November 11, 2015 - a very special day.

Not only is this my 65th birthday, but it is the day we are going to Motele and Ivanovo.  But first, Ken has brought a birthday card all the way from the US for me with a picture of the Surface computer he wants to get me.

Huge breakfast again, and then Katya (our guide) and Iliya our driver pick us up.  We go to Yanovo (now called Ivanovo) where we meet Alexander, the tourism and and history (cultural) representative who is very knowledgeable about the area.  Yanovo is now rebuilt, the only original building on the square is the Catholic Church.

We have entered Ivanovo

Town Square in Ivanovo

Statue of Lenin in the town square.

There isn't much to see in Ivanovo itself but we go to the Memorial at the entrance to the forest of commemorating the 3500 Jews killed. 

After we go to this memorial we head to the Skirmett estate, where my great great grandfather worked as a land manager.  The Skirmetts owned land throughout the area, and this was probably just one of the estates.  It also had a sugar factory associated with it.  The village is named Molodovo, Russian for the young people who came to work on the estate.  


The estate is pretty well devastated.  The gazebo might have been a place for people to gather.  In the town there is a 17th Century church with bells still ringing.  

The Skirmett estate is also where the Nazis brought the Jewish men from Motol to dig a pit and then the Nazis shot them.
 See http://www.jewishgen.org/yizkor/motol/motol.html

We then drive on to Motol. 

So much to say, to tell, to show.  I can hardly begin.  But I will begin with our arrival in the town. 

Time for lunch.  We have lunch on the square at a restaurant that is located where the home of Chaim Weizmann was.

My maternal ancestors were supposed to have lived across the street from this house.  Actually, across the street is a square but I decide to look around to see if I can find anything resembling the description of the house given by Uncle Sam Benner.  Motol is a very poor town, and probably looks much the same as it did in the 1920s.  Houses are wooden, some with little gardens in the back yard. The old women (all with mouths filled of gold teeth) wonder why I am walking around, taking pictures.   None of the houses resembled the description, but more on that later.

After lunch we went to the home of Chaim Weizmann to see if Christina (the elderly woman who has the key to the  house and museum)  is around.  She isn't so we first go to the inactive Jewish cemetery of the 18th and 19th centuries which is now protected by the state.

There are no Jews left in Motol.  In 1920, the Jewish population was 1140, or 26 percent of the population.  The remaining Jewish population in Motol was executed in 1942.

Tombstones in the cemetery


We then go to the Memorial to the victims of the Holocaust.  Katya, our guide, translated the memorial as a  Memorial to the victims of Holocaust from Ivanovo and Motol. 

"Here in 1941 – 1942 fascists shot 3500 Jews. 
"People! Bow your heads low at the ashes of women and children, peaceful residents of Motol village, brutally murdered by german and fascist captures on the 2 of August 1941.Eternal memory". 

The Memorial was made in 1990’s.

The memorial is on the outskirts of  Motol, on the edge of the forest.  

.  
Thus, what was once a thriving Jewish community is no longer, relegated to a memorial.  Too little, too late.

Chaim Weizmann's home

We head back to Chaim Weizmann's home.  It has been moved from its original site and was at one time used as an orphanage.  It is about one-third its original size.  The house  originally had seven rooms and a kitchen, as the family was big; 15 children.  Krystyna, an elderly woman, lives nearby and is the keeper of the key to the house.  She was born in 1935 and has some memories of Motol before the war.  She did not remember a Benner who was shoemaker and lived on the square.   According to her there were a number of  shoemakers in Motol. There were lots of Jews in Motol, especially living around the square where the old synagogue stood.  And, according to Krystyna, they had gold (an unfortunate misconception among the Poles.) She said that some Jews offered gold for her father to keep.  He didn't take it.  I couldn't help thinking about that when I saw the gold fillings. Nevertheless, she does remember the Nazis coming into town and taking over her house.  Krystyna said her mother would leave bread for the partisans. She also remembered the women and children being herded down the street and that she was amazed that no one was crying. She said many residents helped the partisans.

The home now has a few rooms, and walls filled with memorabilia.  The kitchen is probably similar to the one in our family's home, with a huge stove and fireplace.   Below are some pictures from the Weizmann museum.  

Kystyna - keeper of the key to the Weizmann home

Picture of the original Weizmann home

With Eleanor Roosevelt

Kitchen

Yaselda River

Russian Orthodox Church

We head back to center of town to see if we can find the house of my grandmother's family.  Uncle Sam had described it, but of course, times had changed since 1920.  The old synagogue on the Market Square is now a post office.  However, the Russian Orthodox Transfiguration Church still stands near the Market Square.

Post Office - site of Old Synagogue
Unfortunately

Unfortunately, the area right across from the Weizmann's original house is now a square with a war memorial.  But, we go a little to the left, basically on the original market square, and find a house that somewhat matches Uncle Sam's description.  It has a well in the back, a tin roof, and a shed.  It backs up to a little stream (more like a drainage ditch) .  Below are some pictures of the possible house.  The yellow house next door is another possibility.  

We leave Motol, having wandered the area of my ancestors.  While we might not have found the exact house, we found the general area where they lived.   How fortunate I am to have had this once in a lifetime experience.  I only wish I could have shared it with my grandparents and parents.

We head to Pinsk where we will spend the night at Hotel Pyripat.  The lobby is elegant but the rest of the hotel is hardly a 2 star.   But then there are probably not many decent hotels in Pinsk.  We  go to a restaurant, Kafe "Taverna," for a birthday celebration.  Fish, potato pancakes, much Georgian wine. Katya and Ilya and the people at JHRG give me a beautiful box as my birthday present.

Katya and Ilya