A bitter-sweet story from my father’s childhood.

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Steve: I asked my father for a little more information about his mother and his aunt. He wrote…

George: My mother’s maiden name was Dobeh Stoller. She left Yanova to come to the US in about 1918, when she was 18. There was much anti-semitism in Poland at that time and many pogroms (violent anti-Jewish riots often condoned by the authorities). The US had opened immigration at that time and that is when many Jews left Europe.

My mother came to the US with all her family, except for her sister Gittel. Tante Gittel stayed in Poland, her husband wanted to be close to his relatives. We lost touch with them after the Nazis invaded Poland in 1939. We never heard from them again. I still look for records of what happened but so far haven’t found anything.

Steve: I looked online for information about Yanova. I found older references to it, but it no longer exists. I assume that it was destroyed by the Nazis.