Family History by Sid

       Earlier this month we ventured north to Philadelphia to visit our kids and some friends. It was close to a year since we moved to Florida and Covid-19 made it impossible to get together any earlier. In addition to spending time with family and friends we also attended to some important family business. We had an unveiling for Arlene’s mother, Gertrude Carlton. We helped my cousin Judy clean out our Aunt Ruth’s apartment. It was the first opportunity to get into her apartment since her death in March. Memories were triggered while dealing with these affairs and I realized that whenever I search through the names on my family tree I often remember charming and humorous stories of those who have passed on. Here are some of my favorites.        My Aunt Rose Kremer nee Boxinbaum was my mother’s sister and a devout Cokaholic. She probably drank 4 cans of Coca Cola a day. In 1985 the Coca Cola Company changed the 90 year old formula f...

        There is a sad truth to the family histories of most Ashkenazi Jews. One or more ancestors perished in the Holocaust. Any family tree that has multiple people dying in the late 1930’s and early 1940’s in countries like Poland, Germany, Lithuania, and Hungary reflects the tragedy of man’s inhumanity to man. My family tree is no exception.        My father’s mother came from Eishoshok, a town in Lithuania about 45 miles south of Vilna. Eishoshok was a center of Jewish learning and many yeshivot were located there. In September of 1941 the Nazis arrived and massacred 4000 Jews and among them, several of my relatives. Some people escaped. Leon Kahn, my grandmother’s first cousin was a witness to the murders and stole away from Eishoshok with members of his family. He was the only one who survived. His experiences are chronicled in the book “No Time to Mourn.” There are pictures of some of my family members that wer...