TOP: Trochenbrod today, looking south. BOTTOM: Spot near the site of Trochenbrod where tractors and horse carts ford the creek even today. This could be Trochim Ford, but there is no way to know for certain. Photos by the author.
OPPOSITE TOP: A field near the site of Trochenbrod today. The reeds mark a creek. Though the area is now drained, this photo hints of what the first settlers at Trochim Ford found at the site. Photo by the author. OPPOSITE BOTTOM: Segment of a map of Mennonite settlements in western Ukraine in the 1800s, from the Mennonite Historical Atlas, 1996. The original Mennonite village of Sofiyovka (Zofijowka) on the Horyn River is in the upper right corner. The newer settlements of Yosefin (Jozefin) and Sofiyovka (Zofjowka) are to the southwest, between the Horyn and Styr Rivers, northeast of Lutsk (Luck). Map provided by Helmut T. Huebert, principal author of the Mennonite Historical Atlas. ABOVE: Russian map, 1890. Trochenbrod’s name is given only as “Zufiyuvka.” The town, with its distinctive one long street and larger size than other settlements in the area, is prominent in the southeast quadrant of the map. Its sister village to the northwest, “Kol. Ignatuvka” has the additional name “Lozhishe” under it, though it was actually known as “Lozisht.” In the southwest quadrant is “Kol. Yuzefin,” originally established by Mennonites and later peopled by “Volksdeutch.”
TOP: Stylized sketch of Trochenbrod adapted from the back cover of the book, Hailan V’shoreshav (The Tree and Its Roots: The History of T.L., Sofiyovka-Ignatovka), the Trochenbrod-Lozisht memorial book. The image appears here courtesy of the Israeli Bet-Tal organization, an organization formally established in the 1950s to preserve the memory of the people of Trochenbrod and Lozisht. BOTTOM LEFT: Glass production remnant recovered by the author from the site of the glass factory in Trochenbrod. A principal product of the factory was medicine bottles, which accounts for the green tint. BOTTOM RIGHT: Candlestick from Trochenbrod, likely from well before World War I. Probably part of a pair for a Friday evening ritual used to welcome the Sabbath day. Presented as a gift to the author by Ivan Podziubanchuk.
TOP: Matzah cover for the Passover seder [ritual meal], made in Trochenbrod in 1913 by Elke Antwarg as part of her wedding trousseau. Provided by granddaughter Miriam Antwarg Ciocler. BOTTOM LEFT: Wall clock crafted in Trochenbrod in 1914 by Michael Antwarg. The clockwork came from Switzerland. Several generations of Antwargs were carpenters and woodworkers. Photo by granddaughter Miriam Antwarg Ciocler. BOTTOM RIGHT: Bullet from World War I that was embedded in a tree near Trochenbrod. Presented as a gift to the author by Ivan Podziubanchuk.
TOP: Engagement photo of Elke and Michael Antwarg, Trochenbrod, 1913. The photo was probably made in a studio in Lutsk. The couple and their children immigrated to Brazil in 1933. Photo provided by granddaughter Miriam Antwarg Ciocler. BOTTOM: Late 1800s portrait of a Trochenbrod couple, family name Cohen. Appears to be a retouched studio photograph. Photo provided by great-great-granddaughter Laura Beeler.
Portrait photograph of Idah-Sarah and Isaac Weiner and two of their daughters in Trochenbrod in the late 1800s or early twentieth century. Backdrop appears to be set up in someone’s house or a public building. Their son immigrated to the United States in 1906; the rest of the family remained in Trochenbrod. Photo provided by great-granddaughter Miriam Weiner Bernhardt.
Sofiyovka birth records, l918. Left side in Polish, right side in Hebrew. Signed by B. Rojtenberg (Duv Ber Rojtenberg), who was the Cazone Rabbi—the official government-appointed rabbi who kept certain civil records. This book was found in the State Archive of Volyn Region, in Lutsk. Photo by the author.
Polish map, 1933. Lutsk is just off the lower left corner of the map. The road from Lutsk to Kolki runs northeast through Kivertzy (Kiwerce), crosses the railroad tracks at Kivertzy station, passes by the village of Jezioro (Ozero) built around a lake (notice symbols for both a church and synagogue there), and here is shown continuing on as far as a village of houses lining a horizontal street in the top center of the map. The village, name not shown, is Trostjanets, located about halfway between Kivertzy station and Kolki. Normally, coming to Trochenbrod from Lutsk, Kivertzy, or the train station, you’d turn right just beyond Jezioro, on the road that passes through Przebrodz (Przebradze), and continue east to the southern end of Trochenbrod. Coming from Kolki southward, you’d turn left at Trostjanets and pass through Yaromel (Jaromla) or Domashiv (Domaszow) and approach Trochenbrod from the northern end. The Domashiv route would bring you through Trochenbrod’s sister “colony” of Ignatovka (Kol. Ignatowka), also called Lozisht (Lozyszcze). Note Trochenbrod’s size relative to other settlements in the region.
ABOVE: Polish map, 1933. Larger-scale view of Trochenbrod and the surrounding settlements, including Horodiche (Horodysze), at the lower right. Notice the symbol for a church, Radziwill’s church, a bit east of the triangular intersection at the northern end of Trochenbrod. Villagers from Klubochin (Klobuczyn), at the upper right, worked closely with Trochenbrod partisans during World War II. OPPOSITE TOP: Trochenbroders photographed in 1930 by Ruchel Abrams, while on a visit from Cleveland, Ohio. Photo provided by Burton and Ellen Singerman. OPPOSITE BOTTOM: Rabbi Moshe Hirsch Roitenberg, a widely recognized scholar and something of a Trochenbrod celebrity. Photo dated in the mid 1930s. It was copied from the book, Hailan V’shoreshav (The Tree and Its Roots: The History of T.L., Sofiyovka-Ignatovka), the Trochenbrod-Lozisht memorial book, and appears here courtesy of the Israeli Bet-Tal organization.
TOP: Trochenbrod’s post office, late 1930s. Originally built as a house, a section of the roof (above the postman, standing) could be opened to the sky for the Sukkot holiday, the Feast of Tabernacles. Polish postmistress Janina Lubinski is standing in the doorway. She hid Jews in the attic during the murders in 1942. Ellie Potash, Basia-Ruchel’s father, is standing on the steps of a house he owns next door that serves as his leather workshop. Photo provided by Ryszard Lubinski. BOTTOM: The “Talmud Torah,” Jewish day school, in Trochenbrod in 1935. Don’t overlook the two girls who must have sneaked inside while the boys and teachers were preparing for the photograph, and peak through the window adding a note of cheerfulness to the otherwise solemn portrait. Many people in both Israel and the United States provided copies of this photograph, and it also appears in Hailan V’shoreshav (The Tree and Its Roots: The History of T.L., Sofiyovka-Ignatovka), the Trochenbrod-Lozisht memorial book published by the Israeli Bet-Tal organization in 1988.
TOP: A built-in cooking and heating system of the type Trochenbrod craftsmen built for villagers in the region. Heat passed through clay ducts to other rooms of the house. Photo by the author. BOTTOM: A procession of Polish Catholics passing through Trochenbrod on their way to the church built for them by Prince Janush Radziwill. Notice the poles set up for telegraph and telephone service. Photo by Janina Lubinki; provided by Ryszard Lubinski.
TOP LEFT: YomTov (Yonteleh) Beider at work as a Jewish pioneer in Palestine, 1933. He had arrived from Trochenbrod the year before, and was one of many Trochenbrod pioneers in Palestine in the 1930s. Like many of his friends he discarded his “diaspora name” and adopted a Hebrew name, Chagai Bendavid. TOP RIGHT: The new automobile of the Silno District Administration, late 1930s. This auto would visit Trochenbrod from time to time, and some claim that it was in part to facilitate those visits that the decision was made to pave Trochenbrod’s street. Photo by Janina Lubinki; provided by Ryszard Lubinski. BOTTOM: A Trochenbrod funeral in the mid 1930s. Rabbi Moshe Hirsch Roitenberg can be seen near the upper left edge of the photo. Photo copied from the book, Hailan V’shoreshav (The Tree and Its Roots: The History of T.L., Sofiyovka-Ignatovka), the Trochenbrod-Lozisht memorial book, and appears here courtesy of the Israeli Bet-Tal organization.
TOP: Girls performing at a Zionist summer camp in Trochenbrod in 1939. Did any of them survive the slaughter three years later? Photo by Janina Lubinki; provided by Ryszard Lubinski. BOTTOM: Ribbon-cutting ceremony in 1939 for the first small section of Trochenbrod’s street that was paved. Notice the wooden structures pr
otecting newly planted saplings on the right and left sides. Photo by Janina Lubinki; provided by Ryszard Lubinski.
ABOVE: 1939. Young Jewish men and women from Zionist organizations all over East Europe made their way to this shelter, the “Internat,” in Vilna (Vilnius) on their way to settle in Palestine. About 200,000 refugees are said to have passed through here. Photo provided by Hana Tziporen. OPPOSITE: Trochenbrod’s street, 1939. Notice the man standing in the drainage ditch near the upper right edge of the photo. Notice also the bollards on the sides of the street to keep passing wagons away from the ditches, and horse-drawn wagon traffic in the distance in line with the wagon tracks in the upper left. The girl in the foreground is Basia-Ruchel Potash. Less than three years after this photo was taken she hid with her family in the forest during the Nazi slaughters, and was one the few Trochenbrod survivors. But here Basia-Ruchel stands shyly next to her playmate, Ryszard Lubinski, son of the Polish postmistress. Photo by Janina Lubinski, the postmistress; provided by Ryszard Lubinski.
ABOVE: A bunker in the forest camp of Medvedev’s partisan detachment. The camp was located in Lopaten, about 4.5 miles from Trochenbrod. Nahum Kohn joined this Soviet partisan unit after his own small unit was decimated. The camp has been developed into a museum of partisan activity in the area. Photo by the author. OPPOSITE TOP: A scene in Yaromel, 2006. The forest area in the background is where the mass graves of Trochenbrod people are located. OPPOSITE BOTTOM: One of two monuments at the sites of the mass graves of the people of Trochenbrod. Photos by the author.
One of two monuments at the site of Trochenbrod. This one was erected in 1992 by several Israelis and an American who were born in Trochenbrod. It’s located at what was the north end of town where the synagogue once stood that was burned after the last Trochenbroders were killed. Photo by the author.
Photo of a Polish family provided by Betty Gold (Basia-Ruchel Potash). About this photo Betty says, “The man in the center of his family, Yuzef Berdnarski, and his son Yanek, the groom standing in back of him, were the ones who helped us survive. They were angels. We kept in touch with them until they died. My parents sent them packages, medicine, and some money.”
TOP: Label Safran from Trochenbrod-Lozisht, upper left, and the Ukrainian family that hid him while the Nazis were rounding up Jews for slaughter: the father Davyd Zhuvniruck, and his wife Yaryna and daughter Kateryn. Photo provided by Esther Foer. BOTTOM: At the Foehrenwald D.P. camp near Munich, 1947. Survivors from Trochenbrod and Lozisht at a gathering in memory of those who perished. Label Safran is in the middle of the second row. Photo provided by Esther Foer.
TOP: Head of a short-handled hoe found in the fields of Trochenbrod in August 2009 by cameraman Andriy Dmytruk, and presented as a gift to the author. BOTTOM: A door latch handle found in August 2009 in the area where Trochenbrod’s houses once stood. Found by cameraman Andriy Dmytruk and researcher Sergiy Omelchuk, and presented as a gift to the author. A decorative stem with branches and leaves can be discerned running lengthwise down the center. Photos by the author.
To this day Trochenbrod’s street is echoed in the landscape. The Radziwill forest east of Trochenbrod is in the background. Trees and bushes descended from those that stood in front of Trochenbrod houses remain tenaciously in place in the flat land of the Trochim Ford clearing. Photo by the author.
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copyright © 2010 by Avrom Bendavid-Val
preface copyright © 2010 by Jonathan Safran-Foer
map design copyright © 2010 by Rick Britton
interior design by Maria Fernandez
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Table of Contents
Title Page
Dedication
Contents
Preface: Next Year in Trochenbrod
Introduction: The Back Story
Chapter One: The First Hundred Years
Chapter Two: Between the Wars
Chapter Three: Dusk
Chapter Four: Darkness
Epilogue: The Story Continues
Witnesses Remember
Glossary of Hebrew and Yiddish Terms
Chronology
Sources
Acknowledgments
Copyright Page
The Heavens Are Empty: Discovering the Lost Town of Trochenbrod Page 18