Monday, May 16, 2016

Tartakower & His Parents' Death

Tartakover's Parents. Credit: See Below

It is often stated that Savielly Tartakover (or Tartakower)'s parents were killed in a pogrom. A frequent correspondent to this blog notes that an excellent article about his early days, recently published online (in Russian), found the exact details: they were in fact killed in a robbery gone bad by one of their shop's workers. The article has numerous rare photographs, including those of his parents (above), their shop, and much much more. The article is by Sergey Voronkov (thanks to readers who pointed it out!).

More on Rivka Lichtenfeld

A regular correspondent with this blog notes that Rivka Lichtenfeld was born Rivka Chwoles, to Chava-Leah and Moshe Chwoles. According to her testimony in Yad Va'Shem, her entire family -- both her parents and her three sisters -- were all murdered in 1942 near Vilno, Poland (both links partially in English and Partially in Hebrew). Such a life story was by no means unusual for holocaust survivors who arrived in Israel -- or anywhere else -- after the war; they were often the only remnant of their entire family.

In addition, Lichtenfeld (who is still alive, at 92) had recently been -- finally -- awarded her fair share of her late husband's property; i.e., the entire apartment she lives in now belongs officially to her, and not half to her and half to the state's general trustee. The mix-up was due to the fact that the Israeli ministry of the Interior decided she was divorced, when in fact she was not, as the link (from the Ynet web site, Feb. 2nd 2012, in Hebrew, by Yair Harush) notes.