Author Archives: Marysia Galbraith

Memory in Fragments: the talk at UA

31 Thursday Dec 2015

Posted by in Brześć Kujawski, Buk, Cemeteries, Family, Heritage work, Israel, Jewish Culture, Lutowiska, Memory, Poland, Polish Culture, Polish-Jewish Heritage, Polish-Jewish relations, Post-World War II, Poznan, Pre-World War II, Research Methodology, Skierniewice, Synagogues, World War II, Wronki, Włocławek

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The lecture I gave at UA September 3, 2015 about my research during my Fulbright Fellowship is now available on vimeo. I’ve never seen myself lecture before. It’s a little unsettling. Still, here it is, flaws and all (for instance I know that Poland entered the European Union in 2004, even though I misspoke here).

I talk a little about the Fulbright Program–the kinds of grants available and some tips for applying.

It’s also a good introduction to my ideas about reassembling Jewish life: the strands that I’m following, what has been lost, what can be recovered, and how memory projects at sites throughout Poland intertwine with my own search for my family history. I hear echoes of some of the scholars I’ve read–Iwona Irwin Zarecka and Marianne Hirsch, as well as my sometime collaborator Malgosia Wosińska. There is no way to bring back what has been lost, but fragments of the past can be reassembled to form a new kind of life that allows for connection with what used to be and what yet might be.

Guide to the United States for the Jewish Immigrant

19 Saturday Dec 2015

Posted by in Archives, Jewish immigrants, Pre-World War II

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Here’s something a friend uncovered: Guide to the United States for the Jewish Immigrant, published in 1916.

Besides providing helpful information about transportation options in the US, the benefits of farming as a profession, and how to become a citizen, it includes legal advice; bigamy, spitting in public, and beating or shaking a rug are illegal. The second of these, spitting, is also disgusting.

It advises, “The Jew, like any other foreigner, is appreciated when he lives the American social life. Until then he counts for nothing.” Though it also urges, “Be proud of your race, your birth and your family, a Jew is all the better an American for being a good Jew.”

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Title page of Guide to the United States for the Jewish Immigrant (1916)

Available at archive.org.

Tracking Down Jewish Radymno

13 Sunday Dec 2015

Posted by in Cemeteries, Jewish Culture, Memory, Polish-Jewish Heritage, Polish-Jewish relations, Post-World War II, Pre-World War II, Radymno, Synagogues, World War II

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Although I knew the former synagogue still stands in Radymno, I had to look several times before I actually found it. I’ve visited for years, and yet my friends never even told me the town had a prewar Jewish population. But until June, I never thought to ask them about it, either.

When I finally did ask, my friend couldn’t tell me much. She repeated a common refrain, especially in southeastern Poland: Jews used to say “nasze kamienicy, wasze ulicy” [“our buildings, your streets”]. It’s not clear that any Jews ever actually said this, but nevertheless, this is often what is remembered about them—Poles may have been the majority but Jews were richer. It’s a telling way of marking the distinction between Poles and Jews. Rather than all residents being regarded as Poles of various religions, Jews remained separate. Moreover Jews are remembered as being complicit in asserting their difference, and indeed their superiority. My friend didn’t mean it this way, but I’ve commonly heard this expression deployed as a justification for why Poles didn’t like Jews. Not only were Jews the property owners, they rubbed it in.

Jewish property ownership poses different challenges today. Some current residents fear prewar owners will return to claim what was theirs. My friend told me about two men who came to Radymno a few years ago and looked at some buildings that had once belonged to Jews. She also described a building in the center of town that is falling apart, but nothing can be done about it. It can’t be torn down because it is a historic structure, but no one will invest in its renovation for fear they will lose possession of it if the owner comes back. She also mentioned another property, a plot of land surrounded by fields whose last owners were Jews. The town hasn’t pursued a clarification of ownership because it isn’t worth enough to hire a lawyer and try and collect the few zloties of tax owed on it each year. So it just stands fallow. I suggested the owner is probably dead. She said of course, it’s been so many years. I clarified there probably aren’t even any descendants, and she responded “of course, because of what happened to Jews.” She didn’t elaborate, nor did she use the words Holocaust, murder, or genocide.

My friend’s mother-in-law had heard her mother’s stories about Jews. She grew up right next door to where they live now. Still, when we asked her about it, she responded she doesn’t know much. She was too young, and her mother didn’t tell her much. She remembers her mother complaining about the sound of the calves at the slaughterhouse across the fields. Kosher law demanded that they be killed with a single knife stroke, and with an empty stomach. Her mother could hear the calves crying in hunger as they awaited slaughter. There still is a slaughterhouse in the same spot, but it has been rebuilt and expanded. At first, my friend’s mother said it used to be owned by Jews, but then she said she wasn’t sure. Jews definitely used it, even if they weren’t the owners.

Her father opened a grocery store in Jarosław, a nearby town. All his neighbors were Jewish shopkeepers. He had to give up the business after a year and a half because they lowered their prices to the point that he could not compete.

Her mother also told her how all the Jews were collected by the Germans and taken to the cemetery where they were shot. She mourned the loss of two young pretty Jewesses, whom she knew because they did seamstress work together.

My friend’s mother-in-law said some Jews and Poles się przyjaźnili [were friendly with each other]. They lived side by side.

She also recalled where the Jewish cemetery was, not far from the water treatment plant.

My friend drove me down a dirt road past the plant, but there was no cemetery. When the road narrowed to two wheel tracks in tall grass, we turned around. My friend pointed to a stand of trees in the distance, saying she thought the cemetery was there. She tried to find someone at the water treatment plant but no one responded. From there, she stopped at a store, but chanced on a man who lives in a nearby city.  The young men working at the car wash knew nothing about the cemetery, either. She finally found an older woman who pointed to a different, less traveled dirt road. We drove up it, but it didn’t get us to that stand of trees. My friend kept looking for a road leading in that direction. I can’t help wondering if maybe at some point in the past she had been told the cemetery was there.

We drove past the slaughterhouse her mother-in-law had mentioned. It’s a big operation, rebuilt and expanded since the war. The building closer to the road, essentially a box shape, is probably the oldest.

From there, we took a back road up the hill into town and I finally got to see the former synagogue. It is now a beverage wholesaler. My friend’s uncle lives next door. I took some photos while she went to ask him if he knew where the cemetery might be.

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The Radymno synagogue now houses a beverage wholesaler.

The front of the synagogue is an imposing two-story square façade that has been renovated, leaving no clear elements of synagogue architecture. From the back, though, the bricked-in semicircular tops of the former synagogue windows are visible. Through windows, you can also see staircases on either side that used to go to the “babiniec,” the upstairs balcony for women. My friend’s uncle used this term when he described it to us, so clearly he knows a bit about the building’s former life as a synagogue. He said nothing has been added to the building. It still has the same footprint, and it stands at its original height. I asked him how he knows, and he simply responded, “after all, I live next door.”

The synagogue from the back
Brick arches used to be the tops of the synagogue windows.

My friend’s uncle also knew how to get to the cemetery. He said he last went there over 30 years ago. As a high school student and a young man, he and his friends used to go there sometimes to have fun (in other words to drink). He remembers some tombstones were still standing, though many others had been brought to the river where people would wash their clothes on them. The writing was still visible on them, but later, the stones fell apart. Today there is nothing left.

Looking back toward Radymno from the cornfield beside the Jewish cemetery
The overgrown site of the Radymno Jewish cemetery.

He took us past the slaughterhouse and up a different dirt road. It petered out in a cornfield, right beside the stand of overgrowth and trees that my friend had kept pointing toward. Still, we couldn’t reach it because of a deep gully that separated it from the cornfield. Besides, the overgrowth would not have been penetrable without proper footwear, pants, and probably a machete. I suggested returning in the winter might be best.

At least I know the site to return to.

Jewish Youth and Identity in Postwar France

30 Monday Nov 2015

Posted by in Family, Identity, Post-World War II

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My cousin’s book was just published by Indiana University Press: Jewish Youth and Identity in Postwar France: Rebuilding Family and Nation.

The book description:

“At the end of World War II, French Jews faced a devastating demographic reality: thousands of orphaned children, large numbers of single-parent households, and families in emotional and financial distress. Daniella Doron suggests that after years of occupation and collaboration, French Jews and non-Jews held contrary opinions about the future of the nation and the institution of the family. At the center of the disagreement was what was to become of the children. Doron traces emerging notions about the postwar family and its role in strengthening Jewish ethnicity and French republicanism in the shadow of Vichy and the Holocaust.”

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Cover of Daniella Doron’s new book Jewish Youth and Identity in Postwar France

The author Daniella Doron and I share great-grandparents; her father’s mother was the sister of my mother’s mother. We started corresponding after I discovered her parents live twenty miles from where I grew up. It’s interesting how our scholarly interests have converged even though our family connection was broken until just a couple of years ago.

Cousins in the Warsaw Ghetto

22 Sunday Nov 2015

Posted by in Bereda, Cemeteries, Jewish Culture, Jewish Ghetto, Kolski, Warsaw, World War II

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My cousin Pini (Pinchas) Doron, reminded me that his grandfather and namesake died in the Warsaw Ghetto. This is the story he sent me this morning:

“The Okopowe Cemetery is the old big cemetery in Warsaw that we visited with the whole family in 1995, including Pnina’s (his wife) parents.

“Her mother used to run from the Ghetto through the cemetery to the fields to bring potatoes to her family when she was 13 years old.

“Amazing stories.

“I have seen in your post the stone sign for the people who died in the Ghetto. As I told you, my grandfather Pinchas Kolski died in the Warsaw Ghetto in 1940 and was buried in a temporary cemetery inside the ghetto. As we know, in 1940 they no longer allowed anyone to bury the dead  in the Okopowa Cemetery outside the Ghetto.

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Mirka and Rachel Kolski at Pinchas Kolski’s grave in the Warsaw Ghetto. He died in 1940.

“We have this picture of Grandmother Rachel Kolski and her daughter Mirka (see the white sleeve with the [Star of David]-I think this was before they introduced the yellow star)?

“Mirka told me that after this visit to the grave, they managed to escape the Ghetto and to meet your step grandfather (that would have been Zygmunt Bereda) who hid them.”

Okopowa: Warsaw’s Jewish Cemetery, All Souls Day 2014

21 Saturday Nov 2015

Posted by in Catholicism, Cemeteries, Family, Jewish Culture, Memory, Warsaw

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November is the month when I think about death the most. It starts with the Catholic holidays All Saints Day (November 1) and All Souls Day (November 2). It’s the month when the leaves fall from the trees and the long nights settle in. But it’s also the anniversary of my more personal encounters with death. My brother Ron’s accident was a few days before Thanksgiving in 1990. Nine years later, on the Friday after Thanksgiving, my dad had his accident while visiting me in my new home in Alabama. Both were injured in a fall. Both were in the hospital for two to three weeks before dying.

I think we all learned how to deal with this kind of loss from the first experience. The first time, no matter how dire the news was from New York, I held on to the certainty that Ron would pull through. I let my mother persuade me that it made no sense to come home right away, when he was still in such bad shape. I should finish the semester in graduate school in San Diego and come home as scheduled on December 11 when Ron would be well enough to appreciate my presence. I think she was trying to protect me from the shock of his injuries. And I believed her because she was my mom, and because it was easier, and because the prospect of him dying was inconceivable. But he didn’t last that long and I never got to see him alive again.

The second time, we knew not to assume anything. We held on to hope until the last moment, but we were more prepared for Dad’s passing. My brother Chris was already there, but my other brother Wiley flew in from California. We all sat vigil, visiting Dad every chance we could get and supporting each other in our grief.

So while I love Thanksgiving, this is also the time of year I think about my brother and my father. And I grieve for them all over again.

Especially after Ron died, I struggled with grief. There didn’t seem to be any way to talk about it or express it publicly. I think this is particularly difficult in California, a place that celebrates life and youth. The cemeteries are hidden from view or turned into parks. That’s why it resonated with me to spend All Saints Day in Poland. During this holiday, families visit their relatives in the cemetery (those who are living and those who are dead). They clean the graves and decorate them with chrysanthemums and candle lanterns. At night, the whole cemetery glows with candlelight, and throngs fill the cemetery pathways. Death isn’t hidden away, and the people you love remain a part of your life even after they die.

Whenever I’m in Warsaw, I make a point of visiting my step-grandfather’s grave in Warsaw’s Powązki Cemetery. I clean the stone, place flowers, and light candles. This is the closest thing to a relative I have in Poland, and one of the only remaining traces of my family’s lives there. Last year was the first time I was able to make it there on All Saints Day. I went with my son, who by now is familiar with the custom of visiting, cleaning, and decorating graves. He likes to watch the candles burn.

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Ian watching the candles at his great grandfather’s grave, Powązki Cemetery in Warsaw, November 1, 2014

The first time I went to Powązki was in 1986, during my first visit to Poland. I spent a couple of days with Marta, a professor of American literature who had worked as my grandmother’s companion back in New York. She took me to my grandfather’s grave. She knew where it was because my grandmother had told her where to find it. She made a point of visiting every time she visited her own relatives in the cemetery, and she kept the grave tidy for Babcia.

I vaguely remember we stopped in at the Jewish cemetery also. But it’s also possible I’m confusing my memories of the large Jewish cemetery in Krakow, or the one in Prague, which was in a more confined space. It’s possible I visited Okopowa, the Jewish cemetery in Warsaw, on a later trip to Poland.

Last August, when I was at Powązki with my brothers, I noticed what looked like a synagogue on the other side of the wall, right there near my grandfather’s grave. Looking at a map, I realized that the Okopowa Jewish Cemetery abuts Powązki (a Catholic cemetery), as does the Evangelical Cemetery. Either I had forgotten this, or simply never knew how close they all were to each other.

On November 2, All Souls Day, I visited Okopowa with my friend Beata. She has lived in Warsaw for close to 20 years, but had never been there before. Beata said she had been wanting to visit the Jewish Cemetery for a long time. We parked in front of her friends’ glass high-rise apartment building right across the street from the entrance.

The regular admission fee was waived for the holiday. A good number of people strolled the alleys. A man in a yarmulke led a tour. Beata, Ian, and I made our way past a reconstruction of the original cemetery gate and a low wall made of the fragments of tombstones. The wall also includes commemorative plaques for Holocaust survivors who emigrated and were buried elsewhere.

The reconstructed gate and wall constructed of fragments of tombstones
“Father, You wanted to, so you symbolically returned to your country.” Alia Skowronek died in the USA

Okopowa remains an active burial ground, and people have continued to be buried there after World War II through to the present. The cemetery shows signs of ongoing attention and care, though broken and overgrown stones fill the vast expanses beyond the main walkways. There are many large tombstones and some family plots, suggesting affluent families. Even older tombstones include Polish as well as Hebrew inscriptions, and some have writing in Polish only. This signals to me a higher degree of assimilation in Warsaw relative to the smaller towns I have visited in central and eastern Poland (Lesko, Żychlin, Lutowiska, Skierniewice, to name a few) where most if not all inscriptions are in Hebrew. It’s different in western Poland, where tombstones were commonly in both Hebrew and German.

Off to one side, I found an area partially filled with older tombstones that have clearly been reset because they are all upright and evenly spaced in rows. These have the larger lettering characteristic of tombstones dating from an earlier period. They fill about 1/3 of the space; the remaining 2/3 are covered in weeds. Along the opposite wall more tombstones are stacked as if they are waiting to be set out in rows. I wonder what is being done here. Might these stones have been recovered from other locations?

Tombstones waiting to be set in rows? Where did they come from?
Older looking graves reset in rows

The cemetery also contains an area filled with symbolic graves for the victims of the Holocaust, and another large round depression marked by a ring of rough stones painted white with a thin black stripe through the middle. This is where victims of the Warsaw Ghetto are buried. Numerous candles were lit on and below the plaque explaining this, as well as on some sand fill that seems to have been recently placed in part of the depression. Some of the candles are in cans with Hebrew writing on the outside. I’m told these are from Israel.

Symbolic graves of Holocaust victims
Candles left on the site where victims of the Warsaw Ghetto are buried
“Here rest the victims of the Warsaw Ghetto 1941-1943” The plaque looks like a tombstone. The top is covered with stones and lighted candles cluster around its base

Several headstones are adorned with white and red ribbons and Polish flags with “PW,” the symbol of the Polish Underground Army. These are soldiers who died during their service in the war, clearly both Jews and Polish patriots. Some resisted the pressures to identify as just one or the other. They were both, despite the antisemitism, despite Hitler.

Blima Mikanowska, AK soldier
Tombstone of Józef Walfisz. A distant ancestor?

I passed the grave of Józef Walfisz, who died 15 Aug 1874 at the age of 13. Walfisz was my great grandmother’s maiden name. Could this be a relative?

We had to leave because a man told us the cemetery closes at 4 PM. I understand why. Dusk was falling and the cemetery has no electric lights. A few candles glowed, but not enough to light the way as in the Catholic cemeteries on All Saint’s Day.

The Okopowa Cemetery evokes the rich life of Jews in Warsaw—it’s a physical reminder of their numbers and their affluence (and their level of assimilation). It also embodies how Jewish life in Poland was cut off, brutally and decidedly. But I also see here evidence of continued care and use, something that is not present in places where no Jews are left to visit their relatives and eventually be buried themselves.

My cousin’s quest

20 Friday Nov 2015

Posted by in Family

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My cousin Krysia has been with me every step of the way as I’ve embarked on this journey to uncover Jewish heritage. We’ve been in dialog with each other the whole time, literally talking for hours, but also thinking and writing on parallel wavelengths. For her what started out as a story about her father (my mother’s brother) turned into a search for our Jewish roots, and then took another turn to her reflections about bearing witness to aging, love, spirituality, and loss in her blog The Quest (follow the link to check it out). And now, I can’t seem to stop writing about my own experiences of mourning. I’m sure it’s partly a response to her reflections.

I’m working right now on a post that was supposed to be about the Okopowa Jewish Cemetery in Warsaw. I get to that eventually, but first I had to write about why I think about death in November.

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Krysia and me in Skierniewice, the birthplace of our great grandfather. April 2013

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Krysia and me in Skierniewice, the birthplace of our great grandfather. April 2013

New York City Marathon

10 Tuesday Nov 2015

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Well, I can’t say Ron was with me as I’d hoped. During some of the more challenging moments, I was able to conjure him up lumbering steadily beside me. But mostly, I felt his absence. Still, I’m grateful that yet again he inspired me to challenge myself. Just like when we were kids. He studied Spanish, so I did too. He wrote a novel, and so did I. I’m glad to remember the things we did together, even though it hurts to know he’s not with me anymore.

Mile Eight in Brooklyn, where Chris, Bessie, and Krystyna cheered me on.

Mile Eight in Brooklyn, where Chris, Bessie, and Krystyna cheered me on.

My remote cheering squad:

More of my cheering squad. Jeremy in Alabama

Jeremy in Alabama

And Mama on Long Island

And Mama on Long Island

Running for Ronnie

31 Saturday Oct 2015

Posted by in Family, Memory

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Ron was my big brother, my role model, and my friend. He was five years older than me—old enough to be the teacher in our imaginary school and the inventor of the neighborhood paper, but close enough in age to get down on the floor and play with me.

Ron during the summer of 1991, the last time I saw him.

Ron during the summer of 1991, the last time I saw him.

We sometimes called him a gentle giant. It wasn’t because of his weight—even though at one point he was well over 250 pounds—but because he was 6’ 4” with broad shoulders like a linebacker. And yet, he was the gentlest soul. After an explosive childhood, he stopped getting angry sometime around age twelve. He had an encyclopedic knowledge of history, music, and movies. He loved watching football on TV but never played any sports himself.

He started jogging before he left home. I can’t remember if he was in high school or already in college. I think he was in college. It was part of his plan for losing weight. At first, he was too shy to run outside so instead, he would jog in place inside the house. Eventually, he became an outdoor runner, and after moving to New York City, he started running in races. He decided that before his 30th birthday, he would run in the New York City Marathon. He didn’t quite make that deadline, but he did run it in 1989 when he was 31. He got in again the next year, but couldn’t participate because of a running injury. A month later, he died in a stupid, freak accident.

Ron's medal for completing the 1989 New York City Marathon.

Ron’s medal for completing the 1989 New York City Marathon.

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Losing Ronnie was and continues to be the most painful experience of my life. It’s when I confronted mortality personally, viscerally, emotionally for the first time. I lost a part of myself. I don’t think you ever get over that kind of grief. You just get used to it. You get used to the fact that the unimaginable has occurred and it can’t be undone.

Ron has remained an important person to me even after his death, and nowhere more so than when I run. I’ve often felt that he’s running there alongside me, a gentle supportive companion. I started doing races myself sometime in my 30s, but had no interest in ever doing a marathon. Until one day about five years ago I had a vision of running with Ron through the streets of New York City. And suddenly it made sense to try and sign up for my first marathon. But getting into the NYC Marathon isn’t easy. Either you have to be faster than I’ll ever be, or raise thousands of dollars for charity, or win an entry in the lottery. After four years of trying through the lottery, I got in in 2014 but had to postpone because of my trip to Poland. So here I am, finally about to run in the New York City Marathon.

I didn’t expect them, but walking from Penn Station to the Javitz Center to pick up my bib number today, there they were. Those raw emotions—love and grief intertwined with the excitement of the upcoming race. And there I was, bawling on 34th Street.

It’s fitting that the marathon is on November 1st this year, All Saints Day. It’s one of my favorite holidays in Poland, the day to remember the spirits of those who have left us. The day to visit the cemetery, clean the graves and decorate them with flowers and candle lanterns. I’m sure the cemeteries are already glowing with candlelight at night. I won’t clean graves or light candles this year. But I will run with my big brother as my companion, together with 50,000 other people, through the streets of New York City.

Two Letters

29 Thursday Oct 2015

Posted by in Bereda, Family

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I recently came across two letters Babcia wrote to Mama, one on August 31, 1945 and the other on February 4, 1958. The letters have some surprising parallels—Babcia’s instructions about proper modes of behavior and attire, and her lack of enthusiasm about my mother’s marriage plans. I’ve been trying to sort out what two letters indicate about the relationship between my mother and grandmother.

When the first letter was written, they were still living in Poland and Papa (Babcia’s second husband) was still alive. The letters are in Polish. Babcia expresses a great deal of affection for Mama; she addresses her “Ukochana Marychno”—Dearest Marysia (she uses a diminutive of Marysia, which is already a diminutive of Maria). She also calls her “coruś,” a diminutive form of “daughter,” and “słotkie dziecko”—“sweet child.”

I’m leaving out the details from the first part of the letter in which Babcia describes returning to Papa (probably after running away, as she was wont to do), Papa’s misbehavior and contrition, and Babcia’s joy at getting news from her sons who are living safely abroad. The second page is most relevant to this post. Babcia writes:

“Papa says that if you decided to marry, which wouldn’t necessarily thrill us, not because of Bimbus (a nickname I don’t recognize, but it probably refers to Mama’s first love Władek) who is a very decent fellow, and that means a lot, but because of your present state of health, so definitely let us know your plans and don’t worry that it will cost us. We want to pay for it. Besides, we never expected you to inform us, so we don’t want to be silly, but we think, without imposing on your views, that you are making too much trouble for each other, marrying, and that’s only worth doing when people love each other horribly. /you know, even then it’s often not worth it.

“I must be some kind of degenerate, because instead of encouraging my daughter to marry, I discourage her. Don’t be mad at me, my dear. I think that more than anything I’m your best friend.”

I can only wonder at the remarkable, long sentences. Though she says she doesn’t want to impose on Mama’s views, clearly she expresses her disapproval of Mama’s desire to marry. But why? Was it really concern for Mama’s health? Earlier in the letter, she refers to Mama’s operation. But even the issue of “health” is ambiguous—could it refer to a physical health issue or a mental health issue? Surgery to repair her war injuries or something else? Or might it rather be a reflection of Babcia’s own ambivalence about marriage generally, shaped by her own trials with Papa and perhaps also Mama’s choice of a partner?

I’m not sure how to read the tone of the letter, either. Is Babcia angry? I think maybe. She seems to be cloaking her efforts to exert an influence on Mama in expressions of affection.

In the letter, Babcia also instructs Mama about what kind of coat she should get. It should be straight and roomy in front and back. She even adds a lengthy handwritten note with further details about its style and price.

The second letter was written over twelve years later, when they lived in New York and Babcia was staying at The Breakers in Palm Beach, Forida. No doubt in response to the news that Mama eloped with my father, Babcia writes, “You leave me speechless, and you know well how agitated I am about your situation […] Please write me about your plans and where you intend to live. Will you live with Wiley or separately?”

Although Babcia addresses Mama as “ukochana Marychno” in this letter, as she did in the previous one, the tone seems harsher and more distant. And she definitely sounds angry. She insists Mama tell her immediately what she wants for a wedding present, and instructs Mama to send out wedding announcements right away (she provides a numbered list of people to contact). “Write to me right away what you plan to do next. Don’t you understand how much I want to be a part of this, at least post factum?” She asks if my Dad has forbidden Mama to communicate with her. “In that case I won’t be mad at you. God be with you.”

So much is left unsaid in this letter. It provides me with more context for understanding my grandmother and father’s dislike of each other, though it doesn’t clarify the root cause. Why does Babcia end the letter abruptly, “I have to run. Warm kisses?” Is this another expression of anger, or perhaps symptomatic of a distance that has grown between my mother and grandmother over a long period of time?

The letters also reflect Babcia’s concern with etiquette–the wedding announcements, the proper cut of a coat. She appreciates a bargain, but also values giving and receiving generous gifts. Paying for things for someone seems like a way of expressing affection.

These are more clues to my mother’s and grandmother’s lives. But they remain fragmentary. Only speculation holds them together.