In last week’s post, I revealed how my recent TIGER 21 annual PD (“Portfolio Defense”) enlightened me, affirming my decision to help out our kids in their early career years. Today, I am sharing another heartfelt revelation from my PD. In telling the Marvin Blum story, I wound the clock back to tell of my ancestry, and how my four grandparents barely escaped death in the Holocaust. Some of our family were trapped behind and killed by Hitler, along with two-thirds of Europe’s Jews (including killing 90% of Poland’s Jews, where my ancestors lived). Our heritage of survival has always embued me with faith, strength, and resilience. I’m especially mindful of this heritage in the month of May, which is Jewish American Heritage Month.
I told this story with a pictorial collage, as pictures tell 1,000 words or more. In studying our early family photos, the lower right picture got the biggest reaction from my TIGER group. It’s a photo of our oldest grandchild Stella in the loving arms of “Unkie,” a great uncle Holocaust survivor. In holding Stella, Unkie declared: “This baby proves that WE BEAT HITLER!”
On the family tree starting with my grandparents, Stella is the first member of generation five. That rung on the ladder will one day have some 100 descendants on it. But Stella will always be the first. Stella, now 13, wears that responsibility beautifully. Her caring and giving heart shines through in her faith and her dedication to our worldwide family. Indeed, Stella’s existence proves that Hitler failed in his effort to murder every Jew in the world.
In telling our daughter Lizzy about the ancestry portion of my PD, she affirmed that we are who we are because of those who came before us. We are links in an unbroken chain, each of us a descendant and an ancestor. Lizzy added an exclamation point by quoting from that week’s Shabbat sermon by her Rabbi Benjamin Goldschmidt: “If you really want to know someone, ask about their Alter, Alter, Zaidy” (Yiddish for great-great grandfather).
In response, I shared a story about my “Alter Alter Zaidy” Meir Polchovitz. Seeking a husband for his daughter Chaya Sarah, Meir went to the rabbinic school in Grodno (then in Czarist Russia, now in Poland) and asked for the most learned student there. The Rosh Yeshiva (“Head of School”) identified Elchonon Oberstein. Meir, a wealthy man, promised lifelong support so Elchonon could engage in a life of Torah study. Meir’s priority was for a learned man, not a man of material riches. That commitment to learning has always been a significant part of our family heritage and informs much of my own upbringing. I added, “Lizzy, that’s why I told you to marry Ira” (which is actually true). Evidently, I share my Alter Alter Zaidy’s values for a scholarly man of good character.
(As an aside, the story didn’t turn out as Meir promised. Persecution against Jews caused Meir to lose his wealth, and Elchonon’s life was much more of a struggle. But he still held fast to his religious observance and values.)
Fast forward about 100 years from Meir Polchovitz’s quest for a learned groom. Ira and Lizzy were a young married couple in Philadelphia, Ira in medical school and Lizzy getting a masters at Penn. Laurie and I were visiting and joined Lizzy on an errand to deliver dessert for that night’s Shabbat dinner at a friend’s home. (We had to deliver it in the daytime, because the rules of Shabbat prevented carrying anything when they walked there after sundown.) I met Lizzy’s friend. His name? Baruch Pelkovitz. Wait—that last name is remarkably similar to Polchovitz. I called my uncle (whose name also happens to be Elchonon Oberstein, after his grandfather), and in no time we figured out that young Baruch Pelkovitz is a long, lost cousin. Families became dispersed during the Holocaust and now we’d miraculously reconnected. Ancestor connection is a powerful force, aided along this time by what I suppose is the Almighty’s version of Ancestry.com.
Marvin E. Blum
A slide from Marvin Blum’s TIGER 21 Portfolio Defense tells the powerful story of his ancestors’ escape from the Holocaust.
Marvin and Laurie Blum with granddaughter Stella at her Bat Mitzvah. Stella’s birth as the first member of generation five proves that “WE BEAT HITLER!”