The second reunion began with a simple e-mail to the American Gathering from a 3G – a member of the third generation after the Holocaust – asking if anyone knew any survivors from Sedlice.
I responded, “Yeah, my mom. Are you very Orthodox? If the family isn’t Orthodox, she probably wouldn’t know them. My grandfather was the Partzever Rov and he had a congregation in the town.”
She e-mailed back and said the family wasn’t Orthodox now, but her grandfather’s name had been Morgenstern, and she was going to call her grandfather and ask if he heard of the rabbi. Could I call my mom and ask?
So I called my mom, and asked, “Do you know a Morgenstern from Sedlice?”
And she said, “Morgenstern lived upstairs in our house. He was the gabbai! Someone is alive?!”
The reunion between the two was arranged by Mike’s daughter, Sylvia Lebowitz, and his granddaughter, Lauren. Since our initial contact, Lauren has kept in touch with my mom by phone, and has visited with her mom.
Then when my Aunt Devorah, the pioneering Zionist and the last sibling, died a few weeks ago, Lauren used her passing as the impetus behind the reunion. Both my mother and Munish seemed to need to somehow connect to the good days before the war.
After an initial awkwardness, staring into each other’s faces to see if they could find the children they once were, a flood of memories was unleashed. There were details about the house they lived in and the street it was on, and the pranks they played on each other. Almost every sentence they uttered began with “Do you remember…”
Munish’s grandfather, the gabbai, died at a wedding during which he kept saying the Rebbe was calling to him but he didn’t want to leave until the wedding was over. It turned out to be the wedding of my mother’s sister, Tobah Chavche.
As we sat and ate a light lunch, I asked Munish about his experiences during the war. Lauren leaned over to me and whispered that he never talked about it, and that he was the sole survivor.
It turned out that just before deportations from Sedlice, Munish crossed the Bug River and became property of the Soviets. He was not able to escape until 1946, somehow made his way to the DP Camp in Fehrenwald, and finally arrived in the U.S. in 1951. His sister was already here living in Newark, New Jersey, so that’s where he settled.
He found a job as a machinist in an airplane parts factory and did very well. His daughter raised her family in nearby Livingston, and Lauren is an actress who is currently performing in the musical about Raoul Wallenberg.
A few days after they met, Lauren e-mailed me. “I felt like I was back in the old world, hearing their stories. I’ve had so many questions about my grandparents’ lives before the war and have worked so hard to research their families. I felt such a sense of accomplishment that I had helped bring together these two people who shared lives 76 years ago.
“I was so happy to hear them discuss the old times and their family and friends. My grandfather does not like to talk about his life in Poland, so their meeting gave me a chance to hear him talk. (I think it’s because he had no choice!) And besides all that, I love your mom – she reminds me of my grandmother.”
Munish’s visit was a shot in the arm for my mom. A few days later she told me, “Munish brought me back to the time when I was eight years old and for a few minutes he made me feel very young again. That’s a wonderful feeling for an elderly lady.”
To post a search, keep it short and send your e-mail to [email protected] and [email protected]. No guarantees it will work, but if lightning can strike twice in the same place, who knows?