jews d

in
the

multi-generational families

Four
Generations
Of David-
Horodokers

Four generations: Beatrice Gaduzk Sonders, center, with three generations of her family — all are David-Horodokers.

BARBARA LEWIS CONTRIBUTING WRITER

D

avid-Horodok isn’t a person. It’s
a small town in southwestern
Belarus that in 1940 was home
to more than 4,300 Jews. By the end
of 1942, almost all of them had been
murdered. About 100 escaped. One was
Beatrice Gaduzk Sonders.
Sonders and some of the other survi-
vors made their way to Detroit, where
they were welcomed by their landsmen,
other Jews whose relatives had come
from David-Horodok much earlier.
In 1919, the previous arrivals started
an organization, David-Horodok
Juniors, which raised money to help
immigrants in Detroit and in Palestine.
It evolved into the David-Horodok
Independent Ladies Society and then
into the David-Horodok Organization,
the name it still uses. Its members rep-
resent 600 families.
Beatrice Sonders often shared stories
of her life in Europe and her remark-
able escape with her grandson, David
Salama of Huntington Woods. Like
his grandmother and his mother, Rita

Salama of Farmington Hills, he regards
himself as a “Horodoker.” His three sons,
Elliot, 12, Ari, 9, and Oliver, 8 months,
are Horodokers, too.
Sonders was only 16 on Aug. 10, 1941,
when local Nazi sympathizers killed
3,000 men and teenage boys in the vil-
lage, including her father and brother.
The women and children were confined
to a ghetto, but a year later, nearly
1,300 were murdered. Sonders and her
mother fled to a nearby town. When the
ghetto there was liquidated, her mother
was killed but she was able to hide.
Sonders, who now lives in the
Hechtman Apartments in West
Bloomfield, remembers Horodok as a
thriving town with five synagogues and
a “Tarbut” school focused on Hebrew
language and Jewish culture. It was
one of the best in Eastern Europe, said
Salama, an anesthesiologist at St. John
Providence and Providence Park hospi-
tals.
“My grandma attended this private
school along with her younger brother.

She learned to read, write and speak
Hebrew, something she can still do to
this day at 93 years old,” he said. “The
students were instructed to speak only
Hebrew, even outside of school.”
He said he sees his own education at
Hillel Day School, which his older sons
now attend, as continuing that style of
secular, Hebrew and Judaic learning.
“My grandma gets a lot of nachas [joy]
watching my children read Hebrew at
the seder table or performing in Hebrew
plays,” he said.
The local David-Horodok
Organization, in coordination with its
Israel branch, arranges trips to their
ancestral village every few years. Salama
and his wife, Pauline, participated
in 2016. The group has also gone to
Cuba, and a trip is being planned to
Argentina. Wherever they go, they look
for Horodokers.
The group also sponsors an annual
memorial service for those killed in
1941 and 1942 and raises funds for vari-
ous organizations through an annual

dinner.
Salama is recording his grand-
mother’s story in book form. Through
genealogical research, he has discov-
ered branches of the family tree that
were established in Detroit before the
war, including some descendants of his
grandmother’s aunt.
“Some are members of the David-
Horodok Organization, and I didn’t even
realize they were family!” he said.
His grandmother was so traumatized
by what she’d been through and so
focused on building her own family that
she didn’t think to look for relatives in
Detroit, he said.
“I’m beyond grateful that I still have
my grandma and that she is so willing
to talk about her experiences,” he said.
“It is heartening that a small sliver of
what once was in David-Horodok has
miraculously reconstituted itself here
in Detroit and in Israel, and that we can
come together to remember and give
tzedakah to do good in the names of all
those who were lost.” •

From the DJN

Davidson Digital Archive

L

eonard Bernstein, the legendary composer, pianist, conduc-
tor and all-around great man of American music, would have
been 100 years old in 2018. There will be thousands of events
around the world this year to commemorate the life and career of
this son of Ukrainian Jews as a part of #Bernsteinat100.
The National Museum of American Jewish History in
Philadelphia has an exhibit “Leonard Bernstein: The Power of
Music.” The Library of Congress has made
more than 3,700 items into a free online archive
including letters, photographs, audio record-
ings and other material from its vast Leonard
Bernstein Collection.
So, I thought: What do we have about Leonard
Bernstein in our free online Davidson Digital
Archives? Quite a bit, it seems. There are more
than 700 entries for Leonard Bernstein, most of
Mike Smith
which relate to the composer. He was first men-
Detroit Jewish News
tioned
in the Sept. 9, 1943, issue of the JN in an
Foundation Archivist
article that noted the 25-year-old Bernstein was

70

May 10 • 2018

jn

appointed assistant conductor of the New York Philharmonic.
It appears that Bernstein first came to Detroit in September
and October 1944 when he was the guest conductor for the
Detroit Symphony Orchestra on WWJ Radio. I also found an
item in the “Women — Social and Personal” page of the May 11,
1945, issue of the JN citing Mr. and Mrs. Herman Osnos, Mr. and
Mrs. Max Osnos, and Bernard Osnos for hosting a cocktail party
to honor Bernstein at the Statler Hotel. The April 12, 1946,
issue of the Jewish Chronicle had a nice photo and story about
the young Bernstein, who appeared at the Jewish Community
Center’s annual concert the next day where his Clarinet Sonata
debuted for the first time.
In short, I barely read through the first mentions of Leonard
Bernstein in 1943 through 1946 and he was already a familiar
figure in Detroit. He would make many trips to the city over the
next 40 years. •

Want to learn more? Go to the DJN Foundation archives,
available for free at www.djnfoundation.org.