The name Freda is written on the back of a photograph that a relative inherited from her mother. We knew very little about Freda. Her maiden name was Zwein; she was married to a man named Brachman; she was from the town of Livani in Latvia; and she was lost in the Shoah. I wanted more information on Freda Zwein Brachman, her husband, and their fate. I did not want her to fade into anonymity, so I opened my Internet browser and, through the richness of Jewish genealogical resources on the Internet, found Freda’s husband’s first name and even discovered that they apparently had children.

My search for Freda’s history began with Yad Vashem’s Central Database of Shoah Victims’ Names. Yad Vashem, Israel’s national institution of Holocaust remembrance, has made available an Internet search page into which one can enter a victim’s first name, last name, and location. The search page uses several technologies to identify names that sound alike or are spelled similarly. The names come from a variety of sources and include, among other items, lists of victims and Pages of Testimony (PoT) with biographical data about a single person or family. The information is written in a variety of languages, and Yad Vashem provides English-language summaries of the data. When a source is a Page of Testimony, they also provide a digital image of the original. This turned out to be quite useful.

The search for Freda Brachman yielded four records; two were of people from Latvia (Table 1). The name of the town cited in both records corresponds to the family’s place of origin.

The first record is a Page of Testimony, submitted in Hebrew. In the English-language summary, the subject’s name is given as Frida Brachman, wife of Hertzel Brachman and daughter of Yerakhmiel and Frumet.¹ Frida’s maiden name is given as Zali and her date of birth as 1899. She is also listed as having one child, age eight years. The information submitter’s name is Arie Zali, brother of Frida.

Name	Town	District	Region	Country	Date of Birth	Source
Brachman Frida	Libenhof (Lat)	Daugavpils		Latvia	1899	Page of Testimony
Brakhman Freida	Livani	Daugavpils	Latgale	Latvia		List of Persecuted

The second record comes from a list of Livani victims, originally written in Russian. Yad Vashem’s English-language summary identifies the subject as Freida Brakhman of Livani, age 38 upon her death in July–August 1941.² (The age places her year of birth as 1903.) The original image is of an enumerated list of people with Freida Brakhman listed as person #58. Just above her, person #57, is Hertz Brahman. The original also indicates that Freida and Hertz lived in the same residence at #156 Rigas Iela (Riga Street). From this evidence, we may conclude that Freda Brachman, born circa 1899–1903, was married to Hertz Brachman. The two lived in Livani and perished during July or August 1941.

Is this is the same Freda Brachman whose maiden name was Zwein? The two areas of contention are the given names of Freda’s parents and Freda’s maiden name. The Page of Testimony gives Freda’s mother’s name as Frumet, but the family recalls the name as Fruma. According to the Given Names Database on the JewishGen website, <www.jewishgen.org/databases/GivenNames/search.htm>, Fruma and Fremet are equivalent Hebrew names. The father’s name on the Page of Testimony is given as Yerakhmiel; according to the given names database, Yerakhmiel is a Yiddish name and its equivalent nickname is Rakhmiel. The Page of Testimony’s listings of the given names of Freda Brachman’s parents, therefore, match the family’s recollection of the given names.

The remaining puzzle piece is Freda’s last name. The English summary of the PoT records Freda’s maiden name as Zali, and the submitter of the PoT identifies himself as her brother Arie. Zali is certainly not Zwein, and Arie is not recognized as the name of any of Freda’s three brothers who survived the Shoah. Joseph and Leibe immigrated prior to the war to the United States and Israel, respectively. The third, Hirschel, survived the European nightmare.

Who, then, is Ari Zali? The answer is revealed by a close examination of the original Page of Testimony in Hebrew.³ The Page contains a box labeled “13. Name of wife and name of family” (see Figure 1). The last name is entered in Hebrew script and spelled zayin vav yod nun sofit. That can be transliterated as Zveyn, which easily corresponds to the family name Zwein. The English-language summary of the PoT contains an error. I submitted a request to correct the surname, and Yad Vashem responded via e-mail, “We have corrected the Page of Testimony on Brachman Frida according to the data that appears in another Page of Testimony submitted by Zwain Arie.”

Having determined the correct surname, the first name was still a mystery. The Page of Testimony also has a space for the submitter of the form to enter his own name. On this PoT (see Figure 2), the name is entered as Aryeh Zvain. My neighbor, upon learning of my quest, said that her uncle Leibe had used the name Ari when he moved to Israel. That

Name	Town	District	Region	Country	Date of Birth	Source
Brachman Hertz	Liwenhof	Daugavpils	Latgale	Latvia		Page of Testimony

clue led me back to the JewishGen Given Names Database, which revealed that the given name Aryeh is the equivalent of the name Leib and Leibe. The submitter, therefore, is Liebe Zwein, Joseph and Freda’s brother.

Having clarified that Freda Brackhman was in fact Freda Brachman, nee Zwein, the next step was to learn about Freda’s husband. I searched for Hertz Brachman on the Yad Vashem site. Of the six records found, only one was for a person from Latvia (Table 2). This Page of Testimony indicates that Hertz Brachman was born in Latvia to a father named Lieb.⁴ Hertz was married and lived in Liwenhof. A shop owner, he was 30 years old at the time of his death in 1941.

Figure 2. Name of Submitter Aryeh Zvain from Freda Brachman’s Page of Testimony

Recalling that the list of Livani victims identified a Hertz Brahman, I realized that a search by given name rather than surname might reveal additional information. I searched Yad Vashem for a Hertz who had lived in Livani. The result listed the record in Table 2 for Hertz Brachman, as well as a record for a Khertz Braman. The latter points to the identical victim list found in my earlier search for Freda Blackman, the list of Latvian victims written in Russian.

Next, I turned to a valuable new Internet resource, the Latvian Names Project, <http://names.lu.lv>. The project aims to memorialize the approximately 70,000 Jews of Latvia who were murdered during the Shoah; it has compiled data from a variety of Latvian archival sources, starting with the 1935 census and adding housing lists, vital records, and others. Single-page compilations of the data, organized by surname, are available from the website. Unfortunately, from the researcher’s viewpoint, the summary data does not include citations to the original sources, making it difficult to trace the evidence back to the original sources to look for additional information.

The Latvian Names Project database uses German spellings of the names. The German spelling for Brachman is Brachmann. A search for Brachmann in Livani yields the names of five people (Table 3): Freida, Herz, Rachil, Rachmiel, and Sara.⁵ Birthdates for all but Freida are listed; for Freida there is only the birth year, 1903. The information on Freida Brachmann is sparse: born in Lievenhof in 1903, married, died in Livani in July/August 1941.⁶ The sources are listed as census data and the Extraordinary Commission for the Investigation of Crimes by the German-Fascist Invaders and Their Collaborators (the Extraordinary Commission was sponsored by the Soviet government in 1944 and 1945 to gather data about crimes that occurred in German-occupied Soviet territory). The information on the other persons, though, yields a treasure trove.

The record for Herz Brachman⁷ reveals that he was born on March 29, 1898, in Jekabpils, Latvia, and that he was married. The record for Rachmiel Brachman⁸ indicates he was a boy, born in Livani on January 11, 1935, fate unknown. The record for Sara Brachman⁹ indicates she was a girl, born in Livani on January 16, 1932, fate unknown. Are the children related to Herz and Freida?

Family Name	Given Name	Date of Birth (Year, Day, Month)	Prewar Residence
Brachmann	Freida	1903	Livani
Brachmann	Herz	1898 29 03	Livani
Brachmann	Rachil	1903 31 10	Livani, Riga
Brachmann	Rachmiel	1935 11 01	Livani
Brachmann	Sara	1932 16 01	Livani

Table 3. Latvian Names Database
Records for Brachmann in Livani

The source of the data on the two children is recorded as census data. Taken as a whole, the census data reveals a single group in Livani of a married couple and two children sharing the surname of Brachman. (We will look at Rachil Brachman shortly.) It is highly likely that this is one nuclear family. Freda’s Page of Testimony indicates that she had a child who was eight years old in 1941. The census data indicates Sara would have been nine at the time of the German-led massacre of the Jews of Latvia in July and August of 1941. The two sources of data are reasonably consistent with Sara’s age. The census data indicates that Rachmiel was an infant in 1935. He has the same name as Freda’s father. It is traditional within Ashkenazic families for children to be named after recently deceased ancestors. The Latvian names database cites census data on a 70-year-old widow named Fruma Zwein who lived in Livani and contains no listing for an elderly Rachmiel Zwein. We infer that the grandfather had died before the boy was born. It is reasonable to conclude that Rachmiel Brachmann is the grandson of Rachmiel Zwein.¹⁰ Without birth records of the two children, we do not have direct evidence, but the indirect evidence is strong that Rachmiel and Sara are the children of Hertz and Freda.

Finally, what of Rachil Brachman, who is listed in the Latvian Names Database? That database indicates she was born on October 31, 1903, in Jacobstadt (Jekabpils), the birthplace of Hertz.¹¹ She was an unmarried woman cited as living in Livani and Riga. The source of information is census data and house registers. A Page of Testimony exists for Reiche Brachman, as well.¹² It also indicates that she was born in Jacobstadt and adds that her father’s name was Leib. Taken together, the two sources suggest strongly that Rachil Brachman was Hertz’s sister. The narrative that pulls the pieces together is the following: Rachil lived in Riga, and her residence there was recorded in a house register. Rachil came to Livani in 1935 to help Hertz and Frida care for their toddler and infant children. She happened to be in Livani when the 1935 census was taken.

We started from a memory and a photograph of one woman. With careful research on the Internet and attentiveness to Hebrew sources, we have learned about her husband, discovered that she had two children and can imagine a story of a young couple receiving family help to raise their small children. Further research would include requesting Rachmiel and Sara Brachman’s birth registers from the Latvian Historical Archives and filing a trace request with the International Tracing Service.

Notes

1. Frida Brachman, “Full Record Details,” extracted and translated by Yad Vashem from a Page of Testimony submitted by her brother Arie Zali in Hebrew to Yad Vashem on January 8, 1956; retrieved from The Central Database of Shoah Victims’ Names, <www. yadvashem.org/wps/portal/IY_HON_Welcome,> on May 31, 2009.
2. Freida Brakhman, “Full Record Details”; extracted and translated by Yad Vashem from the Russian “List of murdered from Livani in 1941,” retrieved from The Central Database of Shoah Victims’ Names, <www.yadvashem.org/wps/portal/IY_ HON_Welcome>, on May 31, 2009. Original list from Records of the Extraordinary State Commission to Investigate German-Fascist Crimes Committed on Soviet Territory, Fond 7021, Opis 93, Folder 94. Folder page 362.
3. Frida Brachman, “Page of Testimony,” submitted by her brother Arie Zali in Hebrew to Yad Vashem on January 8, 1956; digital image retrieved from The Central Database of Shoah Victims’ Names <www.yadvashem.org/wps/portal/IY_HON_Welcome> on May 31, 2009.
4. Hertz Brachman, “Full Record Details”; extracted and translated by Yad Vashem from a Page of Testimony submitted by community member Bentzion Kilman in Hebrew to Yad Vashem on June 9, 1957; retrieved from The Central Database of Shoah Victims’ Names <www.yadvashem.org/wps/portal/IY_HON_ Welcome>, on May 31, 2009.
5. Jews of Latvia: A Project, Names and Fates 1941–1945, Centre of Judaic Studies, University of Latvia, <http://names. lu.lv/en.html>, Brachmann in Livani data, <http://names.lu.lv/ cgi-bin/names?request=Brachmann&lang=en&pilsetas=Livani>, accessed January 28, 2009.
6. Jews of Latvia: A Project, Names and Fates 1941–1945, Centre of Judaic Studies, University of Latvia, <http://names. lu.lv/en.html>, Freida Brachmann in Livani data, <http://names. lu.lv/cgi-bin/one?lang=en&code=412762209167>, accessed on January 28, 2009.
7. Jews of Latvia: A Project, Names and Fates 1941–1945, Centre of Judaic Studies, University of Latvia, <http://names. lu.lv/en.html>, Herz Brachmann in Livani data, <http://names.lu. lv/cgi-bin/one?lang=en&code=026864781026>, accessed January 28, 2009.
8. Jews of Latvia: A Project, Names and Fates 1941–1945, Centre of Judaic Studies, University of Latvia, <http://names. lu.lv/en.html>, Rachmiel Brachmann in Livani data <http:// names.lu.lv/cgi-bin/one?lang=en&code=358149004705> accessed on January 29, 2009.
9. Jews of Latvia: A Project, Names and Fates 1941–1945, Centre of Judaic Studies, University of Latvia, <http:// names.lu.lv/en.html>, Sara Brachmann in Livani data, <http://names.lu.lv/cgi-bin/one?lang=en&code=700863156335>, accessed on January 28, 2009.
10. Jews of Latvia: A Project, Names and Fates 1941–1945, Centre of Judaic Studies, University of Latvia, <http:// names.lu.lv/en.html>, Fruma Zwein in Livani data <http:// names.lu.lv/cgi-bin/one?lang=en&code=283958182710> accessed on January 28, 2009.
11. Jews of Latvia: A Project, Names and Fates 1941–1945, Centre of Judaic Studies, University of Latvia, <http://names. lu.lv/en.html>, Rachil Brachmann in Livani data, <http://names. lu.lv/cgi-bin/one?lang=en&code=883462751869>, accessed on January 29, 2009.
12. Reiche Brachman, “Full Record Details”; extracted and translated by Yad Vashem from a Page of Testimony submitted by Ben Zion Kolman in Hebrew to Yad Vashem on June 9, 1957; retrieved from The Central Database of Shoah Victims’ Names, <www.yadvashem.org/wps/portal/IY_HON_Welcome>, on July 18, 2009.

Daniel S. Cohen, a specialist in product development governance and software quality, pursues genealogy as a hobby. One of his current genealogy projects is to memorialize family members from Livani, Latvia, who were murdered with the town’s Jewish population during World War II. Cohen lives in Millburn, New Jersey. This is his first article on genealogy.