Why did we go to Jasina? Why did we feel we had to see it? I couldn't
answer
these questions before I went and I really can't now. I can't put it
into
words; it was something I felt I had to do. Cousin Racquel Lerner said
that
when she visited Auschwitz, she felt that her presence there was a
statement
to those who tried to wipe Jews off the earth: we're still here. I
think that
Jews are like those hardy little weeds that grow in tiny bits of dirt
and sand
between bricks and minute crevices in cement. They seem to grow everywhere,
surviving under the harshest conditions with minimal nourishment. Perhaps
the
only thing that matters about going back to Jasina is that we went,
that
enough of our family survived to go back and say Kaddish and remember
those
who did not survive, that our presence is also a statement, a rebuke,
to those
who thought we'd be exterminated
I
I'd read about a man who arranged personal guided trips to one's family
shtetl
so I brought this material to Gene and Sylvia's 50th Anniversary party
hoping
to enlist some family members to accompany Mort and me to Jasina. The
"Picarsky girls," Ruth Benjamin and her sister, Sandy Brill, had wanted
to
come but couldn't and no one else was interested so the final party
consisted
of my aunt and uncle, Sylvia and Gene Agler, my husband, Mort, and
me. The
trip was to be planned to our specifications (or so we thought). We
decided to
visit Prague and Budapest so the husbands would have something to look
forward
to. Next, we needed to tackle the question of what we might want to
do and see
in Jasina. We didn't know what we would find there, but we hoped to
visit the
cemetery, a synagogue if there was one, our family homes if we could
find
them, and the town archives to see if any family records might be obtained.
In
our discussion, we tried to figure out how much time we would actually
spend
there and whether we would stay overnight. I didn't think we could
stay
overnight because I doubted there were any hotels in Jasina. Gene quipped,
"You mean they closed the Jasina Hilton?" [We had many good laughs
about the
"Jasina Hilton", especially when, to our great surprise, we arrived
there and
learned Jasina is a kind of Ukrainian Catskills with three hotels.
But more
about this later.]
Originally, the tour organizer (I use the term loosely), Mr. Mallenbaum,
wanted us to fly Air Ukraine non-stop to Kiev. Although he insisted
Air
Ukraine has "one of the best safety records", we decided to take an
indirect
(via Amsterdam) but presumably safer flight to Budapest on KLM. From
there, we
would travel by car to Jasina. The question of where we would stay
overnight
was much debated between us and Mr. Mallenbaum, via multiple phone
calls and
looks at various atlases since none of us really knew the area. Mr.
Mallenbaum
thought Chernovitz might provide a decent Western style hotel but it
looked
much further than Jasina and didn't make sense to go past Jasina and
then have
an even longer trip back to Budapest on the way home. Sylvia thought
Munkachevo looked like a better bet, being midway between the Hungarian-
Ukrainian border and Jasina. Were there hotels or even a hotel in Munkachevo?
That was anyone's guess. We would find out when we got there.
Repeated requests for a written itinerary were continually sidestepped
by Mr.
Mallenbaum who kept insisting that his travel agent, Mr. Elbaum, was
extremely
knowledgeable about this area of Europe and would provide us with a
wonderful
trip. The itinerary would materialize as soon as plans were final.
Meanwhile,
the clock was ticking and we were getting closer to our departure.
Still no
itinerary. Finally, at what seemed like the eleventh hour, a fax arrived.
We were
soon to discover that this was the well-intentioned Mr. Elbaum's m.o.,
a way
of doing business, which Mort appropriately dubbed "ad hoc".
Meanwhile, Mr. Mallenbaum sent us a 7-page update on conditions in the
former
Soviet States from the U.S. Center for Disease Control warning us against
malaria, diphtheria, hepatitis, cholera, and typhus. We were not to
drink water
and should carry our own food. Another document warned us to safeguard
against
thieves by wearing a money belt and leaving jewelry home. A third paper
advised us that in many areas of Ukraine, "toilet tissue is non-existent"
and
advised us to carry our own. We were beginning to wonder what we had
signed up
for.
II
With much excitement, we arrived in Budapest. In keeping with what we
were
soon to learn of Mr. Elbaum's style of doing things, the person who
was
supposed to meet us did not and instead we were met by someone else
who did
not speak English but knew where to take us. This turned out to be
the Kings
Hotel, a comfortable, if inelegant pension ably run by an orthodox
couple,
Monica, and her husband, Ziggy. Monica not only had the ability to
converse
with several guests, her staff, and another party on the phone, all
at the
same time, but to shift smoothly from Yiddish to Hungarian to English
depending on the tongue of the person she was addressing for that moment.
Their homey hotel is the only kosher hotel in Budapest and is located
within
the old Jewish district, just blocks from the great synagogue.
We got ourselves settled and went for the bus tour of the city,
which was
part of our itinerary and supposed to be included in our "all inclusive"
fare.
A small hitch: the tour people did not know we were coming or how they
were to
be paid. Monica ["I only want you to be happy"] made the arrangements
and said
she'd speak to Mr. Elbaum. Another small hitch: the number of days
we were
staying and whether we'd be returning from Jasina or staying there
overnight?
None of us knew. Monica would work that out with Mr.Elbaum also. She
only
wanted us to be happy.
The following morning, we left at six for Jasina. Monica provided us
with
turkey sandwiches but Sylvia, who had taken the prohibitions about
eating
Ukrainian food very seriously, carried her own necessities: a small
suitcase
of goodies including chocolate, tuna fish, crackers, cookies and various
other
comestibles. At 7:30, we stopped for amazingly good machine-dispensed
coffee
and cappuccino and to stock up on bottled water for us and gas for
the van.
Our very competent driver, the same man who met us at the airport was
a
Hungarian named Leosch.
As we drove through the Hungarian countryside, we saw 2-story squarish
stucco
or wood houses with orange or brown tile roofs. Some had little balconies
with
flower boxes on the second floor and looked like the kind of alpine
cottages
I've seen in pictures of Germany or Switzerland. This seemed to be
a kind of
generic middle European style which we saw a variant of in Jasina and
also
from the train on the way to Prague. It must have existed for generations
because there were pictures of it in the Museum of Ethnography in Budapest.
Further into the countryside, we saw fields of sunflowers and vineyards
that
reminded us of Tuscany. Closer to the border, we saw corn and hay,
and people
driving single cows to or from pasture on what appeared to be collective
land
used by many individuals. The number of cars diminished and were replaced
by
people on bicycles or horse drawn carts. The road had changed from
a more
modern highway to a 2-lane road on which drivers trying to make time
were
continuously leap-frogging trucks and slower vehicles.
We didn't know it then, but the villages we drove through as we
neared the border looked a lot like Jasina.
III
The Hungarian-Ukrainian border had lines of cars extending perhaps half
a mile
on either side, the Ukrainian side obviously longer. The Hungarian
side seemed
to move a little faster but it took about 45 minutes before we reached
the
guards, our papers were inspected and we were permitted to pass. Although
uneventful, there was something vaguely chilling about leaving the
thriving,
newly capitalized and busily re-building Hungary and passing into the
wild and
wooly post-Soviet Ukraine.
Our road continued along the river and through the countryside, at first
not
so different from the Hungarian side, but giving way to poorer roads
and
villages. Suddenly, we encountered a little roadblock: the local police,
no
doubt noticing our Hungarian license plates, under the guise of stopping
our
driver for not wearing his seatbelt, decided to hit us up for a little
baksheesh. Leosch, who spoke no Ukrainian, attempted to negotiate but
it was
clear, despite the language barrier, that we would not be permitted
to proceed
until money changed hands. Leosch paid the police and we were on our
way… only
to be stopped again by other cops some miles further down the road
where the
whole charade was repeated. We were also stopped a third time after
we picked
up our translator. It was evident that we would not be permitted to
travel
without paying the police "tolls."
After about 5 hours of travel from Budapest, we finally arrived in
Munkachevo,
a decent sized but run-down town with 2-3 story buildings, several
main
streets [paved, after a fashion], and a railway station. We were low
on cash
after our contacts with the local police and wanted to try to cash
Travelers
Cheques or change money in the bank. This proved impossible as the
Ukrainian
banks have no system for check cashing or international monetary exchange.
[Later, we were to learn from our translator/guide that the post offices
are
also unreliable.] We found our way to the synagogue where, in accordance
with
our most recent phone call from Mr. Nachman Elbaum, we were to meet
the guide
he had arranged to take us to Jasina. But, in accordance with the way
everything worked with Mr. Elbaum, the guide was nowhere to be found,
no one
seemed to know who he was, where he was, or when he would arrive. In
the
meantime, we had the pleasure of meeting Rabbi Chaim Shlomo Hoffman,
Chief
Rabbi of the Karpaten. Rabbi Hoffman, a kindly, bearded man of about
65-70
years, was dressed in a streimel and long coat. He looked like he was
plucked
from Central Casting. Fortunately, he spoke Yiddish and, also fortunately,
so
does Sylvia. With great pride, he showed us the synagogue, mikvah,
and
kitchen/Hebrew school. Sylvia and Gene had brought a big suitcase of
good,
warm clothing which they were able to donate to the Jewish community
there.
The synagogue is the gathering place for whatever Jews, mostly elderly,
remain
in the region. In addition to services and teaching for the children,
they are
served kosher meals, given clothing, and women can visit the mikvah.
The
mikvah, as the Rabbi pointed out with particular pride, has 3 separate
sections: one for Satmar women, one for Lubavitch women, and a third
for
everyone else. Although the building was in terrible condition, it
was
wonderful to see Judaism coming to life again in this hostile environment.
We
only hope that the Ukrainians, with their long history of rabid anti-Semitism,
will continue to let these old Jews [and whatever young] live in peace.
After an hour or so, our guide and translator, the person who would
be
responsible for getting us to Jasina, for making hotel arrangements,
finding
us safe food and water, keeping us free of all those diseases listed
by the
Center for Disease Control, defending us against pickpockets and greedy
officials, leading us to all the places of interest to us in Jasina,
the only
person who spoke Ukrainian and English, the caretaker carefully chosen
by Mr.
Elbaum, finally arrived. Myron, a tall, skinny, gawky, very young looking
boy,
a native Ukrainian from Lviv [Lvov] seemed to be about l6 and definitely
did
not, at first, inspire confidence. He had arrived on the one train
from Lviv
to Munkachevo, a trip of about l2 hours. Amazingly, however, Myron
was an
inspired choice. He was very bright, very sweet, very pleasant to be
with, and
exceedingly responsible. He took his mission very seriously and tried
to do
everything possible to arrange what we needed. How Mr. Elbaum found
him, we'll
never know. It turns out that Myron's father, a dentist, was posted
to serve
in Jasina, of all places, after dental school by the then-Soviet government.
He made a lifelong friendship with a man, Vassily, who, as former head
of the
collective farm in Jasina, was one of the most important men in the
town.
Myron's father had lived in Jasina during his service and then moved
back to
Lviv where Myron was raised. But Myron had grown up knowing Vassily
and it was
obvious when we arrived in Jasina that they were quite fond of one
another.
IV
So we left Munkachevo and set out for Jasina with our driver who spoke
only
Hungarian and our very young guide [he turned out to be about 21 and
a dental
student] who spoke English and Ukrainian but not Hungarian. As we traveled,
the 2-lane road became worse and worse: more deeply rutted, with frequent
hairpin turns and very poor visibility. We were forced to go very slowly
but
even so, the van was taking a beating. If we had broken down, we would
have
been in big trouble. There were almost no other cars on the road. We
never
passed any kind of gas station or even a store or public facility of
any sort,
only a house every so often. After another 4 or 5 hours, the flat farmlands
became mountains and there we were, in Jasina.
It was almost nightfall but we were able to see the mountains, some
forested
and some pasture. They reminded me of the Catskill Mountains here,
including
the fact that the Carpathian towns are very much run down like many
of those
in the Catskills. The little river, Tisa, runs beside the road throughout
the
region. [On the Hungarian side of the border, it is "Tisza Polgar",
whatever
that means.] In daylight, the next morning, we could see that the area
was not
without charm. There was something appealing about the neat little
square
wooden, sometimes stucco, houses of the region, with their tiled roofs
and
occasional flower gardens. There was a pretty little hotel from earlier
times
that looked like a Swiss chalet since the Carpathian Mountains, though
very
much out of the way geographically and served by dreadful roads, has
long been
a resort area. But this hotel had been closed for some reason. Instead,
the
Soviets had actually built 2 very ugly huge hotels there in an effort
to bring
tourists into the region. In fact, the hotel we stayed at [which we
nicknamed
the "Jasina Hilton"] was crammed with vacationing families.
Upon arriving, Myron and Leosch found the way to Vassily's home. Vassily
then
took us to the home of the manager of the huge, ugly, but open Soviet-style
hotel to get the key to their best rooms. If these were the best, I
can only
imagine what the worst rooms were like! A dim, naked bulb supplied
electricity. There was no hot water and we didn't even dare to brush
our teeth
in the tap water so we used our Hungarian bottled water. The toilet
and shower
were rather primitive. I killed a roach. The sheets seemed clean but
threadbare. We didn't bathe and slept in our clothes.
Before bedtime, however, we went to find some dinner. Alas, we were
too late
for a meal in our hotel. We walked up the hill to the only "restaurant"
in
Jasina. It was an unheated, round wooden building with a great cooking
pit in
the center that managed to throw off charcoal smoke despite the chimney
flue
that let out through the roof. We sat on wooden benches at a wooden
table. At
the other table was a group of local men laughing and drinking. Dinner
was a
plate of chicken, which Leosch joked, was probably older than we were.
It was
a little tough but after we saw what the hotel served for breakfast,
we knew
that missing dinner had been lucky. Breakfast was some kind of white
cheese
served in a mound covered with sweet syrup, white bread of the Wonderbread
variety [I was shocked. I expected decent bread from the wheat belt
of the
former USSR.], kasha, and a plate of very good tomatoes. We had been
warned
away from produce that looked too good because of Chernobyl so,
unfortunately, we couldn't fill up on tomatoes. Had I not seen a roach
in our
room, breakfast might have been more appealing. It turned out that
our best
bet was Sylvia's suitcase.
V
After breakfast, we drove to the center of town to begin our exploration.
There was one main road and all of the little square houses sat on
either side
of it, with very little space in front between house and road. Although
it was
summer, the day was somewhat overcast, cold, and a bit damp. In the
center of
town, behind town hall, someone had chickens and goats. Transportation
was by
horse and cart or bicycle; the roads were abysmal. Vassily told us
that a
former Jasinite, a Jewish man named Zoltan Durastein who had immigrated
to
Israel 20 years ago, had returned for a visit with his Israeli wife.
We went
to speak to him, in front of the town hall, to see whether he had known
any
members of our family but he had not. Later, we estimated that Zoltan
was
probably about l0 years younger than David or Bila Halm and probably
could not
have known or remembered them. He was greeted enthusiastically by many
of the
town people, some of whom had been his childhood friends.
We know that in many places in Europe, including Delatyn, a nearby town
which
was home to Bubby's (Sarah Spieler) Tante Rosie Goldenberg Hirsch [Goldie
Goldenberg's
sister], Jews who were still alive after the Nazis left were murdered
by
their gentile neighbors who then moved into their homes and took over
their
lands and possessions. [In fact, after our trip, Sylvia and Gene sent
us a
video made by the son of a Jewish man who returned to Delatyn and was
told
this story by his former neighbors.] As we looked at the faces of the
people
greeting Mr. Durastein and the other townspeople watching us, we couldn't
help
wondering what they were doing during the war, what were they told,
do they
know, as Vassily** does, what happened to the Jews of Jasina? Myron,
an ardent
Ukrainian nationalist, couldn't believe that Ukrainians had ever participated
in such activities when I tried to tell him about them.
Many of the town people seem to sort of hang out in the town center.
There
doesn't appear to be much commerce in Jasina and not a lot of anything
else
going on. People have little farms and maybe a cow, some chickens or
goats, an
occasional sheep. We saw people cutting grass with scythes and raking
hay with
hand rakes. Houses are heated with wood, which accounts for the deforestation.
There was a sort of open-air flea market where people were selling
various
small items. I don't remember any stores. Only a few places have telephones
and though there were electric lines, it didn't look like there was
heavy use
of electricity. It felt as if we had not only traveled to the middle
of
nowhere in distance, but had also gone back 75 years in time.
In the town "square", Vassily was approached by a man who offered to
sell us a
document that told the history of the various ethnic groups living
in Jasina.
He wanted $200 American. Supposedly, this document was written by a
postal
employee. It turns out that only 2 pages were about the Jews of Jasina.
We
offered him $20 for the 2 pages but he refused, holding to his original
$200
figure. We asked if he would allow us to copy the 2 pages but the nearest
copy
machine was in another town hours away. We decided to proceed with
our visit
since it would take us many hours to drive back to Budapest and we
really
didn't want to spend another night at the "Jasina Hilton".
VI
Our next stop was the Jewish cemetery. This was reached by climbing
an
extremely steep unpaved road behind one of the synagogues [there are
2]. The
road ran between a meadow on the right in which a farmer was raking
hay [and
his horse was eating it] and a lane of houses perpendicular to the
road. Every
house had a little garden in the back and it seemed that every house
had a dog
and it seemed that every dog began barking as we made our way up the
hill.
Gene barked right back!
We reached the cemetery a little breathless. The grass had been recently
cut
by the farmer we had met in the pasture below. He told us he sometimes
saw
people praying in the cemetery. The stones were quite old. Many had
been so
eroded that it was no longer possible to read the inscriptions. Most
were no
longer standing upright so they looked like tilted, wobbly, vulnerable,
sentinels, a mute testimony to the fragility of Jewish life in Jasina.
We
searched in vain for any that belonged to our family. After awhile,
we said
Kaddish to remember the poor people, Jews and others, murdered senselessly
by
the Nazis. It is hard to understand why the Nazis would came so many
miles on
roads that were even worse then to a place that had no strategic value
whatsoever, a place in the middle of nowhere, just to kill innocent
people and
set fire to their town for one month! But the fact is that in
April, l944,
"the entire Jewry of Podkarpatska Russ was taken to Auschwitz…"*
Cousin Albert Halm [see below] told me that our family had been in the
Carpathian area for 250 years. Until l939, when the Ukrainians, who
were Nazi
sympathizers, took over the government from the more tolerant
Czechoslovakians, "Anti-Semitism was tolerable and smashed Jewish windows,
at
Easter, were usually repaired by the perpetrators, with an apology."*This
was
followed by the Hungarian occupation in l940. According to Albert,
the
Hungarians were "no better than the Germans."*
We walked downhill to see the synagogues. There are 2 synagogues, one
on
either side of the road. Both are built of brick and stucco rather
than wood
and so they survived the burning of the town. One is currently used
as the
town fire department and the other is not in use at all. There was
nothing to
see since nothing is left of these former centers of Jewish communal
life.
VII
A few weeks before leaving for Jasina, we had been visited in America
by our
Australian cousin, Albert Halm, who had been born in Jasina and lived
there
until the Nazis came and took him to Auschwitz. After the war, Jews
in
Australia sent for Jews still alive in the camps. Albert, a young man
of 21,
went to Australia. Later, he learned his mother had also survived and
was in
Israel. He visited Israel and met the Halm families there, and through
them,
learned about us in America. In l994, he wrote to my mother, Goldie,
who wrote
back and also sent copies of Albert's letter to other family member
so we
could also correspond with him. The discovery of another surviving
relative
caused great excitement. Cousin Eddie Gandler, whose son Larry married
an
Australian woman, Naomi, visited Albert in Australia when visiting
his
children. We all wanted very much to meet our "new" cousin. The occasion
arrived in a manner that was not quite what we would have chosen, but
we all
know that's how life is. Albert's mother, Nechuma [Nellie] passed away
at the
age of 95. Albert had been in Beer Sheva and was on his way to visit
his
children, Peter and Bonita, in California. He stopped in our area and
Eddie
and Beth made a party so we could all meet him. Almost all of us were
around
at the time, even most of the Florida Aglers. [Unfortunately Yelena
and Leah
were at one of Leah's ice skating competitions and David had just started
his
new job. Also unfortunately absent were the Florida Harrises, Andrew,
Annette
and Jacob, Raquel, Stan, Avi and Sharon Lerner, and Jody and Eric Schleifer.]
In addition to the "usual suspects" from this area, cousin Ravit was
visiting
from Israel so she was at the party also.
Some of us brought old photographs to share with Albert. I had some
that had
been my grandmother's. There were faces that were unfamiliar to us
identified
by Albert as David and Baila [Bila] Halm, with Goldi Berger and a little
boy
who may have been Baila's son. Albert showed us his pictures of Jasina
from a
visit in l992 with his wife, Ruth. He also supplied us with some addresses
of
our relatives' homes, including one believed to be my great-grandfather's,
and
descriptions of the area in which they lived, which was known as Tchorna
Tisa.
This is where we asked Vassily to take us next.
Tchorna Tisa is a region about 5 km from the center of town. It
is reached by
the main road. It took us over an hour to reach our destination because
the
road was so deeply rutted, it becomes increasingly impassable as you
leave
town. We could see why horse-drawn carts were the vehicles of choice.
We have some questions about whether we ever really reached our destination.
Albert had told us the numbers of the houses and the name of the bridge
near
them, Dolgany. We came to a new wooden bridge near a bend in the river
where
the houses were numbered close to the address we sought. In place of
our
family homes, stood a feed and grain store. When I sent the pictures
to
Albert, he thought the dry riverbed in our photos was not as wide as
he had
seen on his trip. It is possible there was a drought or that we were
in the
wrong place. Anything is possible since the region has undoubtedly
changed in
the 5 years since his visit and in the 50 years since the houses were
burned
down. I will never know if we were on the exact spot where our family's
homes
once stood but as I stood and looked at the pastures, the mountains,
the
forest, and the river, I imagined my beloved grandmother as a young
girl
walking the road to school or taking the cow to pasture, learning to
cook and
embroider, talking with her brothers and sisters, and dreaming her
dreams
about America.*