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Shalom, everyone. I will be going into the recording studio after Sukkot to make a quality recording of the song that I sang at the mass grave memorial. As soon as it's finished I will send it along so it can be posted on the web site.

My friend Joe Jencks who wrote the song was very honored and pleased when I told him how much everyone liked it. Joe would love to speak to anyone who went on the trip to get their reactions and stories. You can write to him at joejencks@hotmail.com or call his cell phone at 206-619-4104. The best way we Trochenbroders can show our appreciation is to buy some of Joe's wonderful CDs. I particularly recommend the disk "The Candle and the Flame," which includes a song called "Tikun Olam" that he wrote for our synagogue. Go to www.joejencks.com for all the details.

I am still coming down from the overwhelming high I had on our trip. Love to all of you and best wishes for a happy, healthy and sweet new year.

B'Shalom,
Charlie

Hey, did you ever post the song.
thank you. It would mean a lot if i could hear it.
Shalom,
Adam

LOVE TO FIND "BEIT TAL" IN TEL AVIV WHEN WERE THERE! CAN YOU GIVE ME ANY HELP?

In reviewing the list of martyrs I have come across some names of the Ruf family I am not familiar with. Is there anyone who can give me information as to who and how we might be related. My father Szyia is a survivor who was the son of Mendel and Henia Ruf. I know the names of his siblings who all perished in Trochenbrod; my dad was the sole survivor of his family. He is no longer alive but I am trying to trace the family history as much as possible. In fact, my dad is pictured in the reunion photo of the survivors that is posted on this website. If anyone has information on the Ruf family, I would love to hear from you. My e-mail address is: msspeech@verizon.net

Dear Chela

Two generations have passed since the end of World War II. Today we live in an age of information, instant communication and progressive technology. The benefits to be garnered from the free flow of heterogeneous information - which can be overwhelming on a day-to-day basis - are counterbalanced by an unavoidable side effect: the creation of short memories. Young people today regard the past not in the sense of where they have come from, but rather as a bygone series of events which are "past," while they themselves are living "post." This viewpoint is dangerous in that it is disjunctive rather than connective (avner shalev).

Our mission as second and third generation is to places a heavy emphasis on educating the younger generations, all over, about the Holocaust. More than ever before, today's youth are expressing a keen interest in their own personal history and identity. I always believed that it is our responsibility to provide Jewish youngsters with the history of the Holocaust from a Jewish perspective, developing the tools needed to perpetuate the dialogue between past, present and future.

About the Ukraine, It is important to communicate, but it is also legitimate to expect them to study the past .
Some how I it seems you feel sorry for them.

You can all go in yad vashem website: http://www.yadvashem.org
And get some more emotional experience.
you can forgive but never forget



Shabbat shalom

Mira

I’d like to add my name to Chela’s suggestion. The trip was touching and memorable. In a future trip, perhaps we could do more than simply reinforce our attachment to our lost Trochenbrod. Had there not been a Holocaust, many of us might still be living among the present day villagers. Perhaps we could show them what they lost and what could have been. It would be illuminating for both sides to know who our neighbors might have been. This would require more imaginative planning than simply visiting and reciting the Kaddish. The time has come for the third generations to reconcile.



Marvin Bendavid

Dear Avrom -


Thank you for letting us know about this dinner, and the comments of the Ukrainians. I know someone else who recently traced her roots to Skirna, in another area of the Ukraine, and she heard a similar comment from a young woman who served as her translator. She had not learned much in her schooling about this history, and felt it was important to learn all she could. I think working towards a world where something like the Shoah can never happen again, means doing what is sometimes the hard work of one-to-one communications like you have done, and like Betty does all the time. (This, in addition to working for peace on the policy level etc.)
Maybe the next delegation will have a chance to follow up with a time to get to know the Ukrainians as part of their trip.


Thanks again to you, Beit Tal, and Pegasus for an experience I will always carry with me,


Chela Blitt

Dear Moti, Chaim, and Sarit,

I hope your return flight to Israel went smoothly.

On Thursday night I hosted a farewell dinner in Lutsk for 12 people. These were people who helped from the Volyn Regional Council, the Local Council government for the Trochenbrod/Lozisht area, and the village of Domashiv. Also, of course, my young friend the local coordinator, Sergiy Omelchuk, and the young woman who helped, Anna Kurnyeva.

I distributed the letters of appreciation from Bet Tal. Everyone at the dinner very much appreciated that gesture from Bet Tal; they understood that Bet Tal represented all the visitors.

Of course, everyone at the=2 0dinner made a toast and gave a little speech. Several people made comments like this: They, and the local villagers who drove the horses, were very impressed by the group of visitors, and it gave them something to think about. The idea that peopl e came from all over the world to meet each other, make family connections, visit the graves of their ancestors, and recapture the history of the place was, they said, a lesson for them. They now also want to know more about the history of the area, not just the history of Ukrainians. They said it was the first time they really understood that many different types of people had lived in the area and made up its history, and now they wanted to know more about those people and how they lived.

Everyone at the dinner was born long after the Shoah. They had heard a few “historical facts” in the course of their studies in the Soviet educational system, but it had not been real for them.

This was a comment I never expected; I thought I would share it with you and others who were on the trip.

B'vracha,
Avrom

Hi Everyone,

I want to let everyone know that this was a special amd memorable trip. Thanks to everyone who was involved in making it possible, and special "it was a pleasure meeting you", to everyone of us who came on this trip.
Since we do not have in the abroad an equivalent to the building of Israel's Beit Tal where people can meet periodically in person, and we are all spread out geographically, I want to suggest that those of us who are interested in keeping in touch with each other, do so, either as a group or individually with the people they want to do so, here in the USA and Israel etc. Since over time it could become more fuzzy for people to remember whose name is associated with whose face or email address, I am taking here a first step, and am enclosing a picture of mine (just picked one, doesn't need to be from the trip) and am writing here my name: Sam (Shmuel, or Samuel) Bulmash, from Tampa, Florida (and previously Israel) and my email is sbulm@aol.com. Anyone is welcome to likewise keep in touch with me or exchange emails and pictures and names, so that we could keep in touch. If enough of us will keep in touch with each other, maybe the trip will enable the personal links that were created in this trip to stay alive and evolve. How and what will become of it- will of20course depend on personal inputs from people who would be interested in keeping in touch. If anyone has additional ideas- let's hear it, either to the whole group or to indiviidual people you want to keep in touch with. Either way is OK.
Meanwhile, again- it was a pleasure discovering on this trip new friends and possible distant relatives that all have
a common link to the place someone in our family called once "home". A home whose fisical existence was destroyed, but whose location and values we marked with our visit and we carry on with us.

best regards,
Sam (Shmulik) Bulmash

Avrom,

Thank you for all you have done. This has truly been an experience of a lifetime. Perhaps by our being there we have sparked an interest in local community, those who didn't know the history.

We just got back home yesterday and I am back at work today. So many folks wanted to know all about the trip. There is so much to tel l.

Thanks to everyone who made the trip so wonderful.

Marilyn