etE's

'
Soviets
Provide
' Archive Access

By MIRIAM WEINER

For thousands of family history
"buffs" with Russian roots, a great
frustration has been the lack of
access of Soviet archives for the
birth, marriage and death records of
our ancestors.
In a gesture of cooperation
unprecedented in the 45 years since
World War II, the Soviet Union
opened its archives and shared with
the Red Cross material recoverd by
the Soviet Army during the
liberation of the camps at the close
of World War II.
The recently microfilmed
material includes 46 Sterbebucher
(Death Books) containing nearly
70,000 death certificates from
Auschwitz. These death books
represent deaths from "natural
causes" as opposed to those who
perished in the gas chambers. In
addition, there are lists of names for
130,000 prisoners used for forced
labor in various German firms and
200,000 names of victims in other
camps, including Sachsenhausen,
Gross Rosen and Buchenwald.
The documents are being
housed at the International Tracing
Service (ITS) in Arolsen, West
Germany, which is working in
conjunction with the International
Committee of the Red Cross. There
are 46 million documents pertaining
to 13 million individuals already on
file in Arolsen.
Recently the, Central Maryland
Chapter of the American Red Cross
announced the opening of the
Holocaust and War Victims Tracing
and Information Service whereby
individuals can contact their local
chapter of the American Red Cross
where the appropriate inquiry forms
may be completed. All requests will
then be sent to the Baltimore
Center where they will be translated
into German and forwarded to the
ITS in West Germany. There is no
charge for the search request.

The ITS records include names
of people in displaced persons
camps, survivors and victims of
concentration camps, deportation
lists, name lists of children who
were separated from their parents or
close relatives during or immediately
after the War, and search requests
from throughout the world which
continue to arrive at the rate of
close to 100,000 per year.
If you can picture in your mind
46 million file cards, you can
understand why it is important that
as much detailed information be
provided as possible in a search

request. It is not possible to process
a request for information about "all
the people named Goldberg from
Minsk" or "Abraham Shapiro" from
Warsaw. Many more details are
necessary such as date and place
of birth, names of parents, last
known address and your
relationship to the person sought.

Should the ITS receive new or
additional informatiton long after an
inquiry has been made, it will —
even years later — inform the

inquirer. In May, 1990, the American
Red Cross announced the recent
reunification of a woman in Moscow
with her daughter now living in
Illinois. If you made an inquiry in
the past and have since moved, it is
recommended that you submit a
new inquiry.

In addition to the tracing
service, the ITS also processes
requests for proof of internment in
labor camps to determine eligibility
for payments and will issue a

certificate to the inquirer
documenting the dates and location
of incarceration.
A search of these newly-
released documents from the Soviet
Archives along the millions of
documents already on file at the ITS
is an unprecedented opportunity for
Jews all over the world to learn the
fate of family members.

Miriam Weiner is a columnist and
lecturer specializing in Jewish
genealogy and Holocasut research.

pti

Squeezing Oil From An Elbaum

By BETTY PROVIZER STARKMAN
Elbaum is an ornamental
surname. It was adopted from the
Yiddish/German, "olbaum,"
meaning literally "oil tree" or olive
tree. THE UNBROKEN CHAIN, 2
vols., (CIS Publishing Co., N.Y.,
1990) by Neil Rosenstein, has four
family trees which include this
name.
Castro is a Sephardic
topographic family name chosen by
an ancestor who lived near a castle
or walled city in Spain or Portugal.
During the Spanish Inquisition of
1492, many members of this old

'Another Ornamental
Name Is Tseder. In
Yiddish, The Word For
Cedar nee is Tseder.'

family escaped to Bayonne,
Bordeaux, Amsterdam and
Hamburg. The Jewish
Encyclopedia, 12 vols., (N.Y.,
1901-1906) has the Castro family
Coat of Arms as well as twenty-five
biographies.
Zundler is an occupational
surname taken by a seller of
kindling. In the Yiddish/German
"zunder" mans "kindling."
An interesting family name
adopted to indicate property owner
ship is Eigner. In German "eigner"
means "owner."
Vortzman literally means "man
of his word," and was chosen by a
reliable trustworthy ancestor. This
name stems from the Yiddish
"vort" meaning "word."
Another Ashkenazic surname of
geographic root is Pevzner. The
Yiddish name for the city of Posen,
German was Poyzn. The

Encyclopedia Judaica, 16 vols.,
(N.Y. and Jerusalem, 1971) contains
four 19th and 20th century
biographies from Germany, England
and Russia.
From a Czech geographical
location we find the source of the
Jewish name, Brandes. This family
once resided in the city of Brandys
on the Elbe River near Prague. Of
Polish origin they descended from
Rabbi Judah Lowe, Maharal of
Prague 1525-1604). His daughter
Gittle wed a Brandes. Articles can
be found in both the Universal
Jewish Encyclopedia and the
Jewish Encyclopedia.
Blonski is a topographic name
adopted from the Polish word
"blonie," meaning "someone living
near a meadow."
Another ornamental name is
Tseder. In Yiddish the word for
"cedar tree" is "tseder."
The surname Hurock is Eastern
Ashkenazic and comes from
Byelorussia. This name was chosen

by a grower or seller of cucumbers,
to show his occupation. In Russian
cucumber is "ogurets," in Polish
the word for cucumber is "ogurek."
Liermann is an occupational
Ashkenazic family name. A musician
who played the lyre took this name.
In Yiddish/German "leier" is the
word for "lyre." Scattered Seeds,
by George Sackheim, 2 cols., (R.
Sackheim Publishing Co., Skokie,
Illinois, 1986) includes this family on
several trees.
Many of our ornamental family
names were chosen from colors.
One such Ashkenazic name is Blau,
adopted from the German "blau,"
meaning "blue."
An ancestor who once lived
near Cologne, Germany, in the town
of Zons, took the geographic name
Zunser.

Betty Provizer Starkman is the past
president and founder of the
genealogical branch of the Jewish
Historical Society of Michigan.

Chanukah CHECKLIST
Chanukkiyah (Menorah; at least one per family)
Oil and wicks for eight nights OR
44 candles
Matches (use long fireplace matches)
Text of blessings and songs
Dreidle(s)
Chanukah gelt
Tzedakah box
Traditional foods (latkes, sufganiyot [doughnuts], and
foods cooked in oil)

from: The Art of Jewish Living/Chanukah, 1990

THE DETROIT JEWISH NEWS

L-11