Sunday, August 23, 2009
Home again, home again
Because I have relatively few journalistic sensibilities. I chafe at those moments when I'm supposed to employ them. Like keeping a journal. Or a blog. (As I've said before, I am a terrible journal keeper.)
While I am a fan of nonfiction (reading it, writing it), journalism wants the whole story, all of the details, every questioning W answered. That inclination seems oppressive to me. The glut of it all. The sliver of the story I want, mixed into the soup of the rest of it.
I have notes and photos and documents gathered from my time in Lithuania, both from the fascinating class time and from the trips to the current towns that used to be the old family shtetls of Linkuva, Shilal, and Gorzd. I will share what I know. But it is taking me longer than I thought. (No, I don't need it to be "perfect," but I can only do this the way I do it.)
It's been said that when foreign writers come to Lithuania, Vilnius particularly, either they write quite a bit, or they can't write at all and aren't able to put it all down (whatever "it all" happens to be) until they get home (wherever "home" happens to be). As it turns out, I'm part of the second group.
I am just beginning to regain my sense of time, casual though it's always been. (I have started waking up in the sevens versus the sixes. When we get to the elevens, consider me un-jet-lagged.) I am still surprised at how much English I hear spoken around me in DC, and I'm somewhat less surprised at my difficultly in finding words (which tends to happen when I'm out of sorts). But I appear to be writing a bit. (Hey, look, it's a blog post!)
I meant this blog to be far more regularly updated and updated with the actualities of what was happening. Sometimes that happened, but usually, it was other stuff that got posted.
Eventually all these notes and photos and documents will be sorted and I'll figure out what I want to say about it. But before then, there will be blog posts with the glut of information.
Tuesday, August 11, 2009
Shalal, Gorzd, and moving forward
("Why, Halley, that was an opaque statement that tells us very little."
"Yes, straw man, it was intended to be.")
After a few weeks of work, especially this last week, I am off to spend four days at a spa in Druskininkai. When I'm not in a massage or a mud bath or a mineral dip or accupressure session, I plan on writing, so there is more to come soon.
And yes, I too was a bit nervous at first when I heard "Eastern European spa," but the place I am going to appears to be modern and lovely, from all accounts. And they had a package deal where I get all sorts of fun treatments and other stuff each day plus accommodation in their four star hotel for about the price of a night's stay somewhere.
So pardon me while I pack and prepare. I have to get to my consultation with my wellness coach. After the two-hour bus ride south, of course.
(The final bit of awesome here is that I can store my big backpack at the guest house here in Vilnius and pick it up on my way out in a week or so, so I don't have to schlep it. If you're happy and you know it clap your hands...)
Sunday, August 9, 2009
New photos
As always, no labels yet.
But you can probably figure out some of the archive files.
Especially if you read Cyrillic or Yiddish.
I do not.
Otherwise, there are some just regular 'ol photos, too, which have no associated paperwork.
Linkuva
Linkuva is the shtetl where my father's mother's mother came from, before coming to the US around 1900. At that time, the town was already about 400 years old.
View Larger Map
Here, have a quickie video of us driving into town.
Yes, I know it's shaky. We are coming in a sort of back way, on a bumpy dirt road. I am driving. And shooting the video at the same time on my regular digital camera. Not looking at what I'm filming very much, because, y'know, I'm driving and watching the road.
So yes, I know it's shaky.
And a photo in town (click to embiggen):
And the next one is of houses on the square:
And one more town shot, for now:
Bob Herbert
"I wrote, at the time, that there would have been thunderous outrage if someone had separated potential victims by race or religion and then shot, say, only the blacks, or only the whites, or only the Jews. But if you shoot only the girls or only the women — not so much of an uproar."
"We profess to being shocked at one or another of these outlandish crimes, but the shock wears off quickly in an environment in which the rape, murder and humiliation of females is not only a staple of the news, but an important cornerstone of the nation’s entertainment."
Thursday, August 6, 2009
On the road again...
Because (I think) he didn't want to bother coming in on Saturday (for me to return it) and again on Sunday (for me to pick it up again for Monday), he gave me a discount to just keep it for the whole time.
And yes, I made sure it was an automatic.
Wednesday, August 5, 2009
File under: Rant
- Got an email from the car rental place that they have no car for me for my trip on Saturday with my guide. They took three days to tell me this. So now I have to find another car, quickly. My guide offered the name of a place, but I thought I already had it settled, so I said no, thanks. And so I emailed her back to ask for her rental place, but haven't heard back. And the closer it gets to the weekend, the less likely it is I won't have to spend a million dollars on a car rental.
- Realized I hadn't edited a paper I was supposed to send back a few days ago. Did that, while I was supposed to be at the archive.
- Still had to go back to archive, but never quite made it for reasons that will become apparent (possibly; if they do not, I recommend you don't say so).
- Haven't heard back from anyone here that could possibly help me at the archive.
- Really did not want to go back to archive (though I tried anyway) because this feels stupid to expend the energy to get all the way over to the building on the other side of town, where I feel unwelcome, only to pour over documents, which are unlikely to have any info in them for me because I can only guess at years for the one town they do have records for, and are written in two languages that I cannot read. And even if I could read them, they are written in that old, loopy, swirly handwriting that is hard to decipher anyway.
- Stressed about it getting late and still had stuff to do before I left for the archive.
- It was already late enough by the time I would've gotten there, that I would only have had a few hours anyway.
- Hadn't had breakfast or anything and was in such a 'screw it' mood that I stopped at the coffee shop for a croissant and cup of tea, and got shoved by the impatient woman behind me. I didn't move and just stared at her.
- Finished and resigned myself to going to the archive. Found out I didn't have any minutes on my phone to call a cab (because the archive is so far away I have to take a cab).
- Had to go to a kiosk to buy more minutes for my phone and deal with the cranky lady who stands in that small box of a shop, trying to communicate what I wanted through hand gestures, pointing, and props.
- Tried to add the minutes to my phone, but the piece o' crap wasn't working. Sometimes it just doesn't work on the first try, or second, etc. because the service provider seems to be on crack and has a monkey who pulls out the wires at their central office, so sometimes the phone calls work and sometimes they don't.
- So I had to walk back to my room to get the paper that helps with adding credit to the phone. Which of course they charge you for the help. Even though it's their fault. And I can't argue in Lithuanian.
- Got stared at on the walk back to the house. Because Lithuanians stare a lot. And I stared back. I wanted to punch, like, seven people.
- Finally added the minutes to my phone so that I could call a taxi to get over to the archive. But decided not to because I was so fuming by this point because of everything not working.
- I know that I can't give up on the archive because if I leave saying that the archive was there and I didn't try something (never mind my functional illiteracy for reading the files, in this case), people would be like, "You didn't try the archive?!?!?!? You were there and you didn't use it?!?!?" So I have to go back tomorrow. And that makes me angry and frustrated and feeling trapped. (And this is supposed to be my freaking vacation?!)
- Still haven't heard back from the woman at the Kaunas archive to see if there is anything in their files for me to search.
- I have to call the student loan people and credit card people who are incompetent and have all screwed up various things that I took care of before I left. Most of them are asking for documents that I already sent a month ago. And ignoring my questions, but still asking me for money that I do not owe them.
- And because I'm doing this, I haven't set up the "fun part" of my trip yet, which keeps dwindling in days because I keep getting stuck here for longer and longer. So who knows if the places I want to visit will have availability by then.
Are we having fun yet?
PS - I currently want no "helpful tips" about how I can have a super time at the archive anyway. I will go back and try again because I am too stupid not to, but it's not going to be good, fun, or productive in any way, unless you count "exercises in futility" as productive.
EDIT: So the outcome, in case you were curious, was that I came home for the phone thing and never left again, and watched tv online and ate a piece of chocolate. I probably could've gone to the archive and had almost three hours there (and they may be refiling away my requested books as we speak), but I decided that I was just a big quitter and that I quit for the day. Except for all the other things I should be doing. Stupid, fucking vacation.
Tuesday, August 4, 2009
Postcard from Gorzhd
Since he left for the US in 1907, this scene was probably pretty familiar to him. He would've known this market.
http://www.shtetlinks.jewishgen.org/Gargzdai/grussausgarsden.htm
(There are links on the page to enlarge the images.)
I'm guessing when I go there next week, it may look different...
Vilnius Archives, part II - or - Basking in the warm glow of the microfilm machine
Inside, I pick up my little basket of microfilm boxes and a woman in the office shows me how to use the machine. I work for an hour before the archive is going to close.
On the first roll of microfilm (of those born in Linkuva in 1859, a year in a wide approximation of possible birth dates for Isaac/Itzhak Yaffe), I find that the categories on each form is written in Russian. On each facing page, the left side is filled in in Russian script (which looks like English at first glance, like I should be able to read it, but can't), and the right side is in Yiddish script. I scroll through pages, looking at each of the male births, sounding out the Yiddish in the old-time swirly script, looking for something that looks like it might be the right name.
I ask the young woman in the office to translate the cateogories that run across the top of each page.
Columns 1&2: a running total of which number boy or girl this is being born in the town that year
Column 3: which "priest" did the birth (naming?) ceremony
Columns 4&5: Birth day according to the Russian calendar and the Hebrew calendar
Column 6: Place the baby was born
Column 7: Father's name and mother's name (and something else the woman can't translate)
Column 8: If it was a son or daughter, and the baby's name
I find a name that could possibly be Itzhak and possibly Yaffe under parents' names (but very possibly not). I am so unconvinced that I'm not that excited to find it. Still, I take a photo and then move on. I finish the roll with nothing else that seems close.
For a moment, as each new roll begins, I am relieved because the set up pages are all in English, made by the Geneological Society of Utah, in Salt Lake City. The title of the record is listed as: Vilnius Jewish Rabbinate. Galina has set me up with the appropriate records without even needing to ask me any questions beyond the town names. Perhaps my saying the Yiddish versions of the names was a give away...
And then, we are back to handwritten Russian and Yiddish records. While other records from other towns on each roll have scribbled handwriting, notes kept by people who just wrote all over the form, it is clear that the same person who kept the file in 1859 for Linkuva was still keeping it in 1862 because the handwriting is the same. It is careful and fully answers each box, within the box, and I am grateful for such a detailed and neat record keeper. I am only sorry I can't read better.
I realize I am not the person best suited for this job. However, I am the only one here.
I will return to the archive tomorrow and spend the day with the books of bound original records and the microfilm that I scroll through.
At least they drive on the right
It's significantly cheaper if I just rent a car and drive, versus hiring a driver.
So I will schlep out to the airport the night before each trip, figure out the way back to my guest house, and then take off with my guide the next morning.
Vilnius drivers are insane and only take road rules as suggestions... and they don't take kindly to suggestion. But once we're out of the city, it should be better.
And just because I haven't driven since the last time I was back in Chicago for a few days...
I'm not worried. I drive defensively and I have kept up my swearing so I'd be fully practiced for the next time I got behind the wheel and needed to inform the other drivers what they are doing wrong.
Vilnius Archives, part I – or – Reasons for Learning Russian
I found the archives on a map, determined that it was far away from the city center and from my usual bus routes and settled on a taxi, rather than figuring it all out. Especially since taxis are cheap (it ended up costing seven bucks) and I don’t need to worry about navigation when I’m busy worrying about dealing with the archives.
The building is quite plain and I only recognize it by the small sign above the door with a name that I had read online the day before, “Lietuvos Valstybinis Istoijos Archyvas.”
There is a paper on the front door which has different hours listed for various items, all written in Lithuanian. The top hours seem to indicate something closing from
I give the woman at the desk, who does not speak English, Galina’s name. She leaves, comes back and then points me down a long hall with a dozen doors. I ask/mime, which one? She points me down the hall again, pointing to the left side. So that narrows it down. I wander and find “G. Baranova” outside one door.
G. Baranova is polite (and English-speaking), but I’m sure I’ve disturbed her because I’ve made no appointment (though I tried; phone issues). I tell her my business. She quickly explains how there will be nothing for Gorzd and Shalel here because those records have disappeared, except for one volume of something for Shalel for 1922. (I will contact the Kaunas Archive because I was told that what
She asks if I speak Russian. I do not. She says all the records are in Russian and sometimes in “Jewish,” too, occasionally only in Russian. Again, “no Russian?” “No Russian.” She says for Linkuva there are some records.
All the records are organized in books by year, for each location. For Gorzd and especially for Shalel, I know many years, written in my own records. For Linkuva, I have no known years.
I don’t share this (lack of) information with Galina and she takes me to the reading room. On the way, we stop at lockers because I cannot have bags or anything big. Only paper and pen. And just hold your valuables. “Don’t leave your money.” I am given the key to the locker. I must look a little shocked by all this “get rid of all your belongings” shpiel and as soon as she stops talking, she says, “You must hurry, I am very busy.” Okay, okay, I was waiting for you to finish. I grab my documents, my wallet, camera, and phone, and a notebook. I lock the locker and drop the small key (only slightly more complicated than a diary key) into my pocket.
I follow her into another office connected to the reading room and start filling out a form that will grant me access to the archives. Galina seems annoyed that she has to help me with the form (in Lithuanian), and with my questions (my phone here or at home? Address here or at home?). They ask for the number on my ID. It is my IL driver’s license and I’m not sure how that number will help them track me down for whatever reason, but I put it down because I don’t want to keep annoying her, and everyone seems satisfied with the information I provide. When she asks if I am I student, I say yes, because that seems to be the easiest answer.
She hands the form to a woman at the desk and they talk back and forth in Lithuanian. All I catch is zydu, and other forms of the word, meaning Jew or Jewish. She opens some index books, asks me for the shtetl names again. “So you speak no Russian?” Yup, still no Russian. Haven’t learned any since we walked down the hall.
The entire index is in Russian with numbers. She explains quickly that the four columns across the top of each page read: Birth, Marriage, Divorce, Death. I write this down. Down each column is (hopefully) a list of years, with a corresponding book number, which I would request on a form they gave me, should I want that year of births (or marriages/divorces/deaths) from that town.
Galina finds the pages for Linkuva in two volumes. I mark them with yellow legal pad paper, torn from my pad quickly as she flips through the indexes. There is one page for Shalel, with one year, listed under births. 1936. I am told I can’t see it, though. “Why?” “The Lithuanian War.” That is all I’m told. End of story. When I sit down, I will request it on my sheet anyway, just in case someone forgets and hands it over…
I ask again, just to make sure that there is nothing for Gorzd and nothing else for Shalel. Nope. That’s it. Just those two different pages for Linkuva. Because I don’t speak Russian, I have to trust that the names on the top of the page say what I hope they do.
Galina leaves and I am grateful that she has been so willing to guide me through all these steps.
I am given a little Archives ID card, stamped with their seal in blue. I take my two indexes, marked with torn yellow paper, and go into the reading room. The room is mostly full – silent, with people at desk stations pouring over volumes – and I find a table at the front and sit down. I hear someone’s digital camera snapping photos somewhere behind me. I wonder for the eighteenth time in five minutes, what the hell am I going to do; I don’t speak Russian. How will I find anything?
The glass is reflective that separates the reading room and the little office I was just in. I look up and I’m staring at myself and the open indexes piled in front of me, questioning this endeavor. I don’t know Russian. The books are in Russian. And now I’m supposed to go through these indexes and find which records I want? Why would I know Russian? How come I don’t know Russian?
I enjoy my pity party for a moment, then laugh and think, I can have this pity party or I can just start figuring it out. (What should I do, leave?) So I start reading the lists, one column at a time.
Still, I have no dates for Linkuva. So I work out approximates on a piece of paper. I have Baubie’s (Sally’s) birth date. That’s all. I know she was born in the
In the midst of going through the Russian lists and making my approximations for siblings birthdays, I stop and stare at myself and the ridiculousness of this situation. Then, back into it.
One of the Linkuva lists is quite short and I request three out of the four volumes listed. The other page for Linkuva is quite full, with dozens of years, but only a half dozen that might possibly be somewhere in my range of years. The page seems quite noisy, and I feel like I have many voices talking excitedly in my head. I wish one of them would tell me which year to pick. In one of the volumes there must be something relevant, but all that I can do is only slightly better than the equivalent of throwing darts at the page to choose.
I bring my finished request form back into the little office and the woman inside is an English speaker and blessedly friendly. (I’m not sure how much more I could’ve taken of the not-smiling and rushing…) She says many of the volumes are on microfilm. I wonder to myself if I remember how to use the microfilm machines; a little. She takes me to the microfilm room (Mikrofilmu skaitykla) and gives my list to another woman, tells me to come back in two hours when they will have what I’ve asked for. She is patient and explains their hours when I ask and suggests I come back early the next morning, they open at
I worry that my best bet for finding anything here is my ability to sound out the Yiddish that may or may not be on the records. Because at least, I can read that alphabet. Again, knowing Cyrillic would’ve been helpful.
I have an acquaintance here in
I left the building, looking for something that said Kavine (coffee shop; kava is coffee) somewhere in this unknown other part of the city where tourists almost never venture (unless coming to the Archives, I would guess). I found a spot, ordered arbata (tea) and cold borscht (pronounced Shal-TEE bar-shay) because I know how to say it in Lithuanian and know it will fill me and likely be good. I couldn’t read the menu anyway, even if I wanted to. The radio station is playing “Sweet Child of Mine,” and the song is the longest stretch of English I’ve heard since I left the guest house this morning.
I have my laptop out and I type and eat, waiting for
Monday, August 3, 2009
Update on the DVD
She does not have the Shalel DVD. She is going to check with her colleague who ran the excursion.
So basically, someone somewhere may have some tape on this...
Sunday, August 2, 2009
because who doesn't love the bus?
Nothing like your alarm going off at 8:15 after not getting to bed til after 2, post-party.