Clay in My Boots: A Romp Through My Genealogical Past

We've just about wrapped up our Genealogy / Jewish Heritage / Roots tour through Poland, Ukraine and Lithuania.  If you've missed some of our posts, here is a link to an index of our posts: All Posts Yesterday we drove to Klaipeda on the Baltic Sea. We took a ferry across the lagoon to the Curonian Spit. We drove down to Nida a converted Fishing Village that serves as the center of recreational activities. We started by spending a few hours on the beach looking off towards Sweden, picking up rocks, taking in the sun, and going for a swim in the Baltic. Then we took a Tuk-Tuk to the heart of Nida. Whee we walked around a bit and soaked up some of the little "german village". We then took a one-hour boat ride to see the dunes, taunt the Russian Border Control boat and just enjoy the sea air. Russian Border Patrol (Hi Vlad!) I see Russia ... This was a nice distraction from our emotionally jam-packed heritage tour.  

Varnai has a different culture and language from Lithuania they are culturally Samogitian people. It’s a beautiful well cared for town. They are proud of their heritage and have a clean town and beautiful wooden church. Unfortunately, the synagogue is gone. The Nazis took a local church and turned it into concentration / labor camp. It is all so bewildering. Telshai was were all the local Jews were taken for slaughter. The Jewish cemetery is very well taken care of by the town. It’s one of the best we have seen. Maybe I’ll be able to identify some Kats ancestors. Celia Shenker’s maternal grandparents are from Varnia. It’s about 200 km from Linkova. It looks like some relatives moved back to Varnia after Linkova burned in 1902.

Stopped for some treats and took a short stroll around one of the best kept Jewish heritage towns in Lithuania.  Unfortunately we stopped at the cemetery first     But I can’t get an iced coffee if I begged. They keep making me frappes!!  With a side of gingerbread mushrooms. 

Seduva is believed by the Lithuanians to be an important Shtetl, so they are investing significantly in the restoration of the cemetery, memorials, and they are building the “Lost Shtetl Museum”, due to open in 2020. There is a very tasteful memorial in the center of town, next to a former synagogue. Most of the buildings in town prior to the Soviet era. Outside of town was the most well kept cemetery we’ve seen thus far. As part of the Lost Shtetl project they documented and reset all the headstones and markers, put down sod, and restored the cemetery walls.  In the far end is a Jewish Star repository for all the broken and damaged stones collected from the town and elsewhere that could not be properly placed. (I’m not sure that a pristine cemetery accurately represents our heritage as it is maintained without a Jew in sight. Compared to the other overgrown and tangled it comes across as sanitized.) We visited the smaller of 2 murder sites back in the woods. This site was u...