Roswitha had come up with the idea of going to the place where Ashkenaz comes from. Hey, why not? How hard could it be...?

Louis (or Luis on his passport) Ashkenazi emigrated from near Brest, Russia (once Lithuania, sometimes Russia, sometimes Poland, now Belarus) around 1908 - we have not yet found the exact document. Roy Ashkenaz, Scott's cousin, had done some research a few years ago, and come up with some details, and an indication that he had come from Kamenets. In the 1960s, a remembrance (Yizkor) book had been done about Kamenets (as well as many other small towns). This was compiled by people who had left the town, or had survived the atrocities of World War II, and was in Yiddish, Hebrew, and (some translated) English. With Roy's pointers, I found much of this book on the internet (and will post links here as a resource to others). It turned out that another cousin, Roberta Rogerson, also had a copy of parts of this book as well. So, I started to figure out where Kamenets (or Kamenets-Litovsk) is. With some digging, I found four candidates with similar spelling (Kamjenec) or pronunciation. Two are in the Ukraine, one is just Southeast of Brest, Belarus, and the last, and most likely candidate is about 40 km (~30 miles) NNW of Brest. Discussions with Roy strongly ruled out Ukranian towns. From the Yizkor book, the key landmark was the white tower, of which I could only find a poor-quality image.

OK, so how does one get into Belarus? Some more research showed that Belarus is the most old-Soviet-like of the former Soviet-like republics, and is rather restrictive. It does not have good relations with the US (or many other countries - it was rumored that Saddam might have taken refuge there). Lonely Planet suggested that the best consulate for getting the required visas (for both me and Roswitha under her Austrian citizenship) is the one in Warsaw, which is just not busy. So, we decided to risk it, and leave it for when we hit Warsaw.

Talking to several people, including a Russian friend who is in the travel business, Belarus is like the wild West. It is dangerous, with bandits on the roads who would just stop a car, steal everything, and leave you stranded, or worse. Before getting to Poland, we saw no information which would dispute that, only some to reinforce it. We were concerned about taking Waldo there, and began looking into trains, and trying to decide where to stay. I contacted numerous Belarus-based travel agents, and only got a reply from one, saying that, yes, they could help. However, they never actually did - I did not hear from them again.

So, we arrived in Warsaw, and Roswitha suggested that we figure out where we'd be going the next day. The address for the Embassy turned out to not be the right place - it seemed to be the ambassador's residence or something. Roswitha rang the bell, and after some friendly (bela)russian language confusion (which may have involved the chauffeur and the ambassador), we got directions to the right place.

 

As we described on the Poland part, we got the visas with little trouble. We also got enough assurances about its safety to decide to drive - this was much easier logistically.

So, we found ourselves at the border, in the middle of a circus. Traffic was not moving, people were standing next to their cars (it was hot), others were walking past trying to sell us stuff, and still others were looking for rides. This crossing is just for cars, not for pedestrians, and it seemed common for walkers to get a ride across in cars, likely for some fee. Of course, we were having none of this. We did know that there is a reputation for stolen cars to be smuggled into Russia, so there would likely be attention on this. Suddenly, a real uniformed border guard (unlike the fake-uniformed guy who had tried to sell us environmental coupons, saying that we needed them to get across) waved us out of line, and up to a booth. He examined our passports, gave them to someone else, and pointed for us to go park next to a building. At least it was in the shade, and was forward (we thought). We had lost track of the guy with the passports, so Roswitha went off to hunt him down while Scott guarded the car (and got admonished for shooting pictures). We had no idea of the process, or what was to happen next. Roswitha spent a lot of time chasing the next step. All the while, people were clamoring for attention from the few officials; it was not clear who did what, or what was needed. Every once in a while, someone would point us to the place that we needed to be. We saw little "presents" given to some officials, and there was an office which was clearly the party place, where bottles were sampled and distributed, and there was much laughter. Eventually, after we showed the "car passport" (registration and letter of authorization to use it), we got all of our stamps 3.5 hours later. And, we were off...

   

 

 

...Or so we thought. We had not paid anything (we expected to pay about $20), but our set of stamps got us through the gate. We were clear! Oh, what's this down the road? Another guard and set of trailers? We now had to get the form scrutinized, show that we had car insurance, and that we had health insurance. They did not accept what we had for health insurance, so they required us to buy some. For two Euros (about $2.50). Fine. And we were in!

 

We did not have a good map of Brest, but, with the little information we had, we made our way to the Westa hotel, one of the best in town, according to Lonely Planet. With some difficulty, and in German, we found that they had a room which looked like a 4-room apartment, but it was well within our budget.

   

   

   

 

Hungry, we went to nearby Lenin Square to look for a bank to change money, and for a restaurant. A statue of Lenin himself stands high over the West side of the square, pointing, it seems, at a catholic church. Belarus has its own language similar to Russian, but we could speak or read neither. We stumbled across a free internet cafe; students there directed us to the bank, which was not obvious from the outside. In fact, it was not obvious from the inside either. With a little deduction, we determined that it was on the second floor (third, American counting), and changed money without raising too much suspicion, although the security guy looked at us funny. Well, at least he woke up.

 

   

 

We went into a likely-looking place for a restaurant, and hoped to muddle our way through. We were unable to communicate anything, and the waiter showed no interest in trying to work with us. In most places when we've had similar trouble, the waiter has realized, "Hey! This is a restaurant, these people came in; they probably want to eat. But, they are illiterate idiots, so I will guide them to something edible." But, not here. We finally resorted to plan C - pointing randomly at the menu. We could not tell if we were ordering meat, fish, or laundry detergent, and the waiter did not react at all, except to accept these items. We waited with hungry anticipation. First, he brought out Roswitha's - a small bowl filled with some brown-gray thick sauce. Hmmm...tastes like mushrooms...cream...herbs. This is probably mushroom gravy. Then, Scott's came - some sort of meat thing, with potatoes and a little salad. Of course, we shared both, but we still not exactly sure what we had. Roswitha decided to get a pastry from a street vendor.

 

   

   

The train station was supposed to have an information office, but we could not find one. One office pointed us to another. A gentleman recognized that we were lost, so he took us to the info office, which immediately denied that it was an info office. We eventually gave up and walked back to our hotel.

Idiots abroad.

 

   

   

   

 

On the Southwest edge of Brest is a large fortress with a long heroic history. Something about old strategic placement, and then holding out against the Nazis during WWII while the Russians held back support. A treaty was signed here. It was mostly levelled, and was a little ambiguous on the map. So, we parked and walked across the bridge, in the direction where we had seen people swimming. In fact, quite a few people were off in that direction, so it seemed that we were going OK. Until we found ourselves in a swamp. Hmmm...maybe we should not have crossed the bridge. This path along the river should be a shortcut. Of course, it might also have more mosquitoes. We eventually found the place, and it had been iconized; there are numerous huge Soviet-era statues and monuments scattered around, including a star at the entrance - one you walk through. The fortress itself is not that impressive, but, man, the monuments! There is an old church in the center which looked like it was being restored. Since it was hot, and the mosquitoes were starting to hit bottom on our blood supply, we decided to head on to check out one of the Kamenets candidates just outside of town.

 

   
 

   

   

   

 

   

 

 

We had gotten a pretty good map in Poland. It showed not only Kamjanec to the Southeast of Brest, but even showed individual houses. Still, roads were unnamed and unmarked, so we were not sure where to turn. The GPS did come in handy to guide us, and we eventually found what were were pretty sure was the town. This was after we had gotten lost in a new residential area and almost stuck in a sand pit. This Kamjanec was still a small agricultural town, and we found no sign of a White Tower. We did get lots of attention, however, as we drove back and forth through the same streets several times. We were pretty sure that this was not the place, so we headed back into town.

 

 
 
 

Scott had contacted Intourist originally, so we decided to stop by the Intourist hotel to see if anyone was in the travel office. Of course, they were not, but we noted the hours for the next day. The hotel stands right next to the main Russian Orthodox cathedral, so we decided to go take a look. As we wandered around - it was near sunset - a grizzled old guy, the grounds keeper, it seemed, came over and tried to talk with us. We found German to be common, although his seemed rusty and was a little hard to understand. He explained that he had been to Germany during the war, although the circumstances were a little unclear. He wanted to take us on a tour, but we eventually declined. In retrospect, I wish that we had taken him up on it. We drove into town to hunt up another church we had seen, and shot some pictures at sunset.

     

   

We ended the evening at a random restaurant which seemed to have activity. Once again, German worked, and this time the waitress was very helpful in helping us to get a balanced meal. We had a salad (mayonnaise was looking like it was pretty much a theme), a breaded cutlet (Wienerschnitzel!), and a fried fish. What a day.

 

   

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Kamenets, Belarus    

After breakfast at the Westa, we dropped into the Intourist office. There we met Nina Marchenko, and asked her about the best way to get to Kamenets, and if there was a White Tower. She said that there was, and that she had taken people on roots tours; she was available in the afternoon if we wanted. Based on our experience of the prior day, we went ahead and arranged it with her. In the meantime, we tried to find postcards and a map, and eat lunch. We found neither a map nor postcards - in fact, we were barely able to communicate the concept. Lunch at a snack bar was a little more successful, although not very balanced.

   

 

 

   

Since we had a car, and Nina did not drive, she rode in our van with us. We headed North out of Brest by a path we were unlikely to have found on our own. Along the way to Kamenets (Kamenets and Kamenuki mean Stone Land), she told us stories about the history of the area, cleared up many of our confusions (including the first restaurant we had visited, which she told us was an Italian restaurant), and the Jewish remembrances visits she has guided. It turned out that she also had a copy of the Antopol Yizkor book, and allowed us to copy it. We stopped in a grocery store in Kamenets to get a loaf of bread for the oryx (European Bison) that we would see in the Belavezhskaja Pushcha forest. Since Scott's great⁵-grandfather was a miller, and his sons were bakers, this seemed like an action with an echo, even if it was just an average grocery.

 

   

 
 

   
   

Brest was first mentioned in 11th century as a trading center, and is older than Moscow. It became Lithuanian in 14th century. In the 16th century it became Polish through the marriage of Prince Yakido (?) of Lithuania (70) and Princess Yotwiga (?) of Poland (16), a political alliance. During the 18th century it was divided between Russia, Poland and Prussia. In the 19th century the city was moved by 3 km, creating two Brests (!) and so they decided to rename them by adding a word to each. Brest-Litovsk means Lithuanian Brest. In 1914 Brest-Litovsk was occupied by German troops, and then came the revolution. In 1918 a treaty was signed in the Brest Castle Ruins, surrendering to Russia; Trotsky had to sign it, but didn't want to. The Russian ambassador eventually did. Soviet Russia and Poland signed a treaty in Riga in 1921 giving it to Poland, so Brest was Polish for a while. Soviet Russia occupied Brest in 1941. In 1944 Germans took it over and many Jews and others were killed at that time. After the war, it was again under Soviet Russia. Thus, many changes that took place in Russia after the revolution (WWI), were implemented in Brest after 1944. (e.g. churches in larger towns were closed, but many churches in smaller villages were never touched.) After the breakup of the Soviet Union, Belarus (White Russia) was formed, with the capitol in Minsk. Some significant people in Israeli history also came from the region before, during, and after the war, including Weissman, Begin, and Golda Meier. Because of the changes in territory and administrative history, the region around Brest is somewhat different from that of the rest of Belarus. As a result, there is a attitude difference between West and East. During Soviet Russia, Brest area was never communist enough, now it is supposed to be coping with changes faster. Generally they are considered too Western.

During WWII, in general, the forested areas had the potential to house partisans, so all villages close to forests were targeted, and thousands of people, Jews, Christians, Orthodox were rounded up and killed en masse. Nina told us stories about some of the events and people in the area. Two small girls (at the time 5 and 10) were saved and hidden by locals, left, went to US, and came back to meet the people who saved them after the borders opened; she interviewed them in their 90s. Others were drafted to the red army and everyone thought they would never be seen again. When they returned after the war, they found out they were the only ones who survived (all relatives and whole villages were killed). There have been numerous gatherings to remember the events and individuals. One recent (2001) one which Nina had attended was Ia Memorial in 'Bronayagaya'(sp?) where a Ghetto was liquidated; 50K Jews lived there and 35K were killed.

The white tower, 30 m high, and 13.6 m in diameter, (at N 52° 24.191' E 23° 49.223' 110 m elevation) was one of the first buildings built in Kamenets, built in 1276 by Teutonic Knights as a defensive/observation post along the road between Moscow and Krakow. Many meetings were held in castle in Kamenets. The river, which is below and to the North of the tower used to be much bigger; ships regularly came by. The tower has a small defensive moat which could be quickly flooded in case of attack. The white tower is red, but it is named white because it means free since it was never captured and never occupied. When the capital of Poland moved from Krakow to Warsaw, it lost importance. However, it is remembered as a key landmark of Kamenets, and of significance to Jewish remembrance because it towered above the Jewish section. Nina believes that the houses below it in the old riverbed are in the location of the Jewish section.

 

     

   

   
 

   
 

 

In 1913, 300 churches were built around Russia to celebrate 300 years of Romanoff rule. One of these was in Kamenets. It was used continuously through the communist and Soviet era, and is still providing service.

   
   

We continued Northward to the Belavezhskaja forest, considered to be the last wild forest in Europe. It spans two countries (Poland and Belarus - and is heavily guarded as a result), and is the home of the last remaining wild European Bison (or oryx). Over the centuries, Polish and Lithuanian Kings and Princes hunted there. Although it is a wild park, Kruschev built a hunting lodge in the park. Bresznjev also liked to hunt, but Gorbachev didn't, so in 1982 Gorbachev signed a treaty making the park public. The 1991 creation of the CIS was signed here. In 1990 the Belarus president (who loves to hunt) made it his Summer residence, and now no one is allowed to get close to the residence. There are a couple of small towns (which primarily provide collective farming for winter feed for the animals), an administrative center, and a small museum packed with dusty stuffed animals of the region, and a zoo with large enclosures housing a few live ones. There are deer, a lonely, widowed female moose (who has rejected the candidate they introduced), and several large, friendly (and hungry) oryx. It was the oryx who got (and fought over) the Kamenets bread.

 
                             

   

           

       

   

On the way back to Brest, we stopped in a small town with 15th century wood (Russian orthodox) and stone (Catholic) churches. We also visited a Jewish memorial in Brest, and saw the movie theater which has been built around and using the synagogue. Nina pointed out the layout of the old Jewish ghetto, which covered a surprisingly large area in the center of the city.

     

 
   

As a final act, Nina showed us a traditional-style restaurant (in a fancy setting) which she suggested for dinner. They have odd tools on the wall, and she made us guess what one of them did. She helped to arrange the menu, and set up the reservation. Once we got there, it turned out that they did, indeed, have a foreign-language menu (German, again), so we were able to order from that.

   

   

   

     

 

Thanks, Nina, for a wonderful tour and conversation!

 

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Antopol, Belarus    

The next day, we drove East to the town of Antopol, where Scott's aunt's father comes from, with the goal of finding the synagogue, which he had helped to paint. We had a copy of Nina's Antopol Yizkor book as a guide, which turned out to be sufficiently vague to confuse us completely. It had maps of pre-war Antopol drawn from memory, with illegible labels of specific locations, so we were not exactly sure what we were looking for. It also had photos and sketches of the synagogue and other buildings. After driving around and guessing about the town layout and trying to match patterns on buildings with the pictures, we decided to ask for help. We stopped by a bored-looking policeman, and tried to convey the concept of what we we looking for. Eventually, he got the concept of the word Synagoga, but did not know about it. He took the page inside, and another policeman came out. They discussed it, and drew in an older woman, who also seemed to have some idea, and motioned that we follow her on foot. A few minutes later, a guy on a bike rode up excitedly, and talked with her and at us. Suddenly, three policemen drove up in a beat-up mini-sized car, and motioned for us to get in. Wondering whether we were being taken somewhere or arrested, we squeezed in, and the car took of like a shot. (OK, a shot with somewhat slow acceleration.) They drove up to a militia building/firehouse, and gestured, "Synagoga." Clearly, it was an old building which had been added to in some places, and sealed off or cut back in others. Some elements were similar, but, overall, it did not seem to match. When we did not demonstrate glee, the policemen drove off (we yelled a hasty "Thank you! after them), and the militia guys pretty much ignored us. We drove around some more, eventually locating (but not initially understanding) the two key locations on the map. We were looking for buildings, but found a cemetery in one, and a field in another. The first graveyard (adjacent to a well-maintained Christian cemetery) was in terrible shape, but we could just make out Hebrew (or Yiddish) writing on some of the stones. We later realized that the other field must have been another Jewish cemetery, yet we were looking at the school buildings next door trying to visualize them as the synagogue.

 

 
 

 

   

 

 

                   

While Scott shot photos of the Russian Orthodox church (and storks - just like in the Yizkor book), Roswitha went to check out the library. It turned out that the librarian, a small, boisterous woman who sounded like Alisa Preil (but in Belarussian) was composing a hand-written history of Antopol, and got the idea of what we were doing. We spoke no common language, but communicated a little. She insisted that the building next door (which we had suspected to be the most likely candidate) was the old synagogue. She also confirmed that the decrepit buildings in the central square were the magasin, or warehouses which were on our map, helping us to calibrate. I wish that we had been able to communicate more precisely, because she seemed to be full of great information. We considered the hunt to be a guarded success.

   

   

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Bribing our way out of Belarus    

Now it was time to cross back into Poland. We found our way back to the border, where there was a line of cars parked (parked!) at the side of the road. We decided to drive straight to the gate, passing them. The guard looked at our papers, asked if we were CD (Corps Diplomatique - diplomats), and told us to get in line behind the parked cars when we said that we were not. A few minutes later, a guy walked up and asked us (in good English) if we wanted to get over the border quickly, since the line we were in had already been waiting many hours, and we probably had 18 hours wait ahead of us. He proposed that he could help us get through more quickly for a fee of only 150 Euros (about $180). I said that we were poor teachers, and had more time than money; he asked for a proposal, stating that we would have to pay an environmental fee of 20 Euros anyway without this. I opened with 30 Euros. We eventually settled on 75, and he hopped in. As we jumped the the front of the line, right behind his colleague's car, Yura explained that he would ride with us through the first checkpost, and we'd get the key piece of paper. Of course, we had no clue whether this was a help, or just a flag to show that we were bribe payers, and that we'd get hauled off for 18 hours of questioning. We did indeed get through the post (the guard who had recently turned us away gave Yura a wink, but seemed disappointed when Yura (probably) told him that he'd only get half of the usual kickback. I did notice that many of the parked cars started moving through behind us (did they get any portion of the bribe as well?), but, still, we were at the front. A runner brought us the piece of paper with the all-important stamp, we paid Yura, and he hopped out.

 

We were now waiting at the next row of cars which seemed to feed into a large processing area. Here, they were rather organized, and seemed to have a reasonable process of entry. Once we got our turn into the covered processing area, Roswitha buttonholed an official to try to worm a stamp out of him. With some work, an official clearly pointed out that 1) That guy would check out the car for Belarussian customs, 2) this one would check our passports for Belarus, 3) that guy seated over there would clear the car for Polish customs, and then, 4) we come back to him for the Polish passport release. Each would give us a stamp in sequence, and we'd be off. It took about 30 minutes, and went smoothly. At every point, we expected one of the officials to say, "Hey! You have an illegal, ill-gotten forged form, and we're going to lock you up until your hair falls out" (which, I suppose, would not be too long for Scott). But, it did not happen, and no more scalping happened. We're still not sure how much time and heartache we actually saved. But, it's a story...

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