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.