(Please read Confessions of a Perfectionist first, for confessions and context)
Slutzk:
The trip to Belarus was short and sweet, and now I am mostly left with a feeling of longing. I did not spend a long enough time to really get a feel for the place. although I am certainly glad I went. I mostly have more questions than answers. And a sense of the migrations of the world, and the contact between cultures. I discovered that the Jews probably only settled in Belarus in the 1500’s, maybe as early as the 1300’s. Before that, I am not sure, though I think likely they were in the Caucus region near the Black Sea. Another trip. (There is also Ireland, England and Wales calling from my mother’s side). So mostly for my family, as I am the first person I know of to return, I will share what I wrote after the visit. Please bear with me, or not, as there are a lot of details. I did not want to forget. I am still remembering.
After a day in Minsk, the capital of Belarus, where I visited the Jewish Culture and History Center and Yama, a WWII memorial site, I met up with a guide I hired through an organization called the Jews of Belarus. The landscape on the 3 hour drive to Slutzk is beautiful – verdant and forested with birch and fir with berries in the understory, with occasional small villages along the roadside comprised of brightly colored, uniquely shaped wooden cottages. Most of the houses have lovely gardens and fruit trees. As we near Slutzk, the frequency of villagers at roadside stands selling buckets of blueberries, rasberries, some other berries and mushrooms increases. People ride by in horse drawn carts. Many of the numerous farms used to be part of the collective farms from the Communist era.
It is raining, and Slutzk has the feel of soviet era with block buildings and overcast skies. At the beginning of the last century, the population of Slutzk was around 17,000 and 10,000 of those people were Jewish. Now the population is 62,000 with 150 Jews. My guide has arranged for the town’s head of the Jewish religious community, Valery, to join us. Valery, a gentle man, was born in Slutzk in 1939; two years later his family was evacuated to safety. He returned after the war in 1945 and has lived here since. Valery has not heard of anyone in the town with the surname Slutzky. And I have been unable to find confirmation that slutzk means sweet water. But he assures me that certainly the name was taken by someone who lived in this place. I am told many were tradespeople and often lived in the town centers.
We go to the area that used to be the town center at the turn of the century. No signs left of its past. It is now a schoolyard within a sweet neighborhood. There are no remaining Jewish houses, and in fact there are very few buildings from before the war left in the town. I make an offering and take a bit of soil from the ground. We drive through the streets, once a thriving Jewish settlement, then a shtetl during WWII, now large apartment buildings. On one street there is an inconspicuous memorial site, which is one of three memorial sites in Slutzk… We visit all of them. The second is a stone pillar, in a nearby neighborhood. Katya, my guide, tells me that a few years a go there was some anti-Semitic vandalism and so the wording was changed from commemorating ‘the Jews’ who were killed to commemorating ‘the people’ who were killed. I place a stone on the altar. We head 10 km outside of town to a forest, which, in it’s lushness, I am surprised to learn dates after the war. It is a beautiful place down a long dirt road, through the trees… Two tombstones encircled by a mental fence. This is a site that, in 1941,1000s of Jews and Belorussians as well, were taken to and killed. It is eerie. Quiet and beautiful. Awful. I leave some offerings – feeling somewhat numb and disconnected under my pink umbrella.
Valery then takes us to the old maybe original cemetery which is now covered in nondescript apartment buildings. You would never know we were standing on the bones of our ancestors. I think of the many Native American sites in the USA and the struggle for recognition and acknowledgement of their burial grounds. The river Slutzk (it is actually Sluch) runs nearby. Valery says that when he was a child he played in the river and there were old tombstones discarded at the bottom. I make an offering to the river. We then go to a newer cemetery that was used during the post war period but closed in 1981. There is a Roman Catholic area and a Jewish area. The tombstones of 4 rabbis have been moved here from the original cemetery. We drive by 4 houses, now various businesses, that used tombstones from the original cemetery for the foundation of the buildings.
At the end of the day, we accompany Valery to the current Jewish community center, a basement, smelling of mold. I have to duck through all the cement doorways. Half of the basement is used by the secular Jewish community and the other half by the religious community. He shows me a washing machine that a family who visited from the USA several years ago purchased for the center so that the old people in the community had a place to do their laundry. The toilet is a hole in the ground in a grungy closet. There is not a lot to be inspired by here.
Though much of what he shares is about the war and the years following, and is heavy to bear, I can also get a sense of the richness and abundance this place must have had in the 1800s.
As we part, his eyes twinkle as he says something to me which Katya translates as “you don’t look Jewish with light hair and eyes”. And rather than tell him that my mothers’ people are not Jewish, I express my sincere gratitude to him and make a donation to his work with the community. We both tear up.
Then Katya, the guide, Ilyia, the driver and myself go to a nearby cafe for lunch… Chicken soup. And I hear the words of my grandmother in Yiddish: “zuppeta krupeta, kregida krefta” ( sip soup and gain strength)
Mogilev:
After another day in Minsk tending to travel details, I take a 3 hour bus to Mogilev, the town in which my grandma’s family lived. I have now left the comfort of my hired guide as well as my Air B and B host who speaks some English and is very helpful. Mogilev is a large metropolitan town, perhaps 350,000 people. On the bus ride from Minsk I meet a musician from a nearby town who befriended me in broken English, intrigued by my stetson hat. Yuri, who played for years in a Belorussian blues band, arranged to meet me the following morning to tour me around town. It was a blessing to have his company and guidance, feeling the challenge of being in a place without speaking the language.
We head to the City Hall to the archives, and find out that all records pre-1917 are in Minsk. No luck. We then head toward the Jewish museum…closed Wednesdays. I feel the effects of my lack of planning. We go to another museum and are guided through the history of this area. Although very little of it is Jewish, it is fascinating and I especially love the old tools, clothing, and jewelry. We walk through town, with beautifully architectured buildings that date back to the 1800s. It is a town of much art and culture and I can easily imagine my grandmother’s mother here. We go to the old Jewish town center, though today there is nothing to indicate this- no Hebrew, Yiddish, Star of David. We ask around and eventually locate the only synagogue in town. At the turn of the century, there were 50 or more. It is housed in a nondescript building near a Roman Catholic church. The rabbi is out but a young Jewish man is happy to show us around. He does not know anyone with the names I give him of my family members. All day I am curious who is Jewish, who is Belorussian, who else is here…I cannot seem to tell.
The Dnieper river runs through town. Generations ago, people boated on this river from the Baltic Sea to the Black Sea. We go to the river to make offerings and then head to Yuri’s friends house who lives in a great old cottage with gardens, rain water harvesting, orchards, and an incredible collection of Beatles music, posters, books, memorabilia. We listen to Beatles songs and have a cup of tea before I catch the bus with seconds to spare back to Minsk.
(photos: Alexis at Sluch river, Slutzk, synagogue in Mogilev)
Tracking Destiny 