Pilvishok

It is nearly 11 pm and I am set for Pilvishok tomorrow AM. After many days of
bright brilliant balmy days, a cold, dark rainy front is coming in. Tomorrow’s weather should rival the weather in June 1998 in Poland.

Years ago I had copied my old tenth grade Heights High family tree into my PC. It keeps getting stored on newer PC’s in my “old Fam” folder. To assist in finding a trace of my grandmother Edith’s family I cut and paste the document into an email which I just sent to myself and will take with it on my blackberry! What a difference a hundred years makes! I am looking for her family (Ginsberg) and their ancestors, Gentleson and Vistenetsky.)

Fran and Susan join me, and our tour guide, Regina is a delightful sprite who has brought along books and maps to supplement my meager information. As she reads to us in Yiddish, it occurs to us that we have started to understand. (It helped that I had read an English translation online.)

We opt to go the scenic route and so I get to see the storks again. I had forgotten that an African species summers in huge nests in the chimneys of this part of the world. The pastoral landscape rolls by.

The weather is nicer than I expected. The countryside is magnificent. We stop at a few formerly Jewish communities, and see glimpses of synagogues and a few memorial cemeteries. (These consist of a stone headstone marking the location of the cemetery with a few remaining grave stones around.)

The countryside near Pilvishok is magnificent. The village is at the confluence of two small rivers. Huge silvery poplars glint in the sun, contrasting with the dark firs. The wooden “shtetel shacks” are similar to what I’ve seen. Two rooms and a stove in the middle. I ask and am told that the shacks are typical of both Jewish shtetels and the general rural population. The land appears to be very fertile, the plots around the houses overflow with flowers and vegetables. We take photos up a street of visually interesting homes. We head to the cemetery which is now marked by a fenced-in area of 5 headstones and a marker. A cold rainy wind begins to bluster, and as I enter the small area, I immediately see a stone inscribed Ginsberg in Hebrew! Well, given that there were only 900 Jews there in 1931 when DovBer, son of Aaron, died, I feel that we are family. I mark his grave with a stone and notice that there are other stones there already. I will never know who else has been there. We say a prayer and go into the nearby restaurant. Herring, soup, fried meat blintzes and stuffed cabbage with boiled potatoes. It’s beginning to feel like soul food.

We next head to the WWII killing field. On the way, Regina stops an elderly man for directions. She asks him (in Lithuanian) about WWII. He is eager to talk. He was 19 when a blitzkrieg started in June of 1941. Within 4 hours the village was nearly leveled. Even in Lithuanian, it was very clear how vivid this memory is. Asked about Jews, he listed a few prominent names, (none of mine) including someone whose factory was used after the war as headquarters for a (failed) collective farm. He then reached back for a memory of Jews and Tashlich (throwing away sins during high holidays) at the river Pilva which marks the entrance to the city. Asked about the cemetery, he said it was dug up by the Soviets in the 60’s when indoor plumbing was installed in the city. I had failed to notice the present absence of outhouses.

One would never find the field where Jews were killed. There is a foot high stone marker covered with grass on the side of the road. We trudge through then light a candle and say a prayer at the small marker deep in the fields which, thanks to the Russians, fails to mention who the 1000 were. Outside this beautiful little town, in the middle of nowhere, no one will ever come to re-revise this history.

It pours when I return. Daylight is shortened by nearly five minutes a day, and the cloud cover is extremely gloomy. I must figure out how to report this in Yiddish for class since I played hookey.