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I have more information about my father’s relatives. This is thanks to the fact that my Granny, my father’s mother, lived a long life. My father’s name was Hasl Blumberg. He was born on 5th January 1901. He learned watch-making from a watchmaker. This was arranged in accordance with the tradition that sons were apprenticed to craftsmen. He had a brother named Meier, born in 1899. He was a drover like their father. My father looked like my grandfather, but Meier looked like Granny. They were very different people deep down and in the way they carried themselves, too.
Our other Aunt Paula was my father’s sister. Paula went to Canada, married somebody from Liepaja and had three children. She came back to Latvia in 1924 or 1925. They lived with our granny. Later her husband took two children away to Canada, but the youngest, Genya, stayed with her mother. She survived the Holocaust. She was liberated by the British and then she went to her father in Canada. But Aunt Paula remarried in Lithuania. She was pregnant when the Germans put her in the camp. They cut open her stomach while she was pregnant.
My grandfather’s name was Leibe. He was born in Grobini [small town in today’s Latvia] in 1864. My granny – his wife – was from Pikeli, Lithuania [a small city called Pikeliai in Lithuanian, Pikeln in Yiddish, located in the North of Lithuania bordering with Latvia]. Her family name was Strol. I think she was born in 1864. I know nothing about her marriage. They lived in Grobini at the very beginning, but later they moved to Liepaja. That was because there was a tendency for Jews to move from small Lithuanian cities to Courland. [Courland is the historic designation of the left bank of the river Daugava, in today’s Latvia, where Jews coming from Germany used to dwell.] Maybe my granny got there in this way.
Our other Aunt Paula was my father’s sister. Paula went to Canada, married somebody from Liepaja and had three children. She came back to Latvia in 1924 or 1925. They lived with our granny. Later her husband took two children away to Canada, but the youngest, Genya, stayed with her mother. She survived the Holocaust. She was liberated by the British and then she went to her father in Canada. But Aunt Paula remarried in Lithuania. She was pregnant when the Germans put her in the camp. They cut open her stomach while she was pregnant.
My grandfather’s name was Leibe. He was born in Grobini [small town in today’s Latvia] in 1864. My granny – his wife – was from Pikeli, Lithuania [a small city called Pikeliai in Lithuanian, Pikeln in Yiddish, located in the North of Lithuania bordering with Latvia]. Her family name was Strol. I think she was born in 1864. I know nothing about her marriage. They lived in Grobini at the very beginning, but later they moved to Liepaja. That was because there was a tendency for Jews to move from small Lithuanian cities to Courland. [Courland is the historic designation of the left bank of the river Daugava, in today’s Latvia, where Jews coming from Germany used to dwell.] Maybe my granny got there in this way.
Location
Latvia
Interview
Bella Bogdanova