Glimpses of the past
The experience of Emil and his parents shed light on my great-grandmother’s separation from her family. Emil’s grandparents were unable to return to Romania from Israel. And so forty-two years later Emil’s mother would meet her cousins when they traveled from Israel to Romania to meet her, long after her own mother was gone.
I had a glimpse of Paulina and Marco’s situation. During the chaotic post-war period, as the communist regime took hold in 1947 in Romania, it would have been difficult for Paulina and Marco to find information about their families. With some cousins arriving in New York from Romania, with others remaining in Romania and then later immigrating to Israel there was incoherence and impermanence. Paulina had Romanians staying at her apartment, my mother said. And so for a brief time, there was some connection, as it seems Traian, Bernard’s son, was able to visit his aunt Paulina and to bring a doll back to Romania from Tante Paulina for his infant daughter Rachel. However, by the 1950s, of my great-grandparents’ generation, all had gradually passed away.
The next generation—my grandparents—did not maintain contact with their cousins in Israel, they may have known of some of them but as far as I am aware, did not correspond. Communications were so different then. I remember, even in the 1980s, it was difficult to make a telephone call from Israel to the United States. It was extremely expensive, and connections were constantly dropped.