home 
Success was evident from the first evening's event on May 1. After a period of time for an informal coming together, there were introductory remarks, followed by a representative of each family coming forward to the microphone to introduce their family, tell of their connection, and whatever else they chose to say. Registered were relatives from the USA, Canada, England, Scotland, Holland, Estonia, Lithuania, Colombia, South Africa, and Israel. Mark Galinsky from Toronto had just been to Israel but was in Greece. Could he come? Dr. David Galinsky from Beer Sheva, Israel, planned to spend a few hours. He was leaving the country but spent more than 24 hours, leaving directly for the airport. David Galinsky, originally of Leeds England, now of Jerusalem, came to see. He summoned his newlywed sister and brother-in-law, and David returned... and returned... and we found the connection between his family and that of Isaac's of Capetown, descendants of Abraham Gilinsky. And that's how it went.
On Friday morning we made our pilgrimage to Yad Veshem. After a brief tour, we had our own family ceremony in the Hall of Remembrance. Our daughter Ronda Jacobson had prepared a reading of poems of the Holocaust written by children from various lands. Interspersed between the reading of the poems, the younger generation among us read the 162 names of those known at the time to have been lost from our family in the Holocaust. (Subsequently, an additional 42 family members were identified.) The readers were Joel Levy of South Africa and London, Robin Sadavoy of Canada, Rose Louer-Galinsky of Holland, Kim Leonard of New York, and two of my Israeli grandchildren, Toby and Nadav Sagiv. And then those who did the reading, led by Toby still in her army uniform (she had just joined us from her base) marched in procession to the eternal flame and laid a commemorative wreath. We all then recited the Kaddish. All were overwhelmed by emotion.
As we were about to board our bus, our guide/translators asked for the chance to speak to the group. They thanked us for allowing them to be part of a most-meaningful family tribute. As we were there on the week-end of the observance of Yom Hashoa, they expressed that we had captured the true meaning of Yad Veshem and especially so, by our involving the younger generation. The younger ones thanked us as well for including them in our ceremony. It was a very rewarding experience.
We returned to our kibbutz hotel where our sessions began. The Family Blue Book, now a compilation of all Gilinsky and Gavendo families known to us, was explained in detail using transparencies and an overhead projector. It's a complicated book, but worth the time necessary to comprehend its format and contents.
Bluma then told the riveting story of life in the shtetl of Shvintzian, one of the key places of our family origin. (Palushe and Ignalina are two of the others.) Bluma lived in Shvintzian before the war and returned there after it. In 1937 she and her husband were apprehended and questioned about anti-Communist activity. Her infant child was taken from her. She was told that all she had to do was to confess to the charges and she would be set free. She recognized that would not be the case and, besides, she could not confess to what was not true. After months of interrogation under the most difficult conditions she was sentenced to 10 years in the gulag, to a mining camp far beyond Siberia, perhaps 35 miles from the Japanese border. She was never again to see her husband. She, and the other prisoners had no contact with the outside world. She knew nothing about the war, nothing about her baby daughter. After completing her sentence she had to stay in the area of the camp long enough to earn sufficient funds to pay for a ticket to return to her home town. She located her child who had been reared by the Communists. To this day, her daughter now a physician in Vilnius, can not be dispelled of the notion that her mother abandoned her. She refuses any contact with Blurna.