Re: [Cz-L] The purpose of this list

In answer to your questions, Hardy:

My grandmother's other two children were fathered by her Ukrainian
husband. His surname was Bresciuc / Breschuk. He was killed in 1937
in a train mishap only a year after my father and his sibs were
shipped off to Canada to join their mother and father. My
grandmother's maiden name was Pavlovic / Pawlowych / Paulovici.They
would have been married about 1924. Whether in a civil ceremony or
Greek Orthodox I know not.

Neither my father nor grandmother spoke to me of his true parentage in
their lifetimes. I only found out what little I know in a brief,
covert conversation 35 years ago when my mother "let the cat out of
the bag". I suspected at the time that I was being told something I
was not intended to know about and never dared to bring the subject up
again. I have a vague, possibly inaccurate memory that she told me
that this Jewish man's name would have been Anglicized as "Max Drake
(Drach?). She further added that he was "assassinated" sometime
during the WWII era.

When my grandmother passed away in 1980, I observed my father slip a
small, headshot photo of a fedora wearing man into her hands just
before the casket was to be sealed for the final time. This past
summer, when I came into possession of the family photos that belonged
to my grandmother, I found not only a copy of this same casket photo,
but a handful of others of this man. One depicts her formally posing
in "Western" dress (as opposed to traditional Ukrainian peasant
attire) with this man. The photo was taken in a Cernauti studio. One
other is a passport-style photo of this same man on which is written
in ball-point pen "Emil's dad" (my father). Also scrawled on the back
in faded lettering is a phrase in Roumanian that translates to "never
forget me". There is also a formal photo of this man in WWI military
garb. Whether these photos were brought over to Canada by my
grandmother when she emigrated in 1934, or were sent to her later is
unknown to me. There must have been some communication for her to
learn that he had been "assassinated".

I have correspondences dating to the 40's that show that my
grandmother attempted to obtain some birth documents for herself and
my father, but they were not able to be found by the then-governing
USSR authorities. I also attempted to obtain the same and never got
any response.

My Canadian-born mother is of Ukrainian ancestry with her parents
originating in the Ternopil region. I regard myself as a contemporary
Canadian of Ukrainian ancestry. I don't speak or understand Ukrainian
and was raised in an areligious home (ie. we practised and bought into
no system of faith or religion), therefore my genealogical research is
more of a mechanical undertaking of putting names, dates, and
hopefully faces to a family tree. The only 'spiritual' aspect of
learning about my past is the nagging sense that I would want any
living family of "Max" to know that my father grew up to be an
honourable man, and that the end of his line of descendants are 6 fine
great-grandsons. For all I know, "Max" may have fathered no other
children besides my father.

As for decency being transmitted by genes, no, I don't believe so,
though the recent debates would lead me to believe that others do.

Thank you for your interest in my search for "Max's" identity.

Vicki

On Mon, Feb 3, 2014 at 12:25 AM, HARDY BREIER <HARDY3_at_bezeqint.net> wrote:
> Welcome Vicki,
> Let us see :
> Your biological grandfather was Jewish. Gd-mother Ukrainean.
> From Czernowitz and Kutschumara,
> Your father was therefore by Jewish rite not Jewish.
> The other two children she had were from the same Jewish father ?
> Who was your mother ? Jewish ?
> What do you know about your Czernowitz father ?
> Is decency s transmitted by genes ?
> Hardy
>
> ----- Original Message ----- From: "The Mom" <lwncxv_at_gmail.com>
>
> To: "Bruce Reisch" <bruce.reisch_at_cornell.edu>
> Cc: "CZERNOWITZ-L" <CZERNOWITZ-L_at_list.cornell.edu>
> Sent: Monday, February 03, 2014 5:09 AM
>
> Subject: Re: [Cz-L] The purpose of this list
>
>
>> Thank you for this, Bruce.
>>
>> I joined this list-serve a short time ago in order to search for
>> genealogical information about the identity of my biological paternal
>> grandfather.
>>
>> This ongoing debate has been disturbing to me from the standpoint of
>> the story behind my search for the identity of my grandfather:
>>
>> My Ukrainian grandmother, born and raised in Cucuirul Mare, Bukovina,
>> was married out of necessity to a Ukrainian man whom she did not love.
>> While he was away in Canada on his own preparing to bring her and
>> their two children over, she fell in love with her true soulmate -- a
>> Jewish Czernowitzer from what I have been told. My father's 1932 birth
>> was the result of their illicit union. She and her three children
>> eventually joined the man-she-did-not-love in Canada. The few precious
>> photographic keepsakes I have from this love story provides me with
>> irrefutable evidence that Ukrainian/Jew meant nothing to them. They
>> simply loved one another and fate denied them a life together. My
>> father was a decent man. I believe myself to be a decent person. Am
>> I to credit this to my Ukrainian grandmother's genes or my mystery
>> Jewish grandfather's? These debates would have me thinking that the
>> goodness of one set of genes must have trumped the evil of the other.
>> But whose?
>>
>> I hope someday to successfully discover my grandfather's identity via
>> this resource -- and it matters not a whit to me what his ethnic or
>> religious background was.
>>
>> Vicki
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Received on 2014-02-03 08:15:38