In pursuit of fame, those who seek it have reasons to justify their efforts: to make an impact, to use their wealth for philanthropy, to have more people learn from their good deeds. Jewish teachings urge humility. When a deserving person is modest, reputation precedes him, and he needs no introduction. If I had to provide a good reason for pursuing fame, it would be to merit an appearance on Finding Your Roots, a weekly program on PBS hosted by historian Dr. Henry Louis Gates, Jr.
Since its premiere in 2014, it aired 107 episodes as of this week, interviewing famous individuals in the performing arts, politics, and business, and then surprising them with information about their ancestors. Last year, Canadian singer Alanis Morrisette learned about the Hungarian Jewish history on her mother’s side. For many celebrities with Jewish roots, the show reveals family members who were among the millions killed in the Holocaust, touching guests who did not previously have a personal connection to the tragedy.
Gates’ guests are fortunate to have the Harvard professor assume the task free of charge, digging into census, criminal, voting, and military records for the names of grandparents with many greats before their title. For African American guests, he reveals where their ancestors lived at the moment of emancipation, when they likely arrived on these shores, and where in Africa they lived before their voyage of no return. Descendants of immigrants learn about the upheavals that displaced their ancestors as they emigrated to the New World.
If I merited an appearance on the show, would Gates send staff to Moscow and Minsk to uncover the criminal files of family members who sat in Soviet prisons? My parents did not discuss those who were sentenced for gesheft, the Yiddish term for business that included peddling, trading, and profiting outside of the law. “Everyone did it. That’s how people survived,” my parents said.
With my parents and grandparents gone, I may never know how the spouses and children of the imprisoned carried on with their lives in a society based on loyalty to the state.
At the onset of the Nazi invasion, some of my family members succeeded in fleeing east, others were unable to outrun the blitzkrieg, and some could not believe that a civilized European nation intended to exterminate all Jews. What documents would Gates find that share experiences of evacuations, executions, and battlefield heroism?
In researching my parental ancestry, the earliest Kadinsky ancestor with documentation lived in Rogachev, Belarus. A military document for Ilya Moiseyevich Kadinsky noted that he died of combat injuries in 1944. The address given was Zimmerman Street in Rogachev. His father Moisey was the brother of my great-grandfather David.
Google Maps Streetview can provide a virtual trip to most shtetls in the alte heim, allowing viewers to zoom in on the former shuls, cemeteries, and ancestral homes. But not Belarus, where political conditions would not permit a spinning camera mounted on a privately-owned car to capture streets named after Lenin and Marx.
Fortunately, a real estate site was advertising an old house on Zimmerman Street, close to Ilya Kadinsky’s address. Its appearance is virtually unchanged since the Russian Empire. Intricate carvings framing the windows, wallpapers, an unused fireplace, and decades-old furniture. Even the television set is antiquated, a plastic and glass box in an age of flat screens. A church dominates the skyline on the pothole-ridden street. I could not tell from the photos if the doors carried mezuzos, but this town’s population was more than half Jewish prior to the Holocaust. The cost of the house: a cool $13,000, described as a cottage. The ideal buyer would either be a full-time resident, or a city dweller seeking a summer house with a garden.
The rundown condition of the house is not representative of typical Rogachev, as neighboring properties have updated interiors that are not close to contemporary New York, but much closer in time with their kitchen appliances, interior lighting, painted walls rather than wallpaper, and linoleum floors.
Perhaps in a democratic future, it will be easier for people with Belarusian roots to travel back and visit these cottages, or izbas, pay respects at ancestral graves, kivrei tzadikim, and massacre sites in the forests, and look up documents in public archives. Until then, there is Henry Louis Gates, Jr. and his show.
By Sergey Kadinsky
