A Short History of Jews in Lithuania - Episode 4

A Short History of Jews in Lithuania - Episode 3

A Short History of Jews in Lithuania - Episode 2

A Short History of Jews in Lithuania - Episode 1

Ella and Josef both hailed from Lithuania. Ella came from Illocki (Ylakiai), while Josef was from Zedik (Zhidyki or Zidikai). But what information is there on the Jews and Lituania itself?

Shirley Lee through Temple Emanu-El in San Jose California is currently running a lecture series on Zoom called “The Jews of Lithuania”. The first part of her lecture series was run last Sunday (4 March 2021). Here is Episode 1 which looks at the history of the Litvaks up to the eve of WWII.

 

New pictures added to the Photo Album

Some new pictures, from Mary's photo album, have been added to the Photo Album page. Click the link HERE.

A Lithuanian Mystery

Among Mary's photos are two of the same couple. The smaller photo was in her photo album. The larger one is a formal portrait mounted on a dark grey card.

The smaller picture has the couple seated in a garden, next to a tree, with two small children - the boy appears younger.

The more formal portrait has three children. The older children look about two years older than they did in the earlier picture. There is a third child, about a year old seated on the mother's lap. Mother and father are seated in wicker chairs and there is a formal painted background behind them.

The reverse of the earlier picture has an annotation on the back in English (with two spelling mistakes) and that uses a Norwegian conjunction"og" (and).

The inscription reads as follows "Uncle and Ante (sic) and my cusens (sic). Lijnke (or Lynke) og Hillel. Ilokaia"

I think that these spelling errors are significant as they may help date when the inscription was made. From my exchanges with the museum in Oslo, I discovered that there was, in the early 1900s, no English tuition in primary (or junior) schools in Norway. Pupils who moved on to secondary school did get exposure to English, German and mathematics. Only primary education was compulsory. This raises a whole lot of questions - When were these photos taken? When was the photo inscribed? How much English did the Lurie siblings learn in Norway? How long the Lurie children attend school? We can only speculate.

In the family tree that Marion (z"l) compiled, she showed Ella's brother as Alter who was married to Freda. Ella's father is shown in this document as Hillel. This is the family tree that is shown on the "Lithuanian beginnings page - see https://lurienorway.blogspot.com/p/blog-page.html 
But the ultimate confirmation is the inscription on Ella's tombstone - bat Hillel (the daughter of Hillel).

Yet the picture and its annotation clearly indicate that Ella's brother was Hillel Spitz. So was this a simple childish error in the photograph's inscription, or was there some other unaccounted for relative?

So we have a mini family mystery. Plus we have a whole lot of other questions about learning English too. Ideas or comments, anyone?

The two pictures are reproduced below.

The photo with the annotation on the back

The later, more formal portrait

Photo Album

There are just so many photos that we just need to put them somewhere. We will be adding to these as we progress.

Go to the PHOTO ALBUM