May 13

I did a quick "load" of laundry before we headed out for the day, wanted to take advantage of the towel warmer in the bathroom, hoping it would get my socks dry before we had to leave tomorrow. Breakfast buffet and then we met Ivan, our driver for the day. He seemed a nice enough man, didn't speak a word of English (I didn't want to pay extra to the travel agency for an English speaking driver so just so we could chat in the car.). So today was our trip to Nevel, the birthplace of my grandfather on my dad's side, and the opportunity to meet the Igdalov's I had so diligently tracked down using the internet in Russian and Google translate

We headed south out of Pskov on the highway that is actually the main road that connects St. Petersburg with Riga, the capital of Lithuania (like did I really know where Lithuania was before this). There was not much traffic. The rural countryside was green (as has been all of Russia I had been to) with some forest areas, small villages, and farms. We made one stop for gas, although Ivan just stopped and got gas and paid for it and did nothing to inquire, signal, or seem aware of the fact that a biobreak might be in order. Fortunately, Michael and I were ok and we continued on. I had studied the map a bit, so knew we would pass the turnoff to Mikhailovskoy, a place that would have been nice to visit if we had one more day. It is Alexander Pushkin's estate ith his home, the Nanny's house, his grave, and a park. I believe you can stay there. While not at all relevant to our day's adventure, some interesting information about Pushkin is that his great grandfather was black, was brought over as a slave from Africa, served as a page to Peter the Great, was educated in France, and became an aristocrat, General en chef (the third most senior army rank) in charge of the building of sea forts and canals in Russia.

The sign on the highway directed Ivan to turn off the main road to go to Nevel. We were on a dirt road and Ivan was studying his GPS carefully, but we were in the correct place. We continued on for less than a mile and found ourselves in a small town with a park in what appeared to be the center. We turned the corner and parked across from a one story building that was the Nevel Museum. Before leaving the U.S., I had received a message from Olga, the cousin with whom I was directly communicating to coordinate the visit that the driver should call when he was 100 km away from Nevel, so apparently my message to the U.S. travel agent got to Ivan (who made and received many phone calls during our journey), because I saw two men and a short woman across the street waiting for us. The men I recognized from pictures on the internet and knew they were my cousins Mikhail and Venyamin Igdalov. We greeted each other warmly and the woman introduced herself in English as Luda, their friend, who spoke English and serves as the director of the museum.

We went in the museum and met Sergei, Luda's bearded and, unfortunately toothless, husband who assisted her in the museum. He spoke some English, not quite as good as Luda, but could converse wit us . The men disappeared after we established that the first order of business was a tour of the museum. The history of Nevel dates back at least to the 1500s and may have been founded during the reign of Ivan the Terrible. The town, now with about 16,000 people, reflects muchof its history especially as portrayed in the museum related to events of World War II, but the town also lays claim to some famous persons. 1) . Mikhail Bakhtin (1879-1975), a Russian philosopher and literary critic 2) Mariya Yudina (1899-1970), an influential Soviet pianist born to a Jewish family in Nevel. She was one of the few Soviet artists who openly opposed the Communist regime, However, she had the distinction of being a Joseph Stalin's favorite pianist. (from Wikipedia) She was awarded the Stalin Prize and donated its monetary portion to the Orthodox Church for "perpetual prayers for Stalin's sins". 3) E.L. Linetskaya also known as Elga Barto Linz or Lintzkaya (1909-1997) who was prominent in translating literary works from other languages into Russian. She was arrested in 1933 for her involvement with a reading group studying Kant. She served a short sentence in the Gulag, but her husband was imprisoned for much longer so after her release she lived near the prison and they returned to Leningrad as it was known in 1946. She taught young writers the art of translating and the culture of early 20th century Russia. The town was occupied by the Nazis from 1941. There are tributes in the museum to soldiers Jewish and non-Jewish who died in the war. Another section of the museum had items from life in the town from the 1800s and early 1900s including some Jewish ceremonial objects.

The museum was in several one story buildings with a large dirt lot in the center of the complex. When we were midway through the tour, my cousins showed up and we all went into one of the buildings to have lunch. On the walls were large pictures that appeared to have been painted by contemporary artists, possibly local people in the town. Lunch was simple - tea, bread, salami, cheese. Olga, Venjamin's daughter showed up and brought in a cake with a happy face on top of it. She works as a teacher and had to return to the school and we did not eat the cake at lunch. By the time we were finished I had to take a biobreak (not my son Michael who has great endurance). I was escorted to the museum's facilty which was a standard outhouse in the back, probably there for years and years. We chatted as best we could, mostly with Luda, some with Serge, and tried to direct questions, etc that the two cousins could answer. Mikhail works with computers, I think. Venyamin was some sort of official for the town until a couple of months ago and not a lot of information was forthcoming about what he does now.

When the tour was over we went in the museum gift shop (the woman who worked there had to come in just to open it). I felt I needed to buy something, so I bought a mug with scenes of Nevel and a ceramic bell with the Nevel coat of arms. Luda not only directs the museum but also writes books. I was as hard. Luda told me they do celebrate the Jewish holidays and she then listed them all including Tisha b'Av. She has been to Israel twice. There is no rabbi in the town, but in Vitebsk which is about 60 km away, I think, there is an organized Jewish community with some kind of synagogue. The rabbi will come to Nevel for funerals for example. Vitebsk is the home of Marc Chagall; she told me there had been a Chagall exhibit there in the past few years and she had written materials for the exhibit. (Interestingly, Marc chagalls' art is not found in either major museum of Russian art in St. Petersburg or Moscow that I saw.) Luda had also written a number of books (in Russian) on the history of Nevel. She gave me one, but I then bought several others including one book in Russian which I think is about Jewish humor. The books have pictures and someday I hope to figure out what is in them. She got a bit confused in charging me for the books, said she would give them to me at cost, which worked out to about $24 U.S. but originally she gave me a price in rubles that was ten times that amount. I didn't want to offend her, but then I didn't want to spend over $200 on books. We finally got it worked out over a good laugh.

The museum is directly across the street from a red brick building which is apparently where Mikhail's shop is. Luda said it was the original Igdalov home. As most homes we had passes are made of wood, this seemed to be special. We were not given the opportunity to go inside. Olga showed up after the tour and we all got in her car and Mikhail drove his car and we set out - not quite sure where to. We drove through the town into a residential area and ended up at the Jewish cemetery. We walked down a path under shady trees and visited the grave of Mikhail and Venjamin's father and then the grave, poorly marked, of my great-grandfather, David igdalov. The newer headtones had pictures of the deceased incorporated right into them. It was quite a moving experience to be there with my family to connect with such history. As we walked out of the cemetery, we saw a memorial to the Jewish soldiers who were killed in the war. We then got back in the car and drove through the town and crossed the highway and took a road that seemed to go into a field. We parked and walked through the grass and were at the Jewish memorial to the persons killed by the Germans in 1941. There were two rectangular plots , each with a sort of obelisk in the center, one with the names of the children and one with the names of the women who were killed. A large metal Menorah was in the ground between the two. We then walked a bit down a path and came to a similar memorial for the men who were killed. Each memorial was at the site where the people were killed. This special place was created by the Jewish community of Vitebsk and is kept maintained. I was so moved; I paid my respects by placing a small stone on each of the memorials. Names of my family members were on the memorials at each of the three sites.

I had read what I could find about this horrible time in history long before I ever went on this trip

Operational Report No. 92, dated 23 September 1941, related how scabies had broken out in the ghetto of Nevel. "In order to prevent further contagion, 640 Jews were liquidated and the houses burnt down." This treatment undoubtedly overcame the scabies. (NO-3143.) http://www.lawofwar.org/Einsatzgruppen%20Case.htm

And from Yad Vashem: The Untold Stories: the Murder Sites of the Jews in the former Soviet Union

The Jewish community of Nevel dates back to the eighteenth century. The town was part of the Pale of Settlement. In 1925, the unofficial Committee of Rabbis in the USSR established the Nevel Seminary for rabbis and ritual slaughters; Soviet authorities shut the institution down in 1928. Altogether, 3,178 Jews lived in Nevel in January 1939, accounting for 20 percent of the total population. The Germans occupied Nevel on July 15, 1941. A number of Nevel's Jews managed to evacuate the town, along with refugees who had fled from other localities. On August 7, 1941, the Germans and local policemen transferred the remaining Jews two kilometers away, along the Leningrad Road, to Golubaya Dacha, where a ghetto had been set up in several buildings. All of Nevel's Jews were murdered in 1941, some in Golubaya Dacha; another 200 were gathered on one of the hills in Petino and shot into an anti-tank trench. No further details concerning the latter incident are known. The Red Army liberated Nevel on October 6, 1943.

Golubaya Dacha

On September 6, 1941, members of the Einsatzgruppe B rounded up the Jews from Nevel, Petino, Plissy, Novokhovansk, Topory and other nearby localities who were concentrated in the Nevel ghetto. All 800 people (according to two additional sources, between 640 and 1,800), mostly the elderly and children, were taken to a site almost one kilometer from the ghetto, along the Leningrad Road. The Jews were divided into two groups. The men were brought first, and then the women and children, all transported in trucks. The Jewish men were forced to dig two pits 200 meters apart. When they had finished, they were accused of committing arson and shot into one of the pits. The women and children were then brought to the murder site, stripped and shot - first the children and then the women - into the second pit. Two women from the Svoisky family, a mother and daughter, managed to run away from the murder site. The teenaged Aron Kominarov also succeeded in escaping, climbing out of the pit during the night after the shooting.

Sobered by this experience, we walked back to the cars and drove back to the town. As we came to the intersection of the road we were on and the main road, an elderly woman was crossing the road very slowly. We stopped, and Olga spoke t o her through the window, and invited her to get in the car. We were all a little squeezed, but Olga drove her into town and dropped her off. Had she continued to walk it would have taken her forever although the distance was probably less than a mile. We then continued down the main street of the town to the school where Olga teaches. I had asked her before coming if we could visit her school; I had hoped we could go there when the students were there, but I guess that wasn't possible. We pulled in and saw several men on the opposite side of a large athletic field. One, shirtless, and just wearing shorts and shoes and socks ran over and greeted us. He was the principal; we had just missed their football (soccer) game . He greeted us warmly and then went back to join his friends. Olga took us in the school, a three story brick building. We visited her classroom; she teaches Russian literature. It was a nice classroom with lots of plants. Olga invited us to use the restrooms (with indoor plumbing) which was appreciated by both Michael and me. The school had a health clinic, lots of posters up on the walls promoting, for example, good nutrition, instructions about what to do in emergencies. All in all, I was quite impressed.

We then piled back into the cars and drove a bit and came to the area where the relatives live. On the way, Luda pointed out her wooden house. It appeared as if the whole family lives in the same area in neighboring homes. We were not invited into the homes, but for the town they appeared to be quite nice. They are brick and two story. The house we were at had a small pond beyond the yard for fishing, I think. The whole yard was one big vegetable and flower garden, part of it with a small greenhouse. It appeared to take quite a bit of work to maintain this area. We walked through the yard and garden and then sat down at an outdoor table under cover , sort of like on a patio. Big plates of fresh vegetables and fruit were brought out and the women cut them up, then grilled chicken in small pieces. That was dinner, as good as any American barbecue. I shared with my family the small gifts I had brought them - California and Hollywood refrigerator magnets and key chains and some U.S. calendars, one with national parks for Olga and, fortunately, one of the Holocaust Museum for Luda (who was really moved by seeing it.)

At 6 PM, Ivan the driver showed up. I had arranged, or so I thought, got him to come at 9 PM as that was the time Olga had given me. It was going to cost a little more money but that was ok. Well that information never got to him. He clearly told my hosts it would cost 10 Euros for him to stay an extra hour. I said ok. He then sat down and joined us for some tea and the happy face cake that was being cut and divided up. We finished eating, all took pictures of each other and had a fond farewell. It was an experience not to be forgotten.

We had an uneventful drive back. When we arrived, I attempted to give Ivan his extra money and a tip in rubles, but he kept saying "Euros, Euros". I didn't know what he wanted, so we went in the hotel for some assistance from the English speaking desk clerk. Apparently she couldn't get it figured out either and he wouldn't take the money and just left. Michael and I returned to our room, I gathered up my dry laundry, and we went to sleep.