{"id":24430,"date":"2015-08-06T18:05:40","date_gmt":"2015-08-06T16:05:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/?p=24430"},"modified":"2015-08-05T06:29:54","modified_gmt":"2015-08-05T04:29:54","slug":"24430","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/?p=24430","title":{"rendered":"In Scotland, a desperate bid to reclaim a long-hidden Jewish identity"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>In Scotland, a desperate bid to reclaim a long-hidden Jewish identity<\/a><\/strong><\/span><\/h5>\n

By Hillel Kuttler<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\"Helena

Helena Colomerecki, right, was a Polish-born Jew who changed her name from Malie Rothenberg. (Courtesy: Jennie Workman Milne)<\/p><\/div>\n

The \u201cSeeking Kin\u201d column aims to help reunite long-lost relatives and friends.<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

(JTA) \u2013 Jennie Workman Milne\u2019s family history is cloaked in mystery.<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

Milne, of Scotland, didn\u2019t know until last year that she was Jewish. Only when Milne\u2019s late mother, Elizabeth Mary Lister, was an adult did the latter learn that her natural mother was a Poland native, born Malie Rothenberg, who had changed her name to Helena Colomerecki before marrying a military man named Stanislaw Lis. Stanislaw didn\u2019t know that his wife became pregnant, at age 41, much less delivered a daughter.<\/span><\/p>\n

Add to that, Milne learned just recently that for several years, Helena had lived nearby in a nursing home before dying at 98 in 2000.<\/span><\/p>\n

Milne\u2019s newly discovered second cousin in Ohio, Sandra Guilfoyle, similarly was unaware of having Jewish roots. Guilfoyle can go Milne one better: She suspects that her late father, Wlodzimiercz \u201cJames\u201d Russocki, worked as a U.S. spy while being employed by various federal agencies in New Jersey and Ohio after moving from Poland to America.<\/span><\/p>\n

It\u2019s been a lot for the cousins to digest. Last year, Milne telephoned Guilfoyle.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWhen Jennie said, \u2018You\u2019re Jewish,\u2019 I started bawling. I always thought I was Jewish,\u201d said Guilfoyle, 58, who lives in the Dayton suburb of Oakwood.<\/span><\/p>\n

Milne, 47, is now trying to locate any members of their lost Jewish family. She wants to learn whether Malie\u2019s younger brother, Henryk, has descendants and whether there are descendants of any siblings of Malie\u2019s mother, Francesca Rothenberg, nee Feige Dwora Probst.<\/span><\/p>\n

The discoveries she\u2019s made just since early 2014 have had \u201ca huge impact on my life,\u201d said Milne, a mother of nine in the northeast fishing town of Inverallochy. \u201cI\u2019ve done all this searching, it\u2019s in my heart and I\u2019ve just not been able to rest.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

She contacted \u201cSeeking Kin\u201d for assistance in finding her Rothenberg and Probst relatives after seeing a posting on the Facebook page of Tracing the Tribe, a Jewish genealogy site.<\/span><\/p>\n

Milne began exploring the past to better understand the difficult life of her mother, who died early last year of cancer at 70. Helena and Stanislaw were married and worked during World War II in different parts of Great Britain for the Polish military-in-exile. Helena concealed her pregnancy from her husband and colleagues.<\/span><\/p>\n

After delivering Elizabeth in South Hammersmith on Nov. 4, 1943, she gave the baby over to a private nursery in Hope Cove, in rural Devon in southwest England. When the home moved twice and Helena didn\u2019t collect her daughter, the home\u2019s nurse, Rose Toms, raised the child.<\/span><\/p>\n

In 1965, at 22, Elizabeth located her natural parents, who had divorced in 1949, remarried others and remained in England. But Stanislaw died in 1967 and Helena disappeared after meeting the adult Elizabeth just once, at a coffee shop. Helena told Elizabeth she\u2019d searched for her after the war.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cMy abiding childhood memory is of feeling a total outsider wherever I was. \u2026 I simply felt I didn\u2019t belong anywhere,\u201d Elizabeth, near the end of her life, emailed Milne. \u201cLooking back nearly 70 years later, I can see how that helped to shape me as a person.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\"Jennie

Jennie Workman Milne didn\u2019t know until last year that she was Jewish. (Courtesy of Jennie Workman Milne)<\/p><\/div>\n

Milne promised to search for her mother\u2019s family. After Elizabeth\u2019s death, Milne said, \u201cI HAD to find them.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Milne read her grandmother\u2019s file at the United Kingdom\u2019s Ministry of Defense, leading to a number of revelations, notably name changes and learning that Malie and her elder sister, Rosa, were from Stryy in present-day Ukraine; that their brother\u2019s name was Henryk; that Henryk was murdered in the Holocaust (possibly shot in the ghetto of Lvov); and that the siblings\u2019 parents were Francesca and Pawel, known as Pinchas, the wealthy owners of a sawmill in the Polish district of Zolochiv.<\/span><\/p>\n

Some of Milne\u2019s findings meshed with what her American cousin knew because Guilfoyle\u2019s father, who died at 73 in 2002, had recorded some of his family\u2019s information. He\u2019d even taken Guilfoyle and her sister, Renata, on a trip to England to visit his Aunt Helena at the nursing home in Lincolnshire \u2013 oblivious to the existence of Milne and her mother, who was living in nearby Yorkshire.<\/span><\/p>\n

Milne also has gained information through the efforts of Michael Tobias, the vice president of programming for JewishGen, a leading New York-based organization that promotes Jewish genealogy.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI can\u2019t help myself,\u201d said Tobias about being drawn in to the case, which he called \u201cnot a typical\u201d one.<\/span><\/p>\n

Tobias, who lives in Glasgow, 200 miles from Milne\u2019s home, was asked to help by the British magazine Who Do You Think You Are?, an adjunct of the eponymous television program on genealogy, after she contacted the editors. He constructed a family tree of Milne\u2019s Probst relatives, many killed in the Holocaust. The branch\u2019s expanse holds out hope of survivors, Tobias said.<\/span><\/p>\n

Milne is \u201cabsolutely desperate to find out what she can,\u201d he said. \u201cHer family seems to have tried so hard to hide [their Jewish identity], and she is so desperate to reclaim it.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Said Milne: \u201cBeing Christian doesn\u2019t stop me from appreciating my Jewish heritage at all. In Isaiah 58:12, I read \u2018Thou shalt raise up the foundation of many generations and thou shalt be called \u201cthe repairer of the breach.\u201d \u2019<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThis has really been that: a breach of generations. I\u2019ve received a lot of comfort from the Jewish Scriptures.\u201d
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

(Please email Hillel Kuttler at seekingkin@jta.org<\/a><\/strong><\/span> if you know the whereabouts of Milne\u2019s Rothenberg or Probst clan. If you would like \u201cSeeking Kin\u201d to write about your search for long-lost relatives and friends, please include the principal facts and your contact information in a brief email. \u201cSeeking Kin\u201d is sponsored by Bryna Shuchat and Joshua Landes and family in loving memory of their mother and grandmother, Miriam Shuchat, a lifelong uniter of the Jewish people.)<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

Hillel Kuttler in 2011 launched “Seeking Kin,” his now-thrice-monthly column on people searching for long-lost relatives and friends.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

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twoje uwagi, linki, wlasne artykuly, lub wiadomosci przeslij do: webmaster@reunion68.com<\/a><\/span><\/span><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

 <\/p>\n

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In Scotland, a desperate bid to reclaim a long-hidden Jewish identity By Hillel Kuttler The \u201cSeeking Kin\u201d column aims to help reunite long-lost relatives and friends. (JTA) \u2013 Jennie Workman Milne\u2019s family history is cloaked in mystery. Milne, of Scotland, didn\u2019t know until last year that she was Jewish. Only when Milne\u2019s late mother, Elizabeth […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[6],"tags":[26,24],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24430"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=24430"}],"version-history":[{"count":22,"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24430\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":24453,"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24430\/revisions\/24453"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=24430"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=24430"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=24430"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}