PEOPLE
SOLOS,
EX-CELIBATES, &
CO-HABITANTS
Kindred spirits dwell at the
Amber Apartments of
Royal Oak, Clawson &
Troy.
My Family Tree
Was Uprooted
JOSEPH AARON
Special to the Jewish News
O
ne of my relatives is a
nun.
Actually, a former
nun. And she's a relative only
in the most technical of
senses, being the second wife
of a fourth cousin twice
removed. A 76-year-old cousin
I only met for the first tiime
a couple of weeks ago.
Still, I am related to a nun,
and while that's not some-
thing I'm particularly proud
of, it is something I'm par-
ticularly fascinated by. Which
is not how it used to be.
I've never had very many
relatives. That's because my
father lost most of his
relatives in the Holocaust.
Like the vast majority of
American Jews, I trace my
roots to Eastern Europe. lb
Czechoslavakia, to be specific
and to Sekelnitzer to be even
more specific.
But until recently, that was
about as specific as I could
get. I knew my father was a
Holocaust survivor who came
here when he was 16, having
lost his father, mother, sister
and just about every relative
he had.
But that was about all I
knew. Because while I was
fascinated by the stories he
told of life in the cheder,
where being punished meant
having corn applied to your
backside and a flock of
chickens invited in for lunch;
of life on his father's farm;
and most of all, of life — if
you can call it that — in the
concentration camps, I never
pushed too far.
I never asked for names
and places and times, perhaps
never wanted to know too
much about the relatives I
would never know, perhaps
never wanted to feel all the
pain of all that loss.
But something's changed.
One thing that's changed is
that my father is no longer
alive to answer the questions
I never asked, having died at
the age of 52, yet another vic-
tim of the Holocaust to add
to the names of all the other
millions of victims.
Victims that included my
grandfather, Joseph, and my
grandmother, Serel, and my
aunt, Chana. Relatives I not
only have never known but
have never even seen pictures'
of, have no idea what they
were like. My only connection
to them, in fact, has been in
the fact that my two sisters
and I share their names and
share the responsibility, along
with my two brothers, of
lighting Yahrzeit candles for
them.
And maybe it's the weight
of that or the fact that I've
gotten older or more in touch
or it's because another Yom
HaShoah is coming, another
day to remember what I don't
want to forget, but wish I
could.
I don't really know what it
is, but I do know that when
I heard my 76-year-old fourth
cousin twice removed was
coming to town, I jumped at
the chance to see him.
And so in I walked and
there he was, Jack Aron (one
A only, please) and his wife,
the former nun. One of my
brothers was also there and
so were the only relatives I
have on my father's side —
Abe and Jenny and their son
Alan and his wife and their
kids.
Just seeing all those faces
was startling to me. I wasn't
quite sure why at first until I
realized that I had never been
in a room before with so many
Aarons (or Arons, for that
matter). So many relatives,
however close or distant, so
many people who looked
something like me, so many
people with whom I share a
family tree, a family name.
For people who come from
big families, I suppose all
that's no big deal. For me, it
was another world. And all I
wanted to do was ask ques-
tions. Who was this one and
who was that one and where
did you live and how close
was it to my father's house
and what do you remember
about my grandfather and
what was his grandfather's
name and what did he do?
The problem, of course,
with family trees is that after
you find out who married
whom and how many kids
they had, you want to know
more, want to know what
happened to everybody.
The problem with a
Holocaust family tree is that
questions like that bring
answers that hurt a lot.
Line after line on that fami-
ly tree abruptly ended. Cut
off. `Geshtorben: Vanished.
Not even leaving a place to
mourn.
And more than enough
place for pain. But still, I'm
glad I went. I know more now
than before I went in, made a
connection with relatives I
never knew I had, strength-
ened a connection with the
only other relatives I've
known.
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Interrogate Diane,
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Jewish Community Center
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6600 West Maple Road
West Bloomfield, Michigan
81