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Luboml's embrace is expansive. From the
day I met Nathan Sobel, my first Lubomler outside
my immediate family, I have felt drawn into
a widening circle of people touched directly and
indirectly by this historyemigres like Aaron,
Abe Getman, Victor Gershengorn, Benjamin
Rozenzweig, and others.
Now that family includes Fred Wasserman,
who directed the Ellis Island museum and has
been brought in by Aaron to gather material and
develop the shtetl exhibition.
What is it about Luboml that catches up even
a non-landsman? When I visited Fred's little office
one recent afternoon, he gingerly took out a
carefully wrapped item that had arrived in the
mail from Arizonaa black silk embroidered
shawl once worn by a Jewish woman in Luboml.
Fred's expression as he held it toward me
told me that for both of us, the shawl is more
than a beautiful piece of work. The shawl, neatly
folded; the silver Kiddush cup, dry as a bone;
the empty tallit bag embroidered with the name
"Lubom1"; labels from Luboml's kosher wineryeach
tells a story.
Luboml, I have learned, not only was the
town where my great-grandmother ran an inn
and liquor store. It was where my grandfather
bribed the police chief to look the other way
when Jewish shops opened on Sunday, where
little boys played tricks on their cheder teachers,
where potential couples were introduced in
a pear orchard.
For 700 years there have been Jews in
Luboml. The community grew and was cut down
and grew again, surviving wars and pogroms over
the centuries like so many hundreds of small
towns in Eastern Europe. The people came back
again and again. By the time of their final destruction,
in October 1942, Luboml's Jews numbered
some 5,000.
In the book, survivors describe the killings
that went on throughout the yearlong German occupation,
culminating in the mass murder of
thousands on that one day, Hoshana Rabba, Oct.
1, 1942.
LUBOML
But the book is as much a celebration of the
life that came before. One recent Sabbath, I read
aloud to friends about how after the Sabbath meal
families would take a walk by a certain home just
to hear the father and his sons singing zmiros.
On Passover, I shared with my family the description
of the kashering of pots, dishes and
utensils in giant pots of boiling water set up outside.
I read aloud about the local folk doctor, who
used glass cups to draw poisons from the body.
And the horse dealer, who would examine a
nag's teeth before clinching a sale.
I relished the descriptions of men enjoying
the steamy communal bath on a cold winter day,
of women rushing into the synagogue to wail and
pray for relief from an epidemic, of fights between
chasidim, debates between rabbis, and
pranks by youth.
Often the descriptions end with words such
as these: "I do not know what became of these
people."
I know that for some of them, these stories
and photos are all that's left. It is both astonishing
and gratifying that Luboml's Jews should
come to symbolize all the lost Jews of shtetls near
and far, whose names are preserved at Yad
Vashem and stories told in dusty volumes.
At present, we are exploring possible venues
for the exhibition and seeking a publisher
for the book. But for me and so many others, that
these elements have come together at all is an
enormous pleasure and represents an important
step on our journey.
It's a journey that began for me with my
Zede's stories. His memory was excellent, perhaps
because he washed his face in the first
snowfall every year. He said it kept his "braims"
fresh.
Now I do that every year, too, ice melting
against my face. Today, I think of this as I look
at these photos an.d they, silently, look back at
me.
Reprinted with permission from the Jewish
Week.