Back to the Heim, by Michael Saville
In Zeide
Yehoshua Sobol’s diary written in Ivreh Teitch (Yiddish with
Hebrew Script) there are several entries around the turn of the 19th
century and against some of these entries, he wrote “I will never
forget this day”. They included the various dates his parents and
siblings left the port of Memel in Lithuania for North-East England
and the birth dates of his 4 children. His son, father Moshe Saville,
often spoke of happy and other times during the first 10 years of
his life in the Shtetel of Alshad and his next 7 years in the
larger Shtot of Shad and so after 1990 when Lithuania
regained its independence from the Soviet Union and Judaism was no
longer outlawed, there grew a desire to revisit the heim.
On a visit to
Israel in February 2007, a Sedra Pamphlet included an
invitation to join a Kosher English speaking Heritage Tour to
Lithuania after Pesach and as this included the facility to include
side visits to family Shtetels, I decided to go. As my family
in Israel were unable to accompany me, my wife came albeit as a
reluctant traveller. We flew from Leeds Bradford via Amsterdam to
Vilnius and spent the first 4 days in Vilna and Kovno. The
highlights of that section were the visits to the tomb of the Vilna
Gaon, tour and history of the Vilna ghetto, to Ponar where
Lithuanians shot 70,000 Jews in pits in the forest and only 3
escaped in chains, Shabbat at the Choral Synagogue conducting the
service with Lithuanian Nusach (traditional mode) at the same
Bima where world- renowned Chazanim, Gershon Sirota,
Mordecai Hershmann and Moshe Kousevitsky had sung 100, 90 and 80
years ago respectively and Kovno Choral Synagogue and the Slobodka
ghetto.
We then
travelled north to Wilkomar with a statue of a girl on top of a wolf
and to Ponevez site of the famous Yeshiva now in Bnei Braq
and then east to Shavli where we met 2 sisters holocaust survivors
who told us their story and now run the Jewish Centre. Next day we
visited the site of Telz Ghetto and Telz Yeshiva, now
in Cleveland Ohio and turned off the road towards Alshad – the road
was unsuitable for our coach so we went slowly as our guide said
“just like a horse and cart” The Shtetel of Alshad never had
more than 1000 inhabitants with no more than 300 Jews but it was
arranged like most Shtetels with a large square with a market
of only 2 stalls and Jewish houses mainly in the square facing
outwards for hospitality.
When Zeide
Joshua Sobol married Bobbe Sarah Brodie he moved from Shkud to
Alshad, the home of Sarah’s parents and next door to Yosef Factor.
Joshua’s parents, brothers and sister left for England between 1898
and 1902 and it was Joshua’s intention to follow them in 1914 but
they sent on their worldly goods ahead on a boat which sank so they
moved to Shad and went 7 years later. The Factors were the only Jews
from Alshad who survived the holocaust as they were in involved in
leather manufacturing for the occupying armies, but knowing the fate
of their fellow Jews they entrusted the two Alshad Sifrei Torah
to the local priest who returned them to the Factors after the
war. In 1972 when the Factors made Aliya, they took the Sifrei
Torah with them and they are now in regular use in Jerusalem
When Father
Moshe Saville made Aliya in 1971 he had many happy meetings
with Yosef Factor, and brother David Saville has maintained contact
wth Yosef’s children who revisted Alshad in 1992 and reported that
Zeide Joshua’s house was now a supermarket and that the
Factors home was now owned by Dolkinski. When the coach arrived in
Alshad we looked for older people who might remember the Factors and
one old man remembered that Dolkinski had bought his house from “the
zhid” and since Factors were the only Jews left after the
holocaust, we identified both houses and found that Zeide
Joshua’s house was now a shop rather than a supermarket but as it
was May Day (May 1st) the shop was closed. Even my
reluctant traveller wife was thrilled to be able to stand in front
of our ancestral heim to be photographed. We then went to a
memorial forest carved by the last Jew in Plonge to the memory of
those killed in the area including 30 Jews from Alshad. Next day we
completed the circle by staying in a hotel overlooking the port of
Memel from which all the family sailed to North-East England.
Overall
impressions were of an excellently organised tour led by 3
professional guides who bounced off each other in their various
fields of Gedolei Hatorah and Halacha, Holocaust and
European Jewry and Lithuanian local Jewish life and its national
history. The bitterly cold weather heightened our empathy with the
victims who unlike most of European Jewry were not killed in
concentration camps but shot outside each town and village. The
forests with tall thin trees gave no hiding places to the Jews and
it was a chilling reminder to see so many of them. Our group wore
strange clothes like flannelette nighties and extra warm tights and
extra layers to keep warm and the clothes which were left in cases
on the coach were found to be frozen when unpacked – in early May!
The shops were remarkable for their variety of choice but no-one
seemed to be buying, even at very cheap prices in our terms. Not
many smiled and a lot smoked.. As a final note, the deprivations of
cold, food and comfort caused some of the group to become fiercely
protective of their food and their coach seats as in ghetto life,
but by the last day their was an air of generosity and consideration
for others as if we had been released from oppression.
Now over a
hundred years after Zeide Joshua married and moved to Alshad,
my grandchildren also call me Zeide.
Michael Saville
Leeds, England
