Long Lost Cousins: Pretty As A Picture

Last summer, I wrote about my late cousin Isak Hakel, who died, taking his sad history with him and leaving me with memories only of a joyful man.

At the time of his death, I was working with the Latvia State Historical Archive to retrieve the history of the Hakel family, and specifically to retrieve photographs of any family members. One of the most amazing things I discovered the Archives holds is old passport photos - apparently, it was necessary to have a passport for identification purposes, and so nearly everyone had one taken in the 1920s and 1930s, and many of these photos still exist.

I had sent Isak all the photos from my grandmother's collection - photos of his mother, father, sister, and grandparents. There was one large wedding photo that Isak was in, and he told me, he knew all the people in the photo. He treasured them and was obviously, in spite of our difficulty communicating, grateful to get them.

But there was one photo I did not have, and it troubled me: Ruth.

Ruth Hakel was Isak's little sister. She was born in 1939, two years before the German Army invaded Liepaja and destroyed the majority of the Jewish inhabitants. She died on November 3, 1943, according to a Yad Vashem card filed by her father that I found online. A short life, for which only a name and some dates remain - and even the death date cannot be stated with certainty.

I wanted to give Isak a picture of his sister, but the archive moved slowly, and it took over a year to receive the records I requested, which arrived just this past week. There were many treasures among in the packet, but the one I hoped for was not to be found.

I began to enter the data into my family tree, and sort through records, and cross-check new information against things I had learned before, from other sources. When I got to Ruth Hakel, I went back to the Yad Vashem website, and looked up the Page of Testimony that was filed for her by her father and brother. The website had been updated recently, and to my amazement, I discovered that along with the Pages of Testimony were now photographs of those who perished.

And there she was.

Ruth Hakel

 Born 1939, Libau, Latvia.

 Died 1943, Auschwitz.

The card and photograph were placed in the museum by her surviving brother, Isak Hakel.

I asked him many questions, yet it never occurred to me to ask him for a photograph. He got it to me anyway.

My Great-Grandmother Hanna Hakel (1882-1957) with

(left) Isak Hakel 1930-2011.

 (right) Romy Hakel 1933-1943.

from my grandmother's albums.

When You Least Expect It: Long Lost Cousins

It was eighteen months ago that I began my genealogical research that discovered that I have an elderly cousin in Israel. If genealogy is about anything, it's about people and history, and this man was not only a link to my family and its secrets, but also living history: a survivor of a Jewish ghetto in Latvia, then of Auschwitz, then of the cold war era Soviet Union.

I learned about him quite by accident, through a historian whose website documented the destruction of the Jewish community in Libau, Latvia - he guided me to a source for records on my family, but also mentioned that there was still a family member living, and led me to someone who provided me with an email address for my cousin, Isak Hakel.

I knew of Isak Hakel, because I had copies of some old photos that belonged to my grandmother, Rachel Hakel - who was his aunt. There was a part of me that was vaguely aware that I had this cousin, and that he might still be living. His father was Schmuel Hakel, known to me as "Uncle Samuel" from Israel, and unfortunately my only interaction with Uncle Samuel was a card he sent me as a child, which I still have, tucked away in my closet a box of treasured letters and cards. He signed his name.

Standing: Schmuel and Ida Hakel (died in Auschwitz), Beno Hakel (shot by SS)

Seated: Isak Hakel and brother Romy (died at Auschwitz), Hanna Hakel, Joseph Hakel.

The general outline of the family history is this: My grandparents, Harry and Rae, were originally from Libau, Latvia, but left sometime in the mid-1930's, emigrating to South Africa. World War Two came along and swept away my grandfather's family in its entirety - so complete was the destruction that he could never say their names again. Granny Rae's side of the family had better luck - if Jews in Latvia in 1941 can be said to have any luck at all - two of her three brothers survived the war. A quick look at the history of Libau tells how extraordinary this was: Of Libau's total pre-war Jewish population of 7,000, fewer than 200 survived.

Schmuel Hakel and his family - wife Ida, sons Romy and Isak, and daughter Ruth - somehow survived the roundups and mass executions in Libau long enough to be documented among the 800 or so residents of the city's Jewish Ghetto. After that point, it is hard to know precisely what happened: The family lore is that Schmuel was sent to Auschwitz and had to choose which of his two sons he could keep with him. He chose Isak, it is said, even though Romy was his favorite; but he believed Romy was smarter and had a better chance of surviving on his own.

If this sounds a little Sophie's Choice to you, it does to me too. The facts are straightforward: Schmuel and Isak survived. Schmuel's wife, Ida, and children Romy (age about 10) and Ruth (age four), perished.

Of course I was extraordinarily curious to learn the truth of the matter, and find out what really happened to my family. How had Uncle Schmuel managed to keep his family alive in Libau for so long? What really happened at the gates of Auschwitz? What happened at Auschwitz? And after the war, under the communists?

I wrote to Isak and was disappointed to immediately discover that he did not speak any English - most unfortunate for doing any research, or doing much of anything really, particularly by email. He seemed to speak a dialect of Yiddish, but even my efforts to communicate with him through interpreters ran into difficulty: his replies to me were short, often badly typed, and the dialect he spoke was evidently quite an obscure one.

I emailed him my grandmother's old family photos. He thanked me for the "bilden," and sent me an assortment of seemingly random emails: A powerpoint of elaborate topiaries in Florida was one that stood out. I wasn't sure what to make of them but it pleased me nonetheless to receive them - he seemed to want to communicate as well. Every email I sent received an email in return - just not a reply to my writing in particular.

I took a chance and contacted one of the people mentioned in one email, as she seemed to have constructed some outlines of our family tree on a website, and I was thrilled when she replied, in English, and offered to interpret. She was the cousin of Isak's wife, and through her I learned that Isak, too had questions - starting with how I was related to him, and what had happened to his cousins, his Aunt Rae's children, and so on. I answered his questions and sent him more photos - of me and my family, and my cousins. I asked my own questions, and he replied with the facts about the War: Uncle Joseph, Schmuel and Rae's other brother, fled to the USSR ahead of the Nazi invasion, and so there was some family there, and Isak was in touch with them.

He did not answer my questions about Auschwitz, his mother, his sister - even the simplest questions on the subject received no response.

Receiving little of what I was looking for, I was glad of the information I received, but gradually gave up on getting anything useful - by my own standards - from Isak Hakel.

Then my father came along. Eager to connect with me, he went to great lengths for obtain copies of old family photos that still remained with his sister in Johannesburg - having numerous albums scanned, page by page and picture by picture. He brushed up on his Yiddish and wrote to Isak Hakel, a cousin whose existence he had been completely unaware of.

So there we were - an elderly man in Israel, a computer programmer in California, an amateur genealogist in Seattle, communicating with pictures and intermediaries and, on one occasion that thrilled Isak, Google Translator.  We were a family, albeit with none of the shared memories that generally helps define the relationships. Instead, we had a tremendously sad shared loss - a searing pain that can still be felt across the generations.

But Isak was the only one with any true knowledge of what actually happened in 1941 and 1942, and it did not matter what language he was asked in, he simply did not care to discuss it. Instead, he filled my inbox with links to funny Hanukkah videos on Youtube. He sent photos of him and his wife, enjoying some ice cream in the sun.

He looked happy and healthy, which I found extraordinary given the incredible tragedies that define his childhood, the unspeakable loss he experienced and I imagined him carrying with him: an unbearable great weight. I do not know what his memories were or how he bore them; what was fascinating history and a subject of great interest to me was just that: his private memories of his family and his own childhood. It was none of my business, although he did not say so.

Isak Hakel.

I tried to learn about my family and my history and what I learned was this: You can choose to be happy and enjoy your life, no matter where you start from or where life takes you.

The stream of email forwards from Isak Hakel stopped abruptly in May, and I got a bad feeling. I emailed and received no reply. I emailed his wife's cousin and learned he had died, age 80.

When someone dies, there will always be something we wish we had said or done - something more, whatever that something is. I don't know what else it was I wanted to do for Isak Hakel, as I was only just beginning to understand who and what he was - and then he was no more. He did not give me what I wanted; instead he gave me something far greater. And yet, I never met the man.

When you least expect it: Birthday surprises

My father reads my blog, so he knows a lot about me, including the fact that the birthday gift he sent last week is still in its gift wrapping. My birthday wasn't for another week anyway, so of course there's always a chance I might unwrap it on the big day, although it's likely that I won't, because really, why tamper with perfection?

Well, that clearly didn't suit him, because on Thursday evening another package arrived, bearing a bold message on the box:

Well, I am nothing if not a well-behaved daughter, so I sat down on the floor next to the front door and complied.

There were several gifts inside the box, all neatly wrapped in fun birthday papers, along with a girly pink envelope with my name on it.

My daughter immediately set about helping me decide which one to open first, based on her vast experience determining the contents of still-wrapped Christmas gifts.

"This one is a book. You can tell because of the loops on the side. This one" - holding up a heavy box - "is a craft kit. You can tell because it's heavy. And this one" - holding up two rectangular boxes tied together with ribbon - "is jewelry, because it's small and not heavy."

"Also, the big box and the little boxes go together, because big gifts always go with small gifts. They're accessories."

Ok, so what I have here is: a spiral bound book, possibly a cookbook; a kit to make my own gummy bears (because he knows I like to cook and everyone knows I love gummy bears), perhaps; and finally, individually wrapped, kitchen-utensil-shaped earrings.

Armed with this knowledge, I begin to open, while my daughter watches, and pops bubble wrap.

She's absolutely correct about the first thing:

I'll explore it more later, obviously.

Next up: gummy bears. I begin to open the wrap.

Coolness - they're apple flavored. There's a picture of an apple on the side of the box.

Wait a minute. This is not a kit to make my own apple-flavored gummy bears.

This is an iPad.

I gasp with the excitement of a small girl who's just gotten that Barbie Dream House she's always wanted.

My husband and daughter gasp with acute cases of gadget envy.

I clutch my iPad protectively and move on to the two boxes tied together, presumably some sort of iPad accessory.

Apparently, the knives are symbolic: every father should give his child their first pocket knife. I've never had a pocket knife or a father to give me one so the knife doubly meaningful for me.

I immediately put them to good use,  defending my iPad from gadget-coveting family members.

I briefly consider ordering a pink plastic iPad case to symbolically represent the Barbie Dream House - but the Dream House never really worked, and I don't want to jinx it, so I chose an apple-green case instead. I've already written my first blog post on it (this one) and downloaded my first e-book (Halloween is coming, so I went with Unicorns vs. Zombies, obviously).
Now, back to my regularly scheduled procrastinating.

When you least expect it: Birthday Wishes

My birthday is coming up, and for many years, it brought with it a sense of excitement. The crisp smell of autumn leaves, one of my grandma's angel food cakes, and birthday surprises. Presents!

I still remember some of the birthday gifts that excited me most: Once, my grandparents sent me a five-dollar bill in my card, which I used to buy a six-pack of soda, because my mother only rarely let me have soda, and certainly never bought it in glorious six-packs. When I was ten, my aunt gave me the soundtrack to Grease. I still have that double-record set in my garage. And so on.

I also remember the things I didn't get - most importantly, a Barbie Dream House - you know the one, with the elevator that you could put Barbie on and then turn a hand crank to take her to the top floor. I didn't have Barbie dolls because my mother thought that Barbie symbolized the kind of materialistic, superficial woman that she didn't want me to be when I grew up*. I wanted one in the worst way, and for the longest time, but I never got it.

As an adult, I tried to compensate for this grave shortcoming by buying my own daughter Barbie dolls, but oddly, as an adult, they seemed a little less enticing and a little more - well, crappy. The Dream House no longer has an elevator and it's made, inevitably, entirely of pink plastic. Emma was decidedly uninterested so instead I overcompensated by buying her American Girl stuff, dignifying each purchase by reminding myself that, after all, they're "educational.*"

There was something else I always wanted, but never really admitted to myself that I did: A birthday card from my father. Or maybe a phone call. I don't think I even allowed my subconscious to hope for as much as a gift - although one year, about 15 years ago, I found a note on my door from UPS that they were attempting to deliver a package that required a signature, and the ZIP code was from the Los Angeles area, his last known place of residence. Every day for a week I raced home from work to try to catch the UPS man, and after a few days of missing him and coming home only to Attempted Delivery Notices, my anxiety reached a fever pitch. I called a friend and cried. And she told me that the package was from her: She had sent me a gourmet chocolate pizza, and there she was apologizing for upsetting me so much with this very expensive and thoughtful gift.

I wish I could tell you it was delicious, but that's not the part I remember.

This year is different. One of the emails my father sent me included a copy of his US Social Security card, issued shortly after my birth, with my full name and birthday written in the margin. I wasn't sure he even knew what my birthday was, but he did, and I asked him for the thing I wanted: Please remember my birthday.

I want a card, from my father, on my birthday.

He has mentioned a couple of times that, having missed 40 birthdays of mine, he has a lot of catching up to do, and at first I got excited about this: I'm getting presents! Maybe I'll get an iPad! or a car in the driveway with a big red bow like in the movies! Or ... or ...

So this week, a box showed up on my doorstep, with a gift inside, neatly wrapped by the nice people at Amazon, with a card. I put it on the table and looked at it. I put it on my desk and looked at it. Emma asked if we could open it; I said No.

A bouquet of flowers arrived a couple of days later from my father, and I put leaned the still-wrapped gift against it, like part of the display.

When you've wished and hoped for something your whole life, and then it actually arrives, the thing itself can easily be a disappointment - like Barbie's dream house, whose elevator (according to my friends who had one) didn't really work and which obviously hasn't improved over time. And since I don't want to be disappointed, I don't want to open the box.

I got the thing I always wanted, and here it is: A box, neatly wrapped, with a card on it that reads "Happy Birthday Jessica." 


*Sorry, Mom.
*They come with books that she doesn't read, because they're boring.

When you least expect it: Nine pictures

My parents split up when I was about a year old. I don't remember anything about it, obviously. My earliest memory involving my father comes when I was about three: my mother and I were living with my grandparents in Wisconsin, and a Christmas card came back, "Moved, No Forwarding Address." I remember a bit of excitement in the house - and that's it.

My father was a blank space in my life.  Of course, I heard all about him from my mother over the years: He was stupid, he couldn't do anything right, he didn't support his family, and he had ugly knees*, which I apparently inherited, or so I was told when I eventually grew up into a mini-skirt wearing teenage girl.

I kept a picture of him up in my room, all those years (forty-one, to be precise) - it has a small hole in the top border from the pushpin I used to attach it to my bulletin board. Here it is:

I often looked at the picture and wondered - in particular, I wondered why I bothered to keep it up. Having a picture of a father isn't the same thing as having a father. But I didn't really want a father. At least, I did not want the kind of father that had been described to me. Still, I looked at the picture and burned the image into my brain. I counted the number of pictures I had of him: nine. Those were the facts that I had that I used to fill the blank space.

Over the years, I got to know my cousins on his side of the family, and I sort of gathered that although his sister was in touch with him to some degree, I had been soundly rejected: No communication was forthcoming. There were lots of possible reasons for this, and none of them good.

I developed my official story: My parents split for some reason, my father disappeared, and although I could look him up and find him if I wanted to, I have chosen not to, because he's clearly trouble and why would I knowingly go seek out trouble? My life is fine the way it is.

So, when he returned into my life a few months ago, I took a very academic approach. Having dealt with my feelings years ago - therapy is a gift you give yourself - I could be emotionally detached and simply deal with the facts: What are they?  How do I analyze them and fit them together with the existing facts, as I understand them?

I asked a lot of basic questions at first: Why did you leave? What was the deal with that Christmas card? I was an objective reader of the answers, which oddly enough were consistent - factually - with what I already knew. We traded a lot of emails at first, and sometimes I would ask a question, and he would respond with a rather detailed narrative that lined up perfectly with something else I had been told - but had not yet inquired about or even mentioned to him.

Where the narrative differed was not in substance, but in tone: The stories were not told, by him, defensively or angrily. There was no blame or finger-pointing. I asked for facts and got them - sometimes sadly, and sometimes with great remorse. But for the most part, I felt I was receiving the truth, plainly stated.

Gradually, I moved over to skype, and we had a couple of conversations that way, using webcams (when I could get mine working)** so I could hear the inflections of his voice as he told me things, see the facial expressions and the body language. There were very emotional moments, but actually those were relatively few. What struck me more were very curious moments, like when my husband sat down to introduce himself and, on mentioning he was just back from the store, was asked by my father, "What did you buy me?"

Wait a minute. That's my line.

Or then there was the moment when my father noticed I was drinking from a bottle of Perrier, and held up an identical bottle of Perrier - and then we both launched into the same lecture about why we drink it (because the artificial sweeteners in diet soda will kill you).

Or I could tell you about the time he quoted TS Eliot from memory (I adore Eliot and read The Waste Land to calm myself when I was in labor with my daughter).

He lives outside Los Angeles, and since we were in San Diego last month to visit my in-laws, I was comfortable enough with the situation that I suggested we get together, and invited myself over to his house. We talked a lot, and talked some more, and then he went off to learn about fairy houses from my daughter (there are several good locations at his house, apparently).

I took the opportunity to talk with his wife, a very nice lady who owns as many - possibly more - cookbooks as I do, and she mentioned the baby pictures I had scanned and sent to my father. All those years, I'd had nine pictures, but he'd had none. She was amazed to see these, and observed, "You can just see the love."

I knew at that moment why I'd hung that picture on my bulletin board when I was a child, and why I stuck it in a locket when I was in my teens.

It showed me what I somehow knew, but what nobody around could - or would - tell me: My father did love me.



*Since I know my father reads this blog: sorry to have to tell you this painful truth. I recommend you stop wearing mini-skirts, immediately.
**I just don't understand all these newfangled contraptions, whippersnapper. Get out of my petunias!

When You Least Expect It: Father's Day Edition

Today, I wished my father a Happy Father's Day.

You probably did too.

Or maybe you sent your father a card. I might have sent a card, too, except Hallmark doesn't actually make a card that expresses just the right sentiment for me. In fairness to Hallmark, I didn't actually look; rather, I made an assumption that they don't make a card that says, "Happy Father's Day, it's kind of fun getting to know you after four decades." 

I sent my father an email, because, not having much practice with it, I pretty much suck at Father's Day. I knew enough not to get a tie, but since I live in the Pacific Northwest, where a typical male fashion statement involves socks worn with Birkenstocks*, ties aren't really part of the whole gift-giving culture. Although I might possibly have missed the tie counter at REI - which, as a purveyor of things like tents and backpacks, terrifies me.

When I was in elementary school, the other kids all made Father's Day gifts and cards. I know this because I could hear them whisper about it as the teacher sent me to another classroom to be a "helper" or some equally flimsy pretext. I could sense somehow that they were hiding their handmade cards in their backpacks like they had been told to do by the teacher, so that I wouldn't know and feel left out.

Also, my best friend told me this right after school.

My mother once tried to persuade me that as she was a single parent, she was both parents to me, and thus I should buy her a Father's Day gift. I admit there's a certain logic to it, but since it a) wasn't my own idea and b) struck me as vaguely mercenary, I declined. 

I wished my ex-husband a Happy Father's Day once, on behalf of our daughter, who was just a few months old at the time. I bought him a gift and took him out for brunch and within a year, we were talking only through our attorneys. I'm not sure the events are connected, but I'm also not sure they aren't: Being Dutch, he was endlessly baffled by and somewhat fearful of American holidays**.

Mostly, I have just ignored Father's Day, like I ignore Administrative Professionals Day and Left-Handers Day and International Tuba Day*** and a whole host of other holidays that, for one reason or another, simply Do Not Apply.

But today, I got to wish my own father a Happy Father's Day, my own way: An awkward but heartfelt message.

Maybe next year, I'll work my way up to a handmade card.


*hemp necklace optional.
**Halloween in particular scared the crap out of him: "Why do people dress their children up like zoo animals and send them begging for candy?"
***May 3. Look it up.