Though I am not as good as I'd like to be at keeping up with this blog—and not as good as Google would like me to be, according to my rankings--many people have nevertheless managed to find my posts over the years. Most recently, I heard from my cousin Rena, whom I'd been trying to locate for years. Those marital name changes wreak havoc on genealogy. She commented: I
Holocaust
The Wedding Photo
It all started on a Facebook group I belong to: A posted photo of a Holocaust victim who had committed suicide rather than be captured by the Nazis led to a larger discussion of the topic. Somehow, I hadn't realized that many Jewish women and men took their lives, either to avoid being taken or to end their suffering at the death camps. I commented that I didn't know
A Tale of Three Dictators: The Farber Family, Revisited
Since I first started exploring the roots of my mother's family here, lo these many years ago, my sense of who I am and where I came from has shifted. So too has my view of the Jewish diaspora. Forced from Europe by the Nazis, members of the Kornmehl family fled to Curaçao, Singapore, Australia, and Brazil, as well as to more common destinations like Palestine/Israel and the
The Jewish Museum Vienna: A Personal Look
I know, you can’t go home again, especially if home is a country your family was forced to flee. I was under no illusion that a lilting Strauss waltz would be the soundtrack to my visit to Vienna, where both my parents were born. Still, I’d traveled to the city earlier this summer to see how my relatives had lived, not to dwell on their victimization. Which is why I was looking
Auf Wiedersehen, Pt. 1: Breaking the Silence
When I first began researching my mother's family, even before Freud's Butcher the blog was born, I heard about a film called "Auf Wiedersehen: 'Til We Meet Again." I knew little about it, but was intrigued by the synopsis on the site that I found for ordering it: In this compelling and often funny tale of recovery and renewal, author and activist Linda G. Mills is propelled