elka Meskin

GEDCOM Note

[Elka Kevelevitch moved to Devoretz upon her marriage to Eliezer Moshe Meskin, and Devoretz was where her children and many grandchildren -- including Osher Kahan -- were born.] <p></p> <p>Notes on the fate of Elka and her children, by Yehoshua:</p> <p>Dvoretz, Poland (now in Belarus), [was] a little town not far from Mir and Baranovitch. My father passed away in 2000 in Los Angeles; Avraham Meiskin is still alive and feisty in Ra'anana, Israel, passed 85 and heading toward 90. He remembered my father even though my father left Poland with his parents at age 2 for England, when his father wasinvited to join the staff of the then fledgling Gateshead yeshiva. It would be oh so many years later that Drora discovered us while searching for family roots. Upon meeting once again, my father, the physicist, and Avraham, the citrus grower, hauled out the long-abandoned Yiddish to begin the process of becoming reacquainted. <p></p> <p>My bubba was one of 14 children, and her father, Eliezer Moshe Meiskin, was a religious man who sought the best young men for his daughters. When my bubba Bluma's turn came, he went to the Mir yeshiva and brought home R. Eliezer Kahan. <p></p> <p>Bluma's older brother, Yaakov, was Avraham's father. He had eight children - Avraham was the third oldest. He was sent to yeshiva, together with his younger brother Rephael, to Baranovich, home of the famed Ohel Torah Yeshiva, headed by R. Elchonon Wasserman. <p></p> <p>When Germany and Russian spit Poland between them in 1939, the Baranovitch region, including Dvoretz, came under Russian communist rule. Theyshut the yeshiva and the student dispersed. Some followed their great Rav, Rav Elchonon, to Vilna. They all died in the destruction of the Vilna ghetto in 1943. Avraham and Raphael, ages 17 and 15, were sent home to Dvoretz. <p></p> <p>Two years latter, Germany took Russia by surprise and, violating the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact, invaded Russia. Avraham heard the bombers filling the sky and his father told him and Raphael to flee to the East and join their oldest brother, Mordechai. They didn't want to leave the family behind, but their father insisted: he and their mother would stay with the younger children. They, who were old enough, would flee. <p></p> <p>So they fled, they made it past the Russian border, now in complete disarray, and found their brother in the interior of Russia. How they survived the war, how one found his way to the U.S., another remained in Russia (until he came to Israel around 1990), and the third, Avraham, came to Israel, is a story for another time. <p></p><p>Many years passed until, a year or so ago, Drora went with her parents back to Dvoretz.</p> <p></p> <p>The locals said everything had been destroyed, all the houses were new. And yet, Avraham found his grandparent's house in town. They made their way toward the river, and found the remnants of the mivkeh there. (Since hearing this story, I've thought alot about that mikveh, about my grandmother, about the birth of my father at that place...) <p></p> <p>Then they inquired as to what happened to the Jews.</p> <p></p> <p>It seems that many thousands of Jews, as many as thirty-thousand, were gathered in Dvoretz. The Nazis used the local Poles to dig huge pits in the forest, at least 20 meters by 40 meters. They rounded up the Jews from Devoretz, and from neighboring towns who had been relocated to Devoretz, and brought them to the pits. They employed Lithuanians to shoot row after row of Jews into the pits -- the Nazis themselves had found that the business of mechanized shooting deranged the Germans, but not the Lithuanians. Women carrying their children would hand them backwards through the crowd as their turns came to be murdered, so that the last group of Jews to reach the pitswere the children. The Nazis thought better of wasting precious bullets on mere children, so they pushed them in alive, and then commanded the Poles to cover the thousands of dead and dying and living bodies with the soil dug out in mounds near the pits. The Poles told Avraham that the earth moved and heaved and cried and shouted for days. <p></p> <p>There are three mass graves, a few kilometers apart, in the forest near Dvoretz. Avraham couldn't know which one holds the remains of his father, mother, four younger siblings and his older sister (Golda had been 19, not yet married, wouldn't/couldn't leave the family). He also had no idea where all his brothers and sister and their families were buried (four had died in childhood, another four had left years before for the U.S. and England -but that still left another 6 Meskin siblings and their families - amongst the tens of thousands murdered in Dvoretz). <p></p> <p>The picture shows Avraham and his daughter, Drora, reading the memorial plaque at one of the mass graves. What can such a plaque possibly say... Perhaps it reads differently for each person: There lies the town of Dvoretz, much of my father's family, and, unraveled andabsorbed into the soil and the heavens, countless strands of dreams, thoughts, hopes, the once-living web of a vibrant organ of the Jewish people and manifestation of Hashem's will on earth. <p></p> <p>They proceed to Baranovitch, Avraham found the Ohel Torah Yeshiva building, now a gymnasium. The Belarus director was moved to hear the story, as Avraham pointed out where R. Elchonon used to sit, and how the tables were arranged. He asked and they readily agreed to create a plaque, in Russian, Hebrew and English, describing for posterity what the building once housed. <p></p> <p>How do you describe, in a hundred or so words, what transpired between R. Elchonon Wasserman and his talmidim in a single day's learning in Baranovitch. Do you say, "this was a famed talmudical seminary..." <p></p><p>I have always been repulsed by the thought of visiting anywhere in Eastern Europe (nowadays, anywhere in Europe, period!) It's always felt to me like one massive Jewish graveyard. Yet something has spoken powerfully to me that I don't understand. I see myself at those plaques, in all their inadequacy, peering through them as though into a portal to a world of Jewish life of almost mystical power. But I will not travel there. Rather, with apologies to the famous Chassidic story retold by Elie Wiesel - I'll tell this story, and tell it, and tell it - and that will have to be enough. It is enough.

GEDCOM Note

[Elka Kevelevitch moved to Devoretz upon her marriage to Eliezer Moshe Meskin, and Devoretz was where her children and many grandchildren -- including Osher Kahan -- were born.] &lt;p&gt;&lt;/p&gt; &lt;p&gt;Notes on the fate of Elka and her children, by Yehoshua:&lt;/p&gt; &lt;p&gt;Dvoretz, Poland (now in Belarus), [was] a little town not far from Mir and Baranovitch. My father passed away in 2000 in Los Angeles; Avraham Meiskin is still alive and feisty in Ra'anana, Israel, passed 85 and heading toward 90. He remembered my father even though my father left Poland with his parents at age 2 for England, when his father was invited to join the staff of the then fledgling Gateshead yeshiva. It would be oh so many years later that Drora discovered us while searching for family roots. Upon meeting once again, my father, the physicist, and Avraham, the citrus grower, hauled out the long-abandoned Yiddish to begin the process of becoming reacquainted. &lt;p&gt;&lt;/p&gt; &lt;p&gt;My bubba was one of 14 children, and her father, Eliezer Moshe Meiskin, was a religious man who sought the best young men for his daughters. When my bubba Bluma's turn came, he went to the Mir yeshiva and brought home R. Eliezer Kahan. &lt;p&gt;&lt;/p&gt; &lt;p&gt;Bluma's older brother, Yaakov, was Avraham's father. He had eight children - Avraham was the third oldest. He was sent to yeshiva, together with his younger brother Rephael, to Baranovich, home of the famed Ohel Torah Yeshiva, headed by R. Elchonon Wasserman. &lt;p&gt;&lt;/p&gt; &lt;p&gt;When Germany and Russian spit Poland between them in 1939, the Baranovitch region, including Dvoretz, came under Russian communist rule. They shut the yeshiva and the student dispersed. Some followed their great Rav, Rav Elchonon, to Vilna. They all died in the destruction of the Vilna ghetto in 1943. Avraham and Raphael, ages 17 and 15, were sent home to Dvoretz. &lt;p&gt;&lt;/p&gt; &lt;p&gt;Two years latter, Germany took Russia by surprise and, violating the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact, invaded Russia. Avraham heard the bombers filling the sky and his father told him and Raphael to flee to the East and join their oldest brother, Mordechai. They didn't want to leave the family behind, but their father insisted: he and their mother would stay with the younger children. They, who were old enough, would flee. &lt;p&gt;&lt;/p&gt; &lt;p&gt;So they fled, they made it past the Russian border, now in complete disarray, and found their brother in the interior of Russia. How they survived the war, how one found his way to the U.S., another remained in Russia (until he came to Israel around 1990), and the third, Avraham, came to Israel, is a story for another time. &lt;p&gt;&lt;/p&gt; &lt;p&gt;Many years passed until, a year or so ago, Drora went with her parents back to Dvoretz.&lt;/p&gt; &lt;p&gt;&lt;/p&gt; &lt;p&gt;The locals said everything had been destroyed, all the houses were new. And yet, Avraham found his grandparent's house in town. They made their way toward the river, and found the remnants of the mivkeh there. (Since hearing this story, I've thought alot about that mikveh, about my grandmother, about the birth of my father at that place...) &lt;p&gt;&lt;/p&gt; &lt;p&gt;Then they inquired as to what happened to the Jews.&lt;/p&gt; &lt;p&gt;&lt;/p&gt; &lt;p&gt;It seems that many thousands of Jews, as many as thirty-thousand, were gathered in Dvoretz. The Nazis used the local Poles to dig huge pits in the forest, at least 20 meters by 40 meters. They rounded up the Jews from Devoretz, and from neighboring towns who had been relocated to Devoretz, and brought them to the pits. They employed Lithuanians to shoot row after row of Jews into the pits -- the Nazis themselves had found that the business of mechanized shooting deranged the Germans, but not the Lithuanians. Women carrying their children would hand them backwards through the crowd as theirturns came to be murdered, so that the last group of Jews to reach the pits were the children. The Nazis thought better of wasting precious bullets on mere children, so they pushed them in alive, andthen commanded the Poles to cover the thousands of dead and dying and living bodies with the soil dug out in mounds near the pits. The Poles told Avraham that the earth moved and heaved and cried andshouted for days. &lt;p&gt;&lt;/p&gt; &lt;p&gt;There are three mass graves, a few kilometers apart, in the forest near Dvoretz. Avraham couldn't know which one holds the remains of his father, mother, four younger siblings and his older sister (Golda had been 19, not yet married, wouldn't/couldn't leave the family). He also had no idea where all his brothers and sister andtheir families were buried (four had died in childhood, another four had left years before for the U.S. and England - but that still left another 6 Meskin siblings and their families - amongst the tens of thousands murdered in Dvoretz). &lt;p&gt;&lt;/p&gt; &lt;p&gt;The picture shows Avraham and his daughter, Drora, reading the memorial plaque at one of the mass graves. What can such a plaque possibly say... Perhaps it reads differently for each person: There lies the town of Dvoretz, much of my father's family, and, unraveled and absorbed into the soil and the heavens,countless strands of dreams, thoughts, hopes, the once-living web of a vibrant organ of the Jewish people and manifestation of Hashem's will on earth. &lt;p&gt;&lt;/p&gt; &lt;p&gt;They proceed to Baranovitch, Avraham found the Ohel Torah Yeshiva building, now a gymnasium. The Belarus director was moved to hear the story, as Avraham pointed out where R. Elchonon used to sit, and how the tables were arranged. He asked and they readily agreed to create a plaque, in Russian, Hebrew and English, describing for posterity what the building once housed. &lt;p&gt;&lt;/p&gt; &lt;p&gt;How do you describe, in a hundred or so words, what transpired between R. Elchonon Wasserman and his talmidim in a single day's learning in Baranovitch. Do you say, "thiswas a famed talmudical seminary..." &lt;p&gt;&lt;/p&gt; &lt;p&gt;I have always been repulsed by the thought of visiting anywhere in Eastern Europe (nowadays, anywhere in Europe, period!) It's always felt to me like one massive Jewish graveyard. Yet something has spoken powerfully to me that I don't understand. I see myself at those plaques, in all their inadequacy, peeringthrough them as though into a portal to a world of Jewish life of almost mystical power. But I will not travel there. Rather, with apologies to the famous Chassidic story retold by Elie Wiesel - I'lltell this story, and tell it, and tell it - and that will have to be enough. It is enough.