After yesterday’s happy sad stressful very long day, and the post-wedding vodka celebration in Sylvia and David’s presidential suite last night, I found it very difficult to fall asleep. Suzette and I (roomies for the trip) were exhausted – she fell right asleep, but I was up until 3am – so much adrenalin, so many thoughts, I just couldn’t fall asleep.
In the morning, we awoke at 8am to church bells and iPad alarm clock. We were at the lovely Hotel Star in Munkacz, where the wifi drops in and out, and the hot water is on the left and the cold on the right. Another start of hurry-up and wait… we walked to the Jewish community center nearby for breakfast of coffee with no milk in styrofoam cup, yummy tomatoes and peppers, scrambled eggs. Rabbi Tessler surprised Suzette with an air mail letter from her father, in which he told her how happy he is that she is in Munkacz, and recounting some of his favorite childhood memories. We started our walk through the former Jewish area of Munkacz – our first stop would be a beautiful shul, where all of the girls posed for a photo op in the women’s section upstairs.
Next we walked to the home where Moshe Yitzchok Jacober, the father of Debbie and Shayfeleh (aka Lenny), grew up. They had great directions – cross the bridge over the Latorca River, the first house on the left corner at Orosveg Street (now Uzhorodsks).
It was so easy to find this house compared to their mother’s home in Sighet – there it was a beautiful big blue stately home with round balconies. We were all so happy and excited – a much different feeling than in Sighet. Debbie read a letter from her cousin Steve, describing the house when he had seen it. Our guide Naomi spoke to the guard, who let us in to the house. It was vacant – being renovated for use by the military as a hotel for soldiers on leave! As we walked up the stairs, we entered a large room with beautiful floor tiles. Debbie’s first words – “Take your shoes off!”
You could picture how beautiful the house had been when the Jacober family lived there. There was a very large yard where lumber had been stored for the family lumber business – now used for parking. Lenny and Debbie stepped out on one of the balconies, and I ran downstairs to take a photo. They looked so regal – Debbie even waved a queenly wave.
We then started to look for the home of Suzette’s father – Yosef Mordechai Lachmanowitz. It was located at 17 Thokoly Street Boomi, the nice man from the Jewish community center, had told Suzette that the street name is now Tchaikovsky Street. We thought we found the location – directly across the street from a busy produce market. We couldn’t get inside the gate, so there we were, hanging around on the street, Suzette boosting herself up to peek over the fence. All of the natives buying their carrots and onions stared at us – we must have been a strange sight. I wanted to explain to them why we were there – I searched for someone, anyone, who spoke English – unsuccessfully. I was disappointed that we couldn’t get inside the gate, but Suzette seemed happy to have possibly found the house. We took photos and walked to the Gymnasium – the school that both Yosef Mordechai and Moshe Yitzchok attended before the war. It was a Jewish school where students learned both secular subjects and limudei kodesh – very enlightened for the time. It’s a beautiful building, we walked in, were offered a tour, but we were way behind schedule (what a surprise), so walked quickly back to the hotel to board the bus.
I was already a little concerned about our schedule – our next stop would be Mad, my mother’s home town. I really wanted everyone to see the charming village in the wine country, visit the perfectly restored baroque synagogue, and help me find the matzevah of my great grandmother in the cemetery. So at 12:30, we got on the bus, and did our regular Hatikvah check-in. Then we sat. And sat. And sat The bus couldn’t move – we were pinned in by parked cars. They couldn’t find the owners of the cars. At one point, Tibor asked the guys on the bus to help move one of the cars out of the way – but it couldn’t be moved. So here I was sitting on the bus, watching the minutes tick away, and feeling very frustrated. Finally, after an hour, the bus was able to move. We had lost another hour, and our schedule had to be changed. We would have to skip Miskolc, but were still hoping to visit the kosher winery near Mad and Tokaj.
Now that we were back on the road, we listened to reports on Rabbis David Halivni Weiss, Akiva Eger (mine), and the Chatam Sofer, aka the Chassum Soifer. A discussion ensued about his philosophy of closing off Judaism to new ideas – it seems that history repeats itself even today.
At 2:15 we got to the border – leaving Ukraine, entering Hungary. Of course, we had to stop and wait. Somehow a bunch of us started reminiscing about Marci and Gene, explaining to people who didn’t know them the story of that memorable weekend. We started moving again at 3:15, just a few hundred meters, to the next checkpoint. Yes, another hour had gone by…. About ten minutes later, we started moving again, stopped, were told to get out of the bus with our passports. We entered a building where we stood in line to get our passports stamped. A nice young man was in a booth – his name tag said “Kiss Eric Roland”. So we all thought we had to kiss him – but I guess we were mistaken. Back to the bus with our tuna sandwiches, tomatoes, and hard boiled eggs, we washed for hamotzi with bottled water at the side of the road. We started moving again at 4:00! Next discussion – a Hungary beauty pageant, Debbie would be Miss Sighet, Suzette Miss Munkacz ,and I will be Miss Mad!
As we started to get closer to Mad, we passed a sign for Kisvarda. This is the town where my beloved Uncle Yide, Rav Yehuda Friedman, was born. He now lives in Yerushalayim, he is about 95-96 years old, I called him to say “guess where I am” – thinking he would be excited that I am so near his birthplace. He was not impressed, didn’t really understand why I would want to go to Hungary, a place of such misery for him and so many others. But he sounded fine, b”h.
David started teaching us about Rav Nachman of Bratislav. In the middle of his talk, the bus pulled over to the side of the road, and surprise – our passportless driver was back with us! We greeted him with applause… I’m not sure why. We davened mincha outside of the bus – I used the handy Siddur app on my iPhone, as usual. Sylvia told us about Max Nordau – I didn’t know much about him before, he was quite an interesting man. He rejected Judaism, but worked closely with Herzl in his Zionist efforts. Then Bob taught us about Theodore Herzl. While he was talking, Suzette yelled out “THERE’S A BATHROOM ON THE BUS!!!” What??? How could we not have known that? Today was full of surprises. Bob continued talking about Herzl, and we learned that all of his children died young, Very sad.
We were finally entering Zemplen townships, closing in on Mad. Alan told us about the towns we were passing, including Bodrogkisfraud, home of the the Miracle Rebbe, and Tokaj, a famous wine village. Unfortunately it was too dark or us to see the beautiful countryside.
We pulled up to the beautiful Mad Synagogue, built in 1794 – lit up for our arrival. It has been immaculately restored with funds from the Joint and from private sources. While I had been there a few years ago, I was interested in how my friends would react when they saw the beautiful interior. Everyone was so amazed at its beauty. Alan spoke about the shul’s history, his involvement, and told us about his family who had lived in Mad. I showed everyone photos of my mother and her sisters before the war, my grandparents during the time of World War I and in the ghetto before Auschwitz, and some more recent photos of my mother and her family. The women walked outside and up stairs to visits the women’s section, where we davened maariv. It was so beautiful to sing Aleinu – standing where my grandmother sat over seventy years ago We went back to the shul, and lit candles at the memorial plaques for the souls from Mad who perished in the Shoah, including my grandparents Mordechai Gimpel and Regina Grossman, and my aunt Udika. I then read a letter to my grandparents – it was very difficult for me. My mother told me how wonderful they were, I wish I could have known them. I ended the letter by showing them a list of their descendants – 298, at last count. It is our blessing and our revenge.
Alan and I lit memorial candles, Rabbi Tessler sang the Kel Molei Rachamim, and we sang Hatikvah together. So unbelievably moving. So wonderful to share the experience with my old and new friends.
Next decision – do we go to the cemetery to look for the matzevah of my mother’s mother’s mother, Fayga bat Yosef Dov haCohen? Some of us decided to give it a try – Alan led the way, hundreds of dogs barked very loudly as we walked in the dark, and we took a wrong turn. With the help of Glynis’s GPS, we got back on track. People were impressed by the gematriya combination lock on the gate. It was so dark and calm in the cemetery. Some of us tried to find my great grandmother’s grave, but we finally agreed that it was too difficult and dangerous because of the dark and the slope and the high grass. So we said goodbye to the cemetery and walked down a very dark and lovely path to where the bus awaited us. ~ Bashi
