From left to right: Esther Adler, Uri Radbil and Sherryl Radbil
It all started with an article in The Jewish Advocate.
The four of us gathered around Esther Adler’s dining room table appeared to be intently working on a jigsaw puzzle. While we were trying to solve a puzzle, this one involved linking pasts rather than cardboard pieces.
Several months earlier, I had published a profile called “Esther at 93” in my monthly Grace, Grit and Humor column in The Jewish Advocate. When subscriber Sherryl Radbil read it and learned that Esther was born in Breslau Germany, her interest was piqued. This was the city where several generations of her husband Uri’s family had once lived.
Sherryl and Uri had recently become enraptured by their family genealogy. They had been looking at old letters and newspaper clippings that had been placed in a box by generations of Radbil’s and transported around the globe. Many of the items were written in German. As neither knew the language, they were unsure what the collection included.
The Advocate article referenced Esther’s memories of Kristallnacht, an infamous night when Nazis terrorized Jews throughout Germany. Sherryl was reminded that one of the items in the box was a copy of a sermon given by a senior rabbi in Breslau weeks after Kristallnacht. She dug it up and thought that it might be of interest to Esther.
Sherryl emailed me, asking if I would contact Esther to see whether she had interest in the document. The response was an enthusiastic “Yes”. Esther was very eager to see the sermon, as well as to meet them.
There was an immediate connection. Esther and the Radbil’s were practically neighbors, living just miles apart in abutting communities south of Boston.
The four of us met at Esther’s on a wintery Sunday afternoon, unsure of what would be uncovered. At a minimum, it would be a treat for Esther to meet others whose family had also been part of Breslau’s significant Jewish community in the 19th and 20th centuries.
The Radbil’s gave us an abbreviated family history. According to a family tree that was beautifully designed by a cousin, they determined that Uri’s family arrived in Breslau by 1825. Following World War I, Uri’s great uncle saw the writing on the wall. He decided to move his family as far from Germany as possible. They selected Chile. Uri’s grandparents joined them in Santiago in 1939 after his grandfather had been briefly imprisoned in the Buchenwald concentration camp. By the late 1940’s and early 1950s, members of Uri’s family had begun to leave South America to make aliyah (permanently move to Israel).
When living in Germany, Chile and Israel, Uri’s family always placed valued items into a box, which they transported from destination to destination. For 50 years, Uri’s parents had stored the container in their shed in Holon, Israel. When his mother decided that it was time to put the overlooked box in the trash, Uri noticed it for the first time. He was intrigued by its contents, and he and Sherryl took it with them when they moved to Stoughton, Massachusetts.
Sherryl showed us the sermon, which Esther proceeded to translate from German to English. While there was no information to confirm its author. Esther surmised that Dr. Rabbi Hoffman, a rabbi at one of Breslau’s two synagogues, wrote and delivered it. How it ended up among Uri’s family’s papers was a mystery.
The sermon, dated December 4, 1938, just three weeks after Kristallnacht, was a chilling response to the horrors of that infamous event. Hearing its words was unsettling: “The news of what has been going on in Germany put the whole world into great indignation… there was a cry of anger in the world.” We sadly acknowledged that if that had been true, history might have been dramatically altered.
We looked at other items in the box. There were several articles about Joseph Hirschberg, Uri’s great-great-grandfather, and his son Felix. They were a prominent family in the Jewish community and their names were familiar to Esther. Sherryl shared a story that has been passed along through the generations, though never documented. Felix Hirschberg was a judge in Breslau. Apparently, a young, then unknown, Adolph Hitler appeared in his court. He had committed a minor offense and was subsequently acquitted of all charges. Once again we wondered what impact, if any, might have ensued if the outcome of that case had been different.
Sherryl brought out additional letters and articles. Esther did not recognize any other names, but she and Uri enjoyed comparing notes about how each of their families had routinely invited strangers to join their Breslau Shabbat dinners.
The discussion shifted from Germany to Israel, a country that played a significant role in each of their lives. Esther had moved there in 1939 and remained until 1947 when she joined her ailing mother in New York City.
Uri was born on Kibbutz Saad near Gaza. He and Sherryl met in Israel in 1979, when she was spending her junior year of college in Jerusalem, studying at Hebrew University.
The three threw out the names of the various kibbutzim where each had lived. After several unsuccessful attempts, Esther mentioned that she had spent considerable time at Kibbutz Ma’abarot, which is located 25 miles north of Tel Aviv. The Radbils were stunned. Uri’s cousin Shoshana has lived there for most of her long years. When asked whether she knew her, Esther asked for a description. She was seeking details about a girl that she might have known as a teen. The Radbils, however, could only offer information more current information. When they last visited Shoshana, she was in her 90s.
We concluded that it was unlikely that Esther and Shoshana had been at Ma’abarot at the same time, although they probably only missed one another by a year or two. Fortuitously, Sherryl and Uri were soon leaving for a month-long trip to Israel. They planned to stop at Ma’abarot to ask Shoshana to see if she recalled Esther.
Esther sent them off with everything needed to make connections. She made a copy of a group photo from her early days on the kibbutz. She suggested that when meeting people on the kibbutz, the Radbils should identify her as ‘Estee’. This was the name she was given at Ma’abarot to be distinguished from all the other Esthers onsite!
Esther had one additional tip to jog the memories of the older people on the kibbutz. “Ask them if they remember the girl who starred in all the plays,” Esther suggested. “That was me!”
_________________________________________________________________________
A month later, Esther and I received an email from Sherryl following their visit to Ma’abarot.
The Radbil’s caused a stir at the kibbutz when they shared Esther’s 70-year-old photo with kibbutz veterans. Many recognized the faces in the photo and, amazingly, three who are included in the photo still live on the kibbutz! Each had vivid memories of Estee.
One woman remembered how young Estee had been in a photo used by the Jewish National Fund for promotional materials. Another woman, Ora, recalls the day Estee and another young woman from Breslau arrived at the kibbutz. Coincidentally, Ora’s daughter now lives in Newton, MA, a suburb west of Boston that is only 20 minutes from where Estee lives today!
Gideon also remembered Estee. When he looked at the photograph, he announced that he was the young man in the front row.
Sherryl passed along their greetings. “All three send you their warmest regards, Estee, and were glad to hear that you’re thriving!”
Quite amazing. An article written in Massachusetts reconnects people whose lives intersected in Israel some 8 decades ago. The world feels a bit smaller — and sweeter — today.
Such amazing connections; it really is a small world!