We met the Ospetter family who live in Warsaw, father, his mother and daughter Joanna Jachowicz who is a biology teacher at a private school and Pietr who is a software engineer. They are both age 25 and met while they were in school. We had a good chat and found that the family converted according to the dad five generations ago to catholicism to escape persecution and that when the Germans invaded they billeted at their house and someone ratted out the father as Jewish from five generations back and that he pleaded for his life. The Germans relented and allowed him to live.
The father bore some resemblance to Philip in terms of his coloring and the shape of his face--but he was very tall as was his daughter and the grandmother had a similar face to Marlene.
The other story I did not appreciate as much when I first heard it was the life of Maurice Beaver who returned from the war to find that his home had been destroyed in Tower Hamlets by the last V2 rocket of the war. Both his wife, mother Hannah and daughters, Shirley and Lily were also killed. But his father who was shaving in the bathroom was unhurt and later remarried. The bomb split the apartment in two.
Maurice left to go to the US and did not tell anyone of his past. He started a career as a textile salesman--for a British tartan manufacturer and remarried a non Jewish woman and lived in Hattisburg Mississippi
Below is a photo of Maurice Beaver and his mother, Hannah Ouspeter Beaver. Maurice passed away late last year- see previous post. Hannah was the sister of Jack, Bessie, Sarah, Israel, Isaac. First pic that I have ever seen and thought that I should share with you all...
Hannah, Maurice's mother was deaf as were two other sisters. Marlene's great grand daughter is also deaf.
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| A plaque memorializing the V2 bombing |
Sunday June 5
After eating a full breakfast at the Hilton Hotel Convention center I made my way out to the train station by catching a taxi outside the hotel to Warsaw Gdansk Railway station where I purchased a first class reserved ticket as instructed by Robyn and Peter for the 12:06 train to Bialystok. It was about 10:45 when I arrived at the station and I then decided to get my two items --sunglasses that I had left at home and headphones from the mall which I had noticed was nearby. Someone told me it was walking distance--maybe about 400 meters and I dragged my suitcase in the 80 degree day down a wide sidewaslk that bordered four lanes of highway separated by a tram track. This was accomplished pretty efficiently. Although no one knew who sold sunglasses. It turned out to be a sports shop. I then went out to the front of the Arkadia mall and went to a taxi rank where two guys stood leaning on their cars. I explained to one, the younger guy that I wanted to go to Warsaw Gdansk railroad station. The older guy knew absolutely no English or German or French for that matter. He took me for 10 minutes way away from where I remembered the train station to be. After shouting to some pedestrians and asking them where the train station was--and then shouting at him--I finally gave up and asked him to drop me. It took a kindly couple and two subway stops to get me back to where I needed to be. I was frustrated but glad to see Robyn etc waiting for me. We laughed it off. And the train--clean modern and fast arrived on time. As a bonus it had a restaurant car where we got sandwiches. It was after about 3 hours that we arrived in Bialystok and registered at our modest but comfortable hotel that projected some timeless presence combining some 19th century features with some mid 20th century carpeting and furnishings. We then walked around a wide elegant square with a noble's palace and then stopped at a coffee bar. During this time Robyn filled in some more details concerning the Catholic family we had met yesterday who shared the name of Ozypeter.
Finding our family name in a catholic gravesite near Bialystok she traced back the surviving relatives using a researcher and Facebook. We then met up with Diane, Alan and their daughter Devora. Diane greeted me warmly and Devorah remembered that she had stayed with us circa 1990s and regretted that on recent trips to the US she had not looked us up. Diane filled me in on Phillip who has retired and was upset by his mother's death. He works for the Government finance ministry but has always felt unsatisfied by his work. He is about to retire or is retired ? volunteers several hours a week at a hospital for an experiental laying of hands type therapy. Diane had taken things more stoically realizing that she had lived until 93 a very full life. Diane recalled with pleasure how much mum and Sarah got along and how Mum would call her up for advice and the visit of mum and Beattie to Eilat. Devorah who manages tour groups from the US to visit various places in Poland (concentration canps etc) as part of the Masorti diaspora project that has now won some funding from the right wing government. told me about her elder brother Yoshi who is an expert sushi chef --had started and presumably closed his own shushi restaurant and now a general contractor. Her older sister Malka who maybe a lawyer and the son Shmuel---who lives in Tel Aviv? Diane has seven grandchildren.
We also talked about Beattie Isaacs sister who introduced Harry to Sarah? And the fact that Velvel knew the Gabors before Harry met Sarah. Marlene mentioned several times that her father Pesach--later called Jack suffered from rheumatic fever as a child and this weakened his heart. He drove a taxi during the war because he was unable to serve. Alan was tracing his family tree in Lodz where they found out some remarkable things that cannot get into now sine this is a blog about my family not others. Similarly Devorah has some remarkable story about a family where the mother gave away two children to the Germans concentration camp and that they survived remarkably because they lived for each other, They also happened to be part of the 35 generation of rabbis They grew to take leading roles --one a rabbi one a leading government member. One friend tried to convince him to write his story and he refused and as he was walking along he was hit by a car and as a result of his recovery he decided he had to tell his remarkable story.
Diane also told me that both Dad and Harry wanted to fight in the Spanish civil war and were firmly told not to go by their parents.
So today we started off in the bus and then visited the Institute of National Rememberance situated on the outskirts of Bialystok in another village. Established in December 1998 the Parliament
"four principles were considered as the most important reasons for founding of IPN. The principles could be seen as signpost of the Institute of National Remembrance’s work.
The first principle is preserving the remembrance about a great number of victims, losses and damages suffered by the Polish Nation during World War II and afterwards. The second refers to the patriotic traditions of the Polish Nation’s struggles with occupants, Nazism and Communism. Another draws attention to the obligation of prosecuting crimes against peace, mankind and war crimes. Equally important for the legislators was the obligation to compensate all oppressed by the state which had violated human rights.
The summary of these four principles was the belief, that any unlawful actions of the state against the citizens cannot be classified or forgotten.
The Institute has an educational as well as a prosecutorial function. Helps teachers understand what happened in the holocaust as far as Poland was concerned and how to teach this content and prosecuting both German and Soviet crimes. "The Institute has produced hundreds of published books, seminars and conferences concerning issues, which have never been discussed before."
So far they have had 40 over 15 years. There is also a DNA project with a local hospital (Stechen?) which they will send details about designed to connect victims with their living survivors at no cost.
Gross book also featured in the discussion --the office was involved in the prosecution of the horrible massacres perpetuated by Poles against their fellow Jews,
"Jewish men were forced to enact grotesque rituals before being butchered; women were raped and beheaded; babies were trampled to death; finally, more than 1,000 tortured Jews were herded into a barn, drenched with kerosene and torched. The Poles played raucous music in order to muffle their screams. They had surrounded the town to make sure that no Jew could escape (it would appear that there were, in fact, seven survivors)...
The massacre at Jedwabne had been preceded by similar atrocities in the surrounding region. At Radzilow, some 1,500 were massacred; 1,200 in nearby Wsosz. In every instance, rituals of humiliation, of slow torture, of unspeakable bestiality accompanied the killings. Though encouraged and sometimes initiated by the Nazi occupiers, the actual mass murders were the work of 'local hooligans'.
By contrast they are now compiling a list of 261 of the Righteous who performed heroic acts--and are checked by Yad Vashem. There was talk about restitution--very difficult for any government and Lustration where the criminals own up to their crimes before taking public office and such like.
We then went on the bus and walked through the town--Thomas pointed out the few Jewish remains including the memorial of the Great Synagogue which was torched by the Nazis with 2,000 Jews inside.
There is also a memorial see below:
Thomas W our guide also revealed that he had spent nine years in jail under the communists for speaking out against the regime. He was never a member of the Communist party. He also makes documentaries but has given up finding distribution and makes them for his own sense of mission. He has won prizes for them. He tried to get an abandoned school to be give over room for Jewish museum of Bialystok. He was refused by the town. I suggested writing to the Jewish Bialystok society located in New York for support. He was reluctant to go in this direction. He wanted the locals to own up to what they did and support the place because it was the right thing to do --not because they were forced to by outside and in this case Jewish money. What underlined the need for such a space was that he took us to the "central park" which was created by piling on dirt over a meter high over the existing Jewish grave site which stretched back thousands of years. Alan, Diane and Devorah said a prayer over the site. We then tried to find a book shop unbenownst to us some other Oyzpeters had found their way to see us after getting a call from Irina the grandmother we had met in Warsaw.about us, they are the mother in law's nieces of They are no longer Ozypeters but are aware of the patriarch Joseph who they believe was tailor who was valuable to the Germans because of his tailoring skills and was also spared for that reason when they came to visit. They promised to keep in touch and were intrigued by the idea of visiting. The woman was secretary in an office that sold blinds and the girl was going to be a student at Bialystock university. They asked us to keep their photos off Facebook we think because the rest of the family does not approve of the idea of talking to outsiders about family secrets that they may have considered long buried. We ended up with a nice meal at the Cristal Restaurant --I had a nice salmon dish and wine (for 100 Sloties) excellent meal in fact. Talked to Diane. Revealed Harry hated business was not very good at it and did not like Cardiff thught it was a provincial shetl. Was kind of bullied into the business. Was relieved to sell it and then when Diane got married and they had their first grandchild and Diane and Alan said they were moving to Israel he decided to go. He had the best time of his life there. He had also taken a philosphy course at the University of Cardiff or even several courses but was ashamed at leaving school at 15 and never took the degree or submitted his work for grading etc. He was also a member of the Masons. He liked working with new immigrants and attending concerts and meetings in Jerusalem. Felt very much in his element there.
Tuesday June 7--our second day here and one again filled with interest. We left at 9:15 and headed for first for a grave site where the nazis had barbarically removed the gravestones left a strange undulating surface behind. We said a prayer for Ruth Rosenberg and laid some stones on a memorial to the dead. We then left to visit Tomaz's house in a neat little gated community on the outskirts of Bialystok. We saw a film that is available on YouTube about the old Bialystok that was unremarkable that did tell the progress of a rural town becoming more urbanized and industralialized and he also showed us some old photos he had acquired of various people and synagogues etc. The house looked very well taken care of and there was a tiny dog that was very affectionate whom he picked up from time to time.
We then after the men in the group stopped for a pee in the woods, we went to an abandoned hollowed out synagogue that was remarkably well preserved--see photo. There were three levels --everything of value was removed from the synagogue and used as either a ware house for the Germans or something more sinister. At any rate some of the ceiling tiles were still visible and efforts had been taken in recent years to repair and maintain certain parts of the structure. It seems that someone is paid by the government to allow visitors to enter. We said kaddish we then went to a cultural center where we ate some speciality food that Marlene remembers her mother making --a sort of crispy waffle with currants and honey added--it was quite delicious and I brought a bag. We also saw a film at the center Alien 6 produced by a local film maker who had won a prize --a hassidic turns up at a Polish town to anti semitic reactions--he wants to do a deal they believe but he is kind and friendly, contrary to all their expectations. A good feel good short movie. I fell asleep near to the end --it was only 20 minutes or so, but we recognized some of the locations-including an abandonded synagogue. I also ate a peach and an apple from the hotel for lunch. So we then went to a cultural center that also served as a community center for seniors. The group made us tea, gave us tee-shirts and a bag as well as a few other knick knacks.
There had been a synagogue nearby and some of the grave stones had been used for wheels to sharpen knives, for paving stones and for foundations for a brick works or stable. Countryside green lush and innocent looking all around. Very little traffic on the road. There was lots of comments made about the storks and how they were a preserved species whose nests had to be maintained by the authorities if they got larger. They had prominent positions over the countryside and migrated to Africa and Israel as our cousins attest in the winter. They hold a special place for Jews as well. More research needs to be done in this area.
We drove back to Bialystok--I discussed US presidential politics with Tomaz--particularly the revolting Trump. Tomaz compared Trump to some Polish politicians selling empty nationalistic dreams to people. Tomaz is turning his attention increasingly to film making he wants to make a film about the way Poles still hold onto the vile blood libel smear against the Jews. This is in line with his view that 80 percent of Poles are stupid but anyone you meet believes he is part of the 20 percent. we got back to the hotel at around 7:00 pm and changed quickly for a 7:30 sushi dinner. I had salmon salad and we had a big discussion about modern Israeli politics. Devorah was good about the way the media works in Israel. Pete who visited Israel recently told us a story about how their Palestinian guide was nice and friendly but upset that he could not have a passport to travel. They later friended him on Facebook where he put up various idiotic fascist and anti zionist statements. They told him off for it and they were then deluged with other nasty comments. They finally told the government about his very upsetting Facebook page and he was not listed as a guide again. Diane thinks that the Bibi is off the rails and a liar etc but no one believes there is a strong enough alternative. Peter felt that Obama's deal with Iran was wrong. I said it was only brought on because Bibi threatened to unilaterally attack Iran. He had to make the deal with Iran or Israel would have caused a new war.
I talked about the American civil rights movement--the need for leaders from the people--the result of the 6 white students getting killed in the south--the non violence that Martin Luther King practiced as a result of reading Gandhi and the need for a similar movement in Israel. They took this idea seriously and pointed to some gradual changes that have been accomplished but that the mood was bleak for change since so many of the politicians seem self centered and short term in their thinking.
