This is the last day of our 17 day roots trip through Latvia and Israel. Over the past year I have combed the web learning about all the amazing research done by Jews in the EU countries and the USA, compiling records to restore the names of the Jews in countries invaded by the Nazis where total destruction has erased them completely. I learned of very energetic people who have devoted their lives to this kind of work; I read of their trips into these old countries, thier laborioous efforts to document their findings. To find there is a Latvian Special Interest Group (SIG) that has annual meetings in the US was a real surprise. And to discover that one of the orginal leaders of these activities is Arlene Beare (Gold) who also comes from Springs, South Africa, and knew my family was another "too good to be true" finding. It made me optimistic that I would find more but the truth is I have found very little new.
I had also retained services of two archivists; one was in the Riga archives, another was Alexander F who served as our guide for two days in Latvia.
I had promised to blog along the way but two factors made that difficult; one was the lack of easy and inexpensive internet access, and the other was difficulty I had getting started once we had spent a day in Latvia. Jordan and I (Michael) flew from Boston via Amsterdam to Riga Latvia where Monet had already arrived, and greeted us, almost hysterically happy to see 'family'.
After sleeping off the jet lag during our first day, the next morning we breakfasted with our guide, Alexander F who presented his report; In response to two primary questions he had these answers; for the history of my father's side he had found little, other than they may have come from Mittau; he gently told us that they were from the peasant class, and had never amounted to much. On the second question about finding out if my mother and father, with the same last names, were actually related, he had found the link of a common great great grandfather!
We then spent two of our 4 days in Latvia, with him looking at sites where the Eliastams' of our family had lived in both Riga and Mittau, but where absolutely nothing remained to show they existed. Worse than that is that given the long list of Eliastams (Eliastamm, Eliasstam, Eliastham etc) in the Lativan records, particularily in Riga, Mittau, and Lepaije, there is no record of the Eliastam name at the present time in any of these many forms that existed prior to 1941, the year of entry of the Nazis into Latvia. I believe they were all murdered by the Nazis or Soviets who murdered almost all the 150,000 jews living in Latvia prior to 1941. A surprising amount of this murdering was done by Latvians and others prior to the arrival of the Nazis with the intent of gaining favor with the coming German forces. Apparently during the weekend of the majority of the killing, the 4th of July 1941, the Latvians chased, terrorized, raped and humiliated in all sorts of ways the Jews who had been living alongside them for many years.
We visited the Jewish Museum in Riga, in the Jewish Community Center, a tired building but apparently well used by Riga's remaining 5-6000 Jews for Jewish weddings and such celebrations. The museum is in three parts, the history of Latvian Jewry from early times to about 1922, the halcyon days from 1922 to the late 1930's, and the period of the Nazi terror. Family pictures tell of the idyllic life during the middle period of Lativan independence followed by the horrendous documentation of the Nazi driven murders by Latvian and Nazi troops.
We also visted two major sites of organized murdering of Jews in the concentration and labor camps, especially in the Rumbula forest outside Riga. More depressing was the relatively poor state of these and other monuments we visited; old cemetries and the memorial to the burning of the synagogue with several hundred Jews locked inside; not completely neglected but not well mantained, not what a contrite or greatly embarrassed country would do.
In fact, my impression is that Latvia has just moved on, is now a prosperous country (although a bit shaky financially now due to over-confidence) within the EU, and feeling quite protected by its NATO membership from its 'almost' neighbour, the Russian Bear. I doubt the Latvian children know what their grandparents and parents did to the Jews. There is a real sense of Hanna Arendt's banality of evil; it seems to have just happened, and a long time ago. Candidly, I felt very suspicious of every person with my stereotypical version of 'central european' features, I could imagine them humiliating and abusing, even murdering Jews, again too.
I left Lativa feeling very frustrated, and it has taken a week or so to get some clarity in my mind about those four days in Latvia.
Then we went to Israel, surely feeling relieved that there is at least one place where one can be a Jew. We spent about 12 days spread across Tel Aviv, Haifa, the Galilee, the Golan, down to Beit She'an, to the Dead Sea, Ein Gedi, and of course Jerusalem, plus a brief one day trip to the Gaza border at Ashkelon. We had a wonderful 'motherly' guide for 3 days, Chava, and her able substitute Dorit for day 4. We slept on 3 different kibbutzim near Haifa and in the Galilee, spent 3 days in the Tel Aviv apartment of close friends, and stayed near the Old City in Jerusalem for 4 days. We swam in the Dead Sea, saw vultures at Gamla, talked to soldiers from a tank unit, and at Ein Gedi were crowded out by hordes of school children in the pools but did swim at Gan Hashlosha, and tasted the waters of the origins of the Jordan RIver. And, of course we walked everywhere in the Old City, prayed at the Wailing Wall, walked the ramparts with old friends, Basil and Noga, saw Steven Ascheim and Chana, lovely people with an apartment that Steven says so 'eloquently', is a front row seat for the Third World War, as it looks out over the Old City and much of the New Jerusalem.
Much of our visit was punctuated by the unique politics of the Middle East; the infamous "wall" which appears to have successfully reduced terrorist activity from the West Bank, is visible easily from Jerusalem Center. When we were in Gaza, right next to the "wall" between Gaza and Israel, my cousin, Glen, resident of the border Moshav, Netiv Assara, asked us to avoid standing too much out in the open for fear of attracting 'fire'. One sees soldiers everywhere and of all types. There are security personnel at every public place including shopping malls, stations, hotels, and banks. But despite this, we were able to move easily anywhere in the country; we only had our passports checked when we entered train stations. And, the Arab population seemed engaged in positive life styles and were helpful when we asked questions.
We had a wonderful family reunion at Kfar Maccabbi at the home of Clive and Scheina, where 30 Eliastam's talking at once sat down to lunch! Glen and Lucille came up from the Negev, and their children joined us too.
On Thursday morning we went to Yad Vashem to continue our roots search; We were given a wonderful overview by Jackie M, friend of Basil; Jackie enabled us to see several garden sites within the morning's alloted time by driving us to the Cattle Car and the "disappeared communities" as well as the Righteous Persons forest. Then we walked through the new museum, spending too much time at the front end, and fading badly as time passed. But despite our growing weariness, the story is horrible and fascinating. At the end we spent time searching the Yad Vashem databases which are actually the same databases available on the web under Jewish Geneology sites. We found two Eliastam's that may bring new information once we do more searching on our return.
Tonight Jordan and I return to the US while Monet continues her Gap Year trip, leaving Israel Wednesday for Holland to meet her best friend, Nina; they tour Holland, Belguim, and parts of France before Nina returns to the US in late May. Monet then joins Suzanne for 5 days in Paris, ending in Nice. Then Monet heads for Italy to spend time with a friend, then goes to Scotland and Ireland, reaching Dublin in the third week of June; She will fly back to Boston on June 23!