A nation at war
Uncovering the Jewish past
Awarded by the New Jersey Society of Professional Journalists
Awarded by the New Jersey Press Association
Published, The Secaucus Reporter,
2000
Miriam
Weiner needs no H.G. Wells time machine to travel to the past, no magic spells
to take people with her.
Through post cards, old photographs,
birth, marriage and death certificates, certificates of employment and other such
documents, Weiner walks through streets and cities that have largely ceased to
exist, and meets people whose lives and faces had mostly been forgotten,
helping to restore them as living memories for a generation of people in
America and elsewhere who thought those memories gone forever.
Weiner
has been called the Indiana Jones of prewar Polish Jewry and many people have
come to admire her dogged pursuit of information as she searches old and
sometimes confusing Eastern European archives for threads of information in
order to uncover the trail of documents that records a past many thought lost
as a result of Nazi atrocities.
After
years of criss-crossing the countryside visiting state archives, old cemeteries
and synagogues, Weiner published two books, Jewish
Roots in Poland (1997), and the most recent, Jewish Roots in Ukraine and Moldova, the product of her non-profit
organization called "Routes to
Roots." Both books, to many Jewish archivists, have become key tools
in Jewish genealogical research. Yet beyond tools for research, her books
attempt to paint a portrait of a people, and glimpse their lives before and
after the holocaust.
Long
before she put pen to her first book, Weiner had already had a remarkably
eventful life. Growing up in Demoines, Iowa she tended to have as much contact
with horses at rodeos as she was with the Jewish faith.
"My
life wasn't devoid of Jewish culture, it just wasn't the center of my life at
the time," she said.
Weiner's
early life was a sequence of changing careers. For a while, she worked as a
clerk in the sheriff's department in Orange County, California, worked as a
paralegal for lawyers and judges, became a private detective for a time with
her own agency. After answering a newspaper ad in 1967, Weiner found herself as
the road manager to country singer, Bobbie Gentry.
When
Weiner moved to Secaucus in 1986 to take a job as the executive director of the
American Gathering of Jewish Holocaust Survivors, she had no idea how much the
job would change her life or how her co-editing The Encyclopedia of Jewish Genealogy would bring her back in touch
with her own Jewish culture.
Weiner
had just graduated from the State University in Albany with a Bachelor of Arts
in Jewish Studies and was looking for a place that was both peaceful and yet
year enough the city for her to complete her duties.
While
attending a funeral of a family member in 1988, she discovered that she knew
very little about her family's background. She decided to seek information
about her family's Eastern European ties. This was before the fall of the
Soviet Union, and requests to see documents in Eastern Europe had to be made
through an office in Moscow – which routinely denied access.
Weiner,
persistent as well as personable, changed most of that. She just happened to be
at the right place at the right as the cold war thawed and the centralized
power structure began to crumble.
While
researching her own family history, she saw an address in a reference book and
contacted the museum in the town where her grandmother had been born. Her trip
to Poland in 1991 made her the first Jew to visit many towns there since before
World War Two -- even though Poland was once the heart of Jewish life in
Europe. Three out of every four Jewish families can trace at least one
grandparent to 1939 Poland.
Weiner
– like many people – previously believed all the records relating to Jewish
live had perished with Nazi and Soviet occupation. To her delight, she found
many still existed, although most lacked organization to make it accessible for
genealogical purpose.
"There
was this overwhelming sense of emotion, standing beside all of these unopened
books from before the war," she said.
When
she opened the books, pages stuck together. No one else had opened them in 50
years. In them, Weiner found a trail of records that led her to find relatives
she'd not known of before, and reports of her grandmother who immigrated to
America at the turn of the last century.
In
her trips to Eastern Europe, Weiner found that life there hadn't changed much
in the last 100 years. People still used horses and wagons, still dug wells for
water, and still used outside toilets. While some of the goods sold have
changed, the market places often look much like pictures seen on post cards
from a century ago.
"Going
to that part of the world was like thinking of going to the moon," she
said. "never in my wildest dreams did I think I would go behind what was
then called The Iron Curtain."
When
she arrived, she found a very practical people, people whose values seemed to
center upon the basic necessities of life: how to get medicine, education, and
the highways repaired. She also discovered that the Nazi had failed to
eradicate Jewish life and Weiner found that there was much left of the old
culture.
"People
presumed towns were wiped off the maps, they were not," she said.
"But many of the places sacred to the Jewish faith have suffered over
time, Jewish graveyards turned into soccer fields, synagogues into
gymnasiums."
One
thing that did surprise her was the lack of obvious anti-Semitism. After
hearing all the history associated with the Jews in that part of the world, she
was a little startled when she found people cooperating with her.
"I
made it very clear that I was researching Jewish history," she said.
"People were very cooperative. In fact, I felt an overwhelming sense of
hospitality. Busy people stopped what they were doing to help me. I was very
moved and deeply grateful for their sharing their time and their knowledge with
me."
People
often invited her into their homes for tea or vodka.
In
dealing with local officials, Weiner said she's tried to be very diplomatic.
Most
mayors are eager to help, partly because she was also the first American to
come to many of these towns since the end of World War Two. She also made it
clear that she was not seeking to recover property, only historical
information, and the mayors – she said – responded with "civic
pride."
But
Communist habits die hard. Police stopped travelers routinely.
"This
was not because we made any mistakes, but because they wanted to check our
papers," she said, noting that because she had press credentials, she had
a little less trouble than she might otherwise have suffered. "Journalists
have power."
Wiener
maintains an apartment in Secaucus and the Ukraine, and makes frequent trips,
carrying many the automotive and home repair items she needed.
"I've
developed a strong connection to the land of my ancestors," she said.
"If I'm here in Secaucus for two or three months I get an itch to go
back."
Weiner
makes her living by doing individual research for people.
"Most
people, even those who will take a trip over there later, can't do the research
themselves," Weiner said.
Part
of this is the lack of experience, part of this is because Weiner has developed
connections that allow her access many other people can't get.
The
cost depends on how many material available, how many archives she had to
search, how many countries she has to go to and how many last names she has to
find. There are hotel costs, and other costs that have to be calculated into
the price. For those unable or unwilling to make the trip abroad, Weiner
provides reports, including videos, photos, document analysis and accounts of
all interviews, and research.
"Everyday
people contact me – by telephone, fax or letter – requesting information about
how to trace their Jewish roots," she said. "Most people are in the
beginning stages and some have no idea where their family originated from in
the old country and or do not know what the original family name was."
A
one town ancestral search takes about three days. The first day is dedicated to
researching documents, the second, to interviewing and video taping, the third,
to putting all the material together into a report.
Research
is tedious. It involves going through all the documents, name by name, line by
line, in very massive books.
Yet
Weiner said this has become a passion for her.
"I
can't stop," she said. "Something is pushing me, driving me, and
sometimes I feel like I don't have a will of my own,” she said. "I am the
midwife helping to give birth to something that many people thought no longer
existed. That is exciting to me."
(Winner of New Jersey Press Association for
feature writing and the New Jersey Society of Professional Journalist for
profile writing)