About 20 years ago I was contacted by a man I didn’t know who wanted to share a family history with me, and also pay me a visit. I was back East and he was out West, but he was […]
Personal Journey: The Early Badrians of Oberschlesein
I have known about my family history since childhood, but only segments of it. My parents, Lothar and Irma Gärtner (nee Badrian) migrated to Australia from Nazi Germany in 1938, the only passengers on a German cargo boat out of […]
Personal Journeys: Finding Mr. Katz
This article is a sequel to my earlier article in Avotaynu Online, entitled “From One Photograph to Journeys of Research and Discovery,”, in which I described how I uncovered and researched the romance of my great uncle Moshe and Paula Lichtzier, […]
Personal Journeys: From One Photograph to Journeys of Research and Discovery
All I ever knew was that I am named after my great-uncle Moshe. Moshe died in a motor accident, six weeks before his planned wedding. The date of his death is unknown, but it was sometime between the late 1920s […]
Personal Journeys: The Legacy of Lucian Skotnicki
Of all the grandparents I never got a chance to know, I feel closest to my mother’s father Lucian. Perhaps it was my mother’s vivid storytelling that made him seem accessible. I’ve inherited his talents and his temperament; so I […]
Personal Journeys: Everything Happens for a Reason
1 December 2015 It happened again. I couldn’t believe it but I have two witnesses. Just as I was about to leave my weekly writing class at the library of the Simon Wiesenthal Center (SWC), I stopped by the entry […]
Personal Journeys: The Flayer and Razin Families of Shklov
Sitting on the passenger side of the coach, Reiza Flier swept her beady gray eyes over the family’s small home. At approximately 40 years old, this mother showed expressions of defiance and anticipation, even if she also felt sadness for […]
Personal Journeys: Leopold Goldstein, Rabbi or Not?
Last July marked what is commonly recognized as the centennial of the start of the First World War. What parts, if any, did my family play during that war? From my research, the only person who seemingly played a noteworthy […]
Personal Journeys: The Shkarovsky Family of Pohrebyshche, Ulraine
Researching a Rare Family Name Shared by Levites and Israelites Shkarovsky is an uncommon Jewish surname. This can be a blessing, as the focus of research is limited; or a curse, as there is limited material with which to work. […]
Personal Journeys: A Leaf in the Genealogy Tree, by Madeleine Isenberg
I’ve been working on my family tree for about 20 years now and helping others find their roots, branches, or leaves in theirs somewhat less than that. My work, while it is something of a hobby, is quite intense. Now […]
Personal Journeys: A Trove of Family Letters Yields a Novel, by Julie Freestone
I was four years old when my mother, Mathilda Gruber Conan, and my sister Laura and I joined my father Abraham Conan (née Makovietzki), in Germany where he was working as part of the Allied High Command Occupation Forces. He […]
Personal Journeys: Searching for Stones, by Madeleine Isenberg
No matter how much you ask people for their help, there are times you just have to do it all yourself. Take my quest which became a hunt for stones, to find more about a distant relative whose name was […]
Personal Journeys: The Isenberg Family Comes Alive
The year was 1970. One morning that summer, I was exiting, quite unexpectedly, the railway station in Hamburg, Germany. It was the last place I wanted to be. I had misread the train schedule, leading me to believe I could […]