Norman and Carolynn Licht visited our ancestral places in Ukraine in 2008. We hired a guide and a driver, in their small auto.

• Isaac Maltzer and Israel Friedman were brothers-in-law.

• Israel and Leah Friedman and their 9 children lived in Chernivitz.

• Gidalyah and Rebecca Lechtus and their 6 children lived in Muravanya-Kurilovtsy.

• Isaac and Rachel Maltzer and their 6 children lived in Kopaigerod.

These Maltzers and Lechtus couples are my great-grandparents.

Eliazer Lechtus moved from Muravanya-Kurilovtsy to Kopaigerod to marry Yiska Maltzer, These are my grandparents. 

We stayed in Kaminetz-Podilsky, because we knew there were no hotels or motels in the two ancestral towns which were our destination.

We were driven to our two main destinations on Monday and Tuesday, so the city halls would be open. We drove about 100 miles from our hotel to Kopaigerod, and another 30 road miles to Muravana-Kurilovtsy. All the roads in this South-west Ukraine were 2 lane roads. We seldom saw another auto, but saw a herd of cattle on the road led by a shepherd.  

In Muravana-Kurilovtsy we wanted to see the Jewish cemetery. It is located out of the town center, on a  hill, access by a one lane dirt road. Our guide had difficulty finding it, until he asked for and got help from woman who lived nearby and showed us the way. We walked down a dirt trail too narrow and irregular for a car. In front was a few recent gravestones, but most were old gravestones without access because of dense growth of grass and weeds. My great-grandfather, Gidalyah Lechtuz, may be buried there. Our guide said there ware no civic records of people buried in such cemeteries.

The City Hall was 2 stories, was built in the late 1940’s, after World War II. When we went up the stairway to the second floor, and were taking pictures, a woman came out of her office, and talked to us and our guide translated. There is no former Synagogue, a population of 6,253, 2 Jewish families who are a total of 6 people. Before the war there were 1,239 Jews in the town. We asked for a restaurant, which was farther up the main street. It was the best restaurant town, because it was probably the only restaurant in town. Carolynn and I had borsht soup and bread, our guide had borsht with fried cod and potatoes. We saw small houses in the distance from the main street. We went to a small general  store across the street from the restaurant. Then we drove back to our hotel. On the way we were interestingly, temporarily blocked by the cattle on the road.

The next day we drove to Kopaigerod. It is classified as a “settlement of town type”, which is larger than a village and smaller than a town. The road into town has a small lake to the right side, which our guide thought was from a dam on a river. To the left side we saw small homes, within tall trees. The road leads into the main street. Entering the main street on the right side there was a hospital. Farther along to the right side is the City Hall. It is a one story small building. We went to to the right side from the front door, down a hallway to a small office at the end. The Mayor was away, and we talked to his assistant. She was friendly, wanted to help us, and our guide translated. She said the population was about 1,500., 2 Jews were registered residents, but she didn’t know  if they were living there at that time. ( I had found that before the war there 1529 Jews living there). She looked at the list of registered residents and there were no Maltzer or Lechtus names. She had an aide take us to the home of the oldest resident, a woman age 93. We walked past the chickens and geese roaming free, to enter the house. She remembered the Jews used to live by the lake. We were referred to a man in the home, in his late 90’s, and our guide talked to him, he was ill and didn’t remember anything of interest to us.

When at the City Hall I asked for a toilet, and was referred to a small building in back, painted white, which we would call an “out-house”. Our guide confirmed there was no plumbing and sewer system.

Gas stations are scare on all the roads we took, and only some of them had toilets.

We walked a short distance, past a herd of cattle on the dirt road, to the main street. On the way we saw a woman talking on a cell phone.

There were only a few cars parked on the main street, no cars moving. There were a lot of chickens  roaming free on the side streets and behind fences of the small homes. The side dirt streets were wider, and people walked down the middle of the street.

We went to a small general store on the main street. On the counter there was an abacus, for adding and subtracting mechanically. I spotted a supply of Snickers, my favorite candy bar. Carolynn made a small purchase, and the guide translated.

Across from the City Hall on the main street was a monument to the military from Kopaigerod who died in World War II. Then names were listed in Ukraine. Our guide said many had Jewish names, no Maltzer or Lechtus. There was on Skolnik, which is a name in our extended family, but also a frequent name for all Ukrainians.

We drove farther down the main street, left up a slight hill, and on the right was the Jewish cemetery. There was low growing grass and weeds, but the gravestones were more visible than in other cemeteries we had seen in Ukraine. The inscriptions were in Ukrainian,  and Yiddish in Hebrew letters. Our guide walked through, and saw no Maltzer or Lechtus, and found one Skolnik.

At the back of the cemetery and left were two gravestones for mass graves, which I had known about. Part of the inscription said 1941, many good people are buried here. Our guide found at the back right, two more gravestones for mass graves, one for Jews of Kopaigerod, and one for Jews from another village.

Our guide drove us  back to our hotel, and we stayed overnight. We left Kametz-Podilsky, to drive about 200 miles to Vinnitisia, to see the Archives.

Enroute we visited Medzhybigh. At the entry we saw a 16th century Fortress. There are now about 1,200 gentiles living  in the village, without electricity or plumbing. For over 2 centuries Jews were 80% of the population ( A Evans). We saw an old Synagogue near the Fortress, which had been rebuilt, with Hassidic exact specifications, wooden beams and carved woodwork, and a pulpit from which  the Ba’al Shem Tov had preached. We saw only the exterior of the building. 

We went down a road to the Hassidic area, with a cemetery, a new Synagogue, dormitories, kosher kitchen and dining room, and mikvah, all composed of white brick. We saw the white brick Ohel over the grave of Rabbi Israel Ben Eliezer, know as the Ba’al Shem Tov (Master of the good name), the founder of Hasidism, who lived there from 1740 until his death in 1760. Through a window to the Ohel we could see and faintly hear ultra-orthodox Jews praying. All the Hasidic Jews wear the traditional black clothing. We saw a small flat gravestone, which is for the son of the Ba’al Shem Tov.

The Hassidic area was very quiet and peaceful, with a view of the beautiful green valley and river below.

We arrived in Vinnitsia, where we stayed overnight. We knew that Debbie Friedman, 20 years before, saw a book in the Archives there, with the record of births in Kopaigerod from about 1850 to 1915. Our guide had gone to the Archives 2 months before, and was told the book wasn’t there.

We stopped at a building on the main street, went to the 2nd floor office where we met Isaak Novoseletskiy, Chairman of Community, Vinnitsia City Jewish Community. He didn’t have the book, he called the Archives, and in response to him they found the book and expected us to come to see it.

He told us he had 2 sisters living in the U. S., one in Baltimore, and one in Chicago, one a physician and one a dentist. He showed us the Synagogue, next to his office. He told us before the war there were 21,812 Jews living in Vinnitsia, now there are about 6,000, counting many  mixed  marriages, less if based on maternal descent.

We went to the Archives, It is a building larger than a house, with and interesting white exterior. The doorway access was shabby looking, There were several small offices, somewhat cluttered. We were told to return later, because it was lunch time.

We returned, a secretary shuffled through the two books, looking for Maltzer and Lechtus, then gave them to our guide, the guide and I sat at a desk. Each entry in the book is written in ink, it is old Russian on the right side, Yiddish script on the left side. Our guide looked at every entry on a many pages, as much as there was time.

There were two books, titled Book of Registratioin of Newborn Jews, 1898 and 1913. Of the children in the family, this is all our guide found, and later translated. The spelling doesn’t agree exactly with other spelling  I have from other sources. I expect he would have found more in the two books if he had of had  more time.

My father, Avram Meier, son of  Leizer Gdal Lekhtgaize – wife Ioka Itzko – 2/1/1898,  circumcized  by Itzko Maltzer (his maternal grandfather) 2/8.               

Moishe, son of Itzko Avrum Meir Maltzer, wife Rukhlia Suher Berov, 9/2/1890.  circumcised by Moishe Zeidin, 9/9.

Sooker Ber,  son of Benzion Itzko Maltzer, wife Meriam Dovid Iankel, 9/20/1913, circumcised by Pinkas Zeiden.

We were told to return in one hour, to see the director, in order to get permission to photograph some of the pages. We went for coffee at the Potato House,a chain in Ukraine like Starbucks or Peets, in a place where restaurants are scarce.. We returned, sat at his desk, answered some questions about why we want to photograph, he filled out some paperwork, and then I photographed three pages, never having photographed written pages before. It was successful.

I asked, and was told the Archives had no records of Murovanya-Kurilovtsy. Our guide had told us that  few records before World War II are left. Carolynn and I were surprised to have seen how carelessly the Archives had handled the 100 year old books, without gloves, allowing some pages to be creased when folded, some pages in the book were loose. We were aware that in the Ukraine “this isn’t Kansas anymore”. The next day we left, drove to Kiev. 

Deborah Friedman Visited Ancestral Ukraine in 1992, in her words

In the month of July 1992, I had the wonderful opportunity to travel to Poland and the Ukraine to research my Jewish ancestors with the support of the Friedman Brothers Foundation. The trip was moving for me not only in terms of the genealogical information obtained but for the new appreciation of the history of the area and the emotional ties of Jewish Americans to those places.

There were 20 people on the trip,of varying ages. Most were there to return to a town left during the Holocaust.    Some like myself went to research family roots. We flew to Warsaw from New York. We were met in New York by the trip leader, Miriam Weiner, a certified Jewish Genealogist,  and an expert on genealogical exploration in the Ukraine and Poland. We also met Sy Rotter, a filmmaker who created a documentary film from the trip. The trip was designed to gain access to various archives, visit 'cemeteries, visit holocaust memorials and provided for each of us to visit the town or towns were he or she had ancestors. I was to visit the towns of Kopaygorod and Bar where the Friedman family originated. A driver(Yuri)and a translator(Igor) were provided for me.

I brought back a number of documents, birth certificates, of members of the extended Friedman family. These were obtained from a rabbi's book which recorded births in Kopaygorod in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. In addition,I would like to share with you a diary of the day I spent in the towns of Kopaygorod and Bar.

July 14, 1992

I am writing from a hotel in Bar. (Bar is the birthplace of Ephraim Friedman, my great-great grandfather.) Yuri and Igor (driver and translator) are sleeping in another room. I have a "suite". There are four Ukrainian women in the other part of the suite watching a soap opera on TV. They were so disappointed that they couldn't watch their favorite program, so I invited them in,  as this seems to be the only TV around. The bathroom is bad, but otherwise the room is fine, pretty fabrics on beds, bright rug on painted wood floor, no ornaments on walls, few light bulbs. I like it better than the Intourist Hotel. Furniture is varnished wood and plain. The whole room plus another room for Yuri and Igor cost a total of 140 rubles which is less than one dollar. Dinner (at noon in a restaurant), was cucumber salad with scallions, bottled water, borscht, bread, black rice with meat and wonderful hot tea, for 3 people with a tip was 100 rubles. Amazing-. I bought a box of tea. Igor told me how to prepare it. Use a warm and dry porcelain tea pot. Put in 2-3 teaspoons full of loose tea,  1/2 teaspoon of sugar, fill teapot one third full;with boiling water. Wrap pot in towel and let steep for 2-3 minutes then fill teapot two thirds full with boiling water and steep a few more minutes. Igor thinks adding more sugar ruins the flavor of the tea. He also said that there are many different grades of tea and the worst grade goes into the tea bags we get at home.

The drive from Kiev to Vinnitsa took from 5 am to 9:30 am and/ from Vinnitsa to Bar was an additional 90 minutes. We traveled in an old Soviet car, but there were no car problems in over 14 hours of driving. I met the mayor of Bar who was friendly and very willing to talk to me  (through a translator). He gave me a handprinted book about the ancient history of the town of Bar and a telephone book from 1988. He said there are currently 22,000 people in the town of Bar, including 432 Jews.    There are local archives in the town from 1948 to the present. All other archival material is in Vinnitsa.    There are three Jewish cemeteries. One is modern and two are mass graves in the ravine outside of town,  for people murdered during World War II. I visited the modern cemetery and one of the mass graves. The mass grave was located about 1/2 mile down a dirt path from the modern Jewish cemetery. The ravine was sunny, with birds, cows, goats, potato fields and rolling hills. The grave, in an oasis of trees,was hidden from the road. To get there, after walking about one half mile from town, you need to cross over a mud lake on logs then a moat with a cement bridge. The entrance was locked with a padlock, but inside you could see that there was a stone monument in a small walled garden and a painted wooden bench. The writing on the monument did not mention Jews, just said that many "prisoners" were killed, but undoubtedly the majority of those killed were Jewish.    I did not see the other mass grave.

The mayor of Bar said that during the war his grandmother hid three Jewish families. His father spoke fluent Yiddish. The mayor, whose name is Vladimir, said he has a Jewish nickname. He remembered that there had been large families with the names Friedman and Spector, but he said that none were left. He said that the most beautiful house in Bar used to belong to someone named Friedman.

The mayor had three telephones (red, green and yellow) ,in his office. A large world map was on the wall facing his desk. There was a large old fashioned safe in the room. He had a secretary outside his office. She worked on an old typewriter. There were no xerox machines, fax, paper clips, memo pads,or marker pens.

There is an old synagogue in Bar (where Ephraim Friedman probably worshiped),an adobe-like building,  falling down, with broken windows.  It was built in 1807.    It was a synagogue before 1917. At some point it was also a religious school. A famous Ukrainian writer, Mikhail Kotzubiuski, of the second half of the 19th century, used to study at the Bar Synagogue school because he heard that the Jewish school was the best. At some point a dome was added to the building. Now the building is boarded up. After showing, and speaking about the synagogue, the Mayor said, "Neither you or I are guilty for what happened at that time". He seemed ashamed of the condition of the building.

After the mayor showed us the synagogue, and we had dinner and then we drove to Kopaygorod.

The barely paved road to Kopaygorod goes through rolling green hills and fields. We saw many cows, goats" and chickens on the way as well as storks. As you enter the town,  there is a large hospital on the left with a blue design painted on the windows. Working in the hospital,  I later learned, there are 15 doctors: 2 dentists, 3 surgeons, 1 gynecologist, 2 pediatricians, 1 X-ray technician. There was also a store and other buildings.    The mayors office had very tall doors which were covered with leather. The hall was very dark with tile floors.    In the mayor's office was a large abacus and an old plan of the town of Kopaygorod. The mayor called in one of the Jewish people of the town. Samuel Lazarovich Fishilevich came with his two granddaughters. He was so eager to find out the names of people I was looking for that he tore the paper out of my hands. He had silver caps on all of his teeth. He had heard of a large family of Friedmans that had all left in the 1920's. He had also heard of the name Spector.

I gave the mayor a map of Madison, Wisconsin (my home town), a letter of introduction from my mayor in Madison (in Russian) and some postcards of Madison. Igor took a picture of the mayor, Mr. Fishilevich, and I.

We next went to the Jewish cemetery (after Mr. Fishilevich went home to get a coat, covered with war medals, to cover his shoulders. The cemetery dates from the 1920's. There was an older one, but it was destroyed during World War II. The cemetery consists of 200-300 stones, many almost buried in grass and thorny weeds. Some tombstones had photos attached to the stone. Mr. Fishilevich said there were no Friedmans in the cemetery but two Spectors. He finally found the two Spector stones. I took about sixty photos of gravestones. I gave the granddaughter some gum and crayons and pens. I took a picture of Mr.Fishilevich by the grave of his son-in-law which he wants to send to Israel to his grandson(I mailed him the photos).

I could have spent many more hours exploring the town but we were obligated to return to Bar, where we stayed overnight. We ate food we brought with us, no meals were available at the hotel. The following day we drove to Vinnitsa, where I obtained the birth certificate of my grandfather, Soloman Friedman, and about 10 other birth certificates. I took photos of the rabbi's book.  I was charged ten US dollars per document plus an additional two dollars for each photo, and a dollar for each year I searched in the book.

The entire trip was very exciting and meaningful for me. I will never forget it.

From Ian Edelstein's web pages:

"In June of 1999, I made my 5th trip back to the Soviet Union to Russia, Belarus, and the Ukraine. It was a fullfilment of a decades-long dream to visit the village in which my great-grandmother spent the first 12 years of her life. It took me no less than 10 years, 5 trips, including 2 years of living in Russia, a failed Russian marriage and, eventually, a contact made over the computer from my living room in Seattle to finally find Kopaigorod.

I traveled from Minsk, Belarus with 3 companions, a friend, a t.v. producer, and a video cameraman. This is my story accompanied by a few photographs taken along the way."

These are statements taken from the captions of his photos.

There is an old Jewish cemetery, and a newer Jewish cemetery which has some mass graves from the Nazis. “Everywhere in town there was livestock wandering around freely, geese, roosters, chickens, ducks, cows, goats, sheep, turkeys. People knew which animals were theirs. People still drove horse drawn carts.” There is a  lake, a regional hospital, a Russian Orthodox Christian Church. Misha Furman lives on one side of a dirt alley that runs between two rows of houses. There are a couple of shops and kiosks along the main street, still called Lenin Street.  They only stock candy for kids and alcohol for adults. The outdoor market on Sunday and Thursday mornings is the only opportunity that the townspeople have to buy products. On Sunday morning, the otherwise lifeless town is bustling with activity….”  Dora Yitskovoa said “before WWII, there was a population of 1000 Jews, a full half of the village. Now there were only three. The Jews were tailors and shopkeepers, butchers and blacksmiths, cobblers and accountants. Locally there was a bread factory, a mineral water bottling company, a sausage factory, and hundreds of local farmers. Her father had been the director of the Jewish school in town….Orchestras would come from the cultural centers of St. Petersburg and Moscow to play in the once-beautiful park next to the lake in town during summers. It was really a thriving community.” “In the past, even the gentiles stated ‘things were better, when the Jews were here’. “Everything was produced locally. Now, the trucks come form Poland with cheap goods from China….” 

Twice he met with Vaily Lisak, the mayor, and his wife and son. , “Under a tree next to a pond, and had an outdoor picnics, with huge spreads of ‘vareniki’, dumplings with potato and mushroom and others with cherries, ‘shashlik’, shish-kabob, fish soup made on the spot, fresh vegetables, and wine and ‘samagon’, Ukrainian moonshine, to wash it all down.”

“Kopaigerod  literally means ‘to dig a town’. The town was founded 375 years ago when the settlers dug up the earth around their homes to form walls in hopes to protect themselves from attacks by the Mongol invaders. Unfortunately, the Mongols had taken to digging tunnels in the earth, in some cases, nearly a hundred miles long. “Though the town survived, there are stories of buildings, days after being completed, collapsing 20 feet into the earth where these tunnels had been built underneath.”