Homeland insecurity

The Don GK.

OK, title really doesn't apply. Just felt like doing a little play on words. Like always.

So, final (full) day in Panevezys, Lithuania. I had chatted with Genady Kofman, the head of the local Jewish community center, the night before (we also had exchanged emails earlier). We set up a time for me to come by and chat. A week or so before coming to Panevezys, it occurred to be that there might be some local resources to take advantage of while here re: family history. Found some names online -- one American-based expert told me to contact Genady, so I did. He said sure, come on over. So I did.

Very nice 60-something man. Invites me in to office, which is carved out of a school for troubled kids. Which he tells me multiple times. Clearly is wary of these kids. Funny.

He says, "So what is the problem?" I found this funny. I don't know why. No problem -- just found out I have family from here, wanted to know where to go in town/what to see, etc.

He offers me tea. He loads a spreadsheet of some records, finds people who might have been brothers and sisters of my great-great-great (and also one more great, perhaps) grandparents, but the last name is slightly different and he doesn't really have good record of what happened to them. Also, the records are from a little after my direct lineage folk left -- but still definitely the same era.

He tells me there is another person who has older and better records of people from Panevezys. This person lives in Atlanta.

Of course.

Anyway, he shows me a video on life in the town as it was in the early part of the 1900s (the family members I found would have left in the 1880s), some key figures in the community and what those buildings look like today. It's clear that it was a thriving/bustling community way back when.

He also shows me books which have some pretty amazing photographs from that era, plus commentary on the rebuilding of the community years after it was decimated by Germans and Soviets. Mr. Kofman himself, who was an officer in Soviet Army stationed here, figures prominently in that rebuilding.

Jews made up nearly 40 percent of the population of this town before World War II. Then the Holocaust. Now there are about 100 Jews here, and only 10,000 in all of the Baltics.

Anyway, they offer me more tea. I accept. There are no bags. So ... um ... I just dump tea into the cup and try not to swallow leaves. Next time around he has some lady make me tea using the proper steeping dishware thingy. Oops. I really had no idea.

Also provides snacks. Very welcoming.

I ask if there's anywhere else I should go -- he basically tells me to chill out and wait, that he's going to take me on a tour.

Very, very welcoming.

Gravestone remains.

While I wait, it's interesting to watch him work. Various people come in, some show him bills an other documents, while others take dictation of what they should say to someone or other. I begin to think that Genady is the Godfather of this community. He's pulling strings, dishing out backbone. He even tried to marry me off to some woman while I was there.

At one point he says to one of the others that spreadsheets are the plan. For what? For women to clap! HAHA. All laugh, including the women.

I have no idea.

Anyway, we head out in his clunky car. On the way out of the community center, I almost followed him into a toilet. Just sayin'.

It's raining, so we go somewhere, he tells me -- in limited English -- what it is, I hop out, take picture, get back in, we keep going.

Many of the sites are former synagogues which now are random old buildings. Tire shop, office, beat-up/empty -- kind of sad. Then we go to a park which used to be the Jewish cemetery.

It was desecrated -- first closed, then headstones torn up and used for supplies. Soviets eventually turned it into a park, using the headstones as a wall around the park. Genady led efforts for the stones to be removed and instead used in a lovely memorial he built, which actually includes stones from those headstones. The park also was renamed to Memorial Park (or something like -- translation). Thousands are buried here. Genady ensured they would be honored.

Meanwhile, swastika or two can be seen there.

These Europe trips can be downers, yo!

Back at community center, he asks me how many Jews are in the U.S. I didn't know. Now I think he's making fun of me to his friend. Oops. Later he would ask what size congregation I belong to. I say I used to be in one (Willimantic!) but not at the moment. He asks my rabbi's name. I tell him -- the name of my rabbi from 24 years ago. He asks if he has a website. No idea.

He's totally questioning my creds.

Anyway, he sends me back out with Yuri for a walk around town. Yuri is 72. And he looks it, if not older. Which actually makes me feel good about my parents looking/acting much younger than that ballpark.

I probably have family buried here. Wild.

Yuri speaks no English. Communicating is fun. But it's a nice walk. He manages to point out some key spots, some of which Genady already had shown me. At one point he points out a street, saying the name and then saying ... "st... stras?"

I say, "Strasse? Ya, strasse." (German for street)

He says, "Speak Deutsch?!"

I say no, not really. So close. But from then on, any strasse or platz (plaza) is easy to identify. Ends up he doesn't really speak German, either.

So he points out all of these sites. Then a VW drives by. I point and say, "Volkswagen!" He laughs. "Volkswagen." Laughs again.

Incidentally, Jason Duval -- there are a lot of VWs in Iceland. You totally could open up a satellite shop there.

We wander around town, walk by police station (Yuri says in a creepy/disturbing voice, "POLICE! POLICE!"), then Yuri takes me back to park/cemetery and to more former synagogues. The compare/contrast of early 1900s to today is startling. But I already wrote about that. Still, the community continues to try to reclaim and restore some of these properties.

Wacky Yuri. Good guy.

Eventually we get back to community center, where there is food awaiting (potatoes and such). Very, very welcoming. Then a few of us do a shot of vodka. Hilarious.

I eat, we chat as much as I'm able (I am able to share some English words for things -- like "shot" of vodka), I try to help with dishes but they refuse, I thank him over and over, pledge to venture to Atlanta (good timing -- could have known before the Turner trips ... and, you know, while I still had a job), and I make a donation to the center.

Regardless of my own experience there, Genady has done amazing things with this community -- organizing, restoring, protecting, etc. Really, rebuilding. Good for him. Happy to help -- even as he joked (I think) about it not being good that people gave me his contact info.

As for me, it was interesting to be there -- and cool that we found at least some mention of potential family members. Not a great opportunity for reconnection, as practically all of the Jews are long gone from there anyway. Still worth the trip -- and, depending on what one finds in Atlanta, maybe a return. Maybe.

They have Coke Zero.

Of course, so does Atlanta.