Wednesday, April 05, 2006

Dear Morris Goldberg

Dear Morris Goldberg,

Thanks for being you and for having my great-Grandmother, Sophie Goldberg. Because she had my Grandpa Harry and he was important to me and I miss him. So Morris Goldberg, you're the reason my Grandpa Harry used to joke about himself being named "Herschel Moishe". {Her-shell Moy-sheh} . He also used to say his middle initial "M." was for moron, but now I get it, it was for Morris, named after you!

I found you today on EllisIsland.org ,which by far was one of the most amazing and moving things I have seen so this year. HERE you guys are, on lines 002 and 004 of the ship manifest, with my great great-Grandma Goldberg in between. It's so sad that we can't remember her first name, but for what it's worth, it looks like "Fanny". You came a very long way and were so brave! And now it is confirmed that Ilya is my long lost Russian cousinsky.

I'm still looking for more, for some of the Reiss and the Katz family and then there's my whole other side of the tree, but it was you great great Grandpa Goldberg whom I found first.

In case you didn't know, I have one of "those" families. You know, the kind that loses touch, that doesn't really get together or call. I haven't seen many first cousins in years, or some aunts or uncles. It's kind of sad, but you fueled my fire even more to get back to my roots.

And Yes, your name, your very Jewish name has reminded me, that even among my slightly anti-religious posts of last month, I am indeed a Jew. Which means I feel proud to be part of your family and remembered how proud I am to be from such a great people; AND which also means I still won't neccesarily ever go to High Holy day services, butI hope you don't mind.

So thank you very much again Morris Goldberg, I'm sure you made your mother proud.

With Much Love Always,
Your great great grand-daughter Lauren

5 comments:

Daniel said...

That * at the end of lauren's post is why as many of you as possible should join me in Washington D.C. on April 30th to march against the genocide in Darfur. Those of you who can't go should join the Million Voices to Save Darfur campaign by sending post cards to President Bush with this message:

Dear President Bush,

During your first year in the White House, you wrote in the margins of a report on the Rwandan genocide, "Not on my watch."

I urge you to live up to those words by using the power of your office to support a stronger multi-national force to protect the civilians of Darfur.

More on the Coalition to Save Darfur can be found here:
http://www.savedarfur.org/

Lauren said...

Oh No!!!! I JUST erased the * info at the end. I thought it was too sad and horrible, and that people wouldn't want to read such sad things. Ugh, ok, I will re-write it, find the link and post.

Basically, in my great great Grandfather's home town of Chotin, of 15,000 jews, in 1940, 2,000 were round up and shot, the rest starved for 5 days and burried alive.

I am disgusted that humans could be like this. Words can't describe the saddness.

You need to teach your children that apathy is evil and that tollerence of differences is key.

Jonathan said...

Our aunt has a web site to raise awareness of the genocide. You can donate money for humanitarian relief organizations:

http://daytonfordarfur.org/index.html

To be brought up to speed on the conflict click here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Darfur_conflict

Kendra Lynn said...

how absolutely horrible! I find the holucost so sad that I can barely read anything about it.
I get literally sick when I think of it.

Judy said...

Even more sickening to me are the people who believe it never happened. COME ON. Millions of lives, innocent lives, just never happened????

There is a MOST EXCELLENT Halocaust Museum in Houston - Jon, if for some reason you are ever back there, you ought to go to it. We used to go to it as a field trip every year when I taught 8th grade, and not a dry eye would leave that place. HUGELY moving.