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May 30. 2005
Musings on a Genealogical Theme
by - Ina Levitt-Yanover

I find that there are many interesting “side effects” from delving into genealogy.

In my case, family has become much more important to me. It was always important, but now it is even more so…

I tend to be an emotional and sentimental individual. I wonder if I could watch “Fiddler on the Roof” without sobbing all the way through it. For the first time, I believe that I truly understand the sentiments. The play becomes even more meaningful when placed in the context of the lives of our ancestors.

How could people bear to leave their home, their families, and their familiar lives? What made some people decide to leave their country for another? Why did others stay? This became even more crucial during the Holocaust.

I was told that my paternal LEVITT grandfather had a brother who was a pharmacist. He wanted to leave, but his wife refused to leave her mother. Her mother refused to leave and so they all perished…

In my first article, I wrote about my first attempts to contact potential SHNIFER/SZNIFER relatives. It seems that one potential relative did respond, only not to me. He forwarded my information to other members of his family who were also searching for SHNIFER relatives. These relatives are actively working on their family tree. So, six months later, my efforts came full circle. Now I know that I am on the right track. I just wish that he had let me know that he had forwarded my information and I could have been in touch so much earlier.

I thought that I did not have any information about my LEVITT and SZNIFER grandfathers. I took a look at what I know and what I have gleaned from relatives. I have more information than I realized and have many leads that I can pursue. So, if you think that you don’t know anything about a relative, sit down, make a list of what you do know and you may be pleasantly surprised…

A message went from Canada to a special interest group about Poland, based in Texas. From origins in Brazil to the United States, another message went to Warsaw who had read the message based in Texas. Warsaw put the messages from Brazil via the United States and Canada together. And just like that, I found the grandson of my SZNIFER grandfather’s sister…

Sometimes the simplest answer is the most obvious. Out of the blue, it dawned on me that my father was named after his LEVITT grandfather. The tradition in our family is to take the first letter of the name to be remembered and use that letter as the first letter of the child’s name.

One of the questions that I now plan to ask when interviewing a family member is “Whom were you named for and whom were your children named for?”

This new insight also gave me an approximate date of death for my great-grandfather. He probably died before the birth of my father and after the birth of his older sibling. Now all I need to do is figure out where, exactly, he is from and I might learn something about the family…

I made several phone calls trying to find a gentleman who gave Pages of Testimony on Yad Vashem about potential SZNIFER relatives. When I spoke to him, he told me that he couldn’t remember names; he just remembered that his brother and his pregnant wife were sent to the gas chamber.

Do you ever wonder why some people survived in the camps and others perished? There were obviously many factors at work. I believe that those who survived had hope. Even if was in the deepest depths of their soul, their hope allowed them to survive the “unsurvivable”. Human beings are incredible creatures!


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