In the early decades of the 20th century, a group of Troskunai landsleit (Jews from the same locale) settled at the western tip of Lake Superior in Duluth, Minnesota and Superior, Wisconsin. Among them were Louis and Lena Kovitz, my paternal grandparents.
Ever since I spent the summer with my grandparents in 1950, I’ve wanted to find out about the world they came from. My father took my sisters and brother--Johanna, Debby and David--to Superior in the 1960s and they fell under the same spell.
Their house. By now the memory has been reduced to an impression. Picture lots of dark walnut furniture with drawn, shaded windows, midday twilight, glass valuables on old shelves and dressers. The memory evokes a sense of strangeness blended with familiarity. I remember that we kids appreciated and embraced Grandpa and Grandma themselves but just being in their home, their own world, filled us with a sense of awe. It’s as if while we were there, we couldn’t get enough of everything about them, wanting to crawl in between the molecules of their brains to feel their memories, their experiences. Everything about them teemed with mystery. --David Kovitz (grandson of Louis Kovitz)
In July 1998, almost a half-century after the summer I lived with my grandparents, I visited the former shtetlakh in northern Lithuania where they were born and grew up. The minute I got out of the car in Troskunai, an odd, fresh, sweet fragrance startled me. From wandering around and sniffing I figured out that the sweet smell in the air came from a special local variety of clover. Later I told Aunt Rochel (Ruth Kovitz Ellin, daughter of Louis and Lena) about the special smell in the air. My words stirred a long-forgotten memory and she said: "Pa used to tell me how wonderful the air smelled in Trashkun."
Louis Kovitz was born Yehuda Lev (Leybe) Itzykovitz in 1888 (1890 per census) in Troskunai, the sixth of Fayvel and Yokhved Itzykovitz’s ten children. The photo below was taken when Louis emigrated from Lithuania. Louis and his brother Hilke arrived at Ellis Island on June 17, 1910 on the Mauretania (per Ellis Island database).
Pa didn't want to be a shoemaker like his father, and was apprenticed to a tailor. He used to tell me what a hard time he had learning to use a thimble. Pa told me he remembers his grandfather telling him about the time when Napoleon was in Russia! --Ruth Kovitz Ellin (daughter of Louis Kovitz)
Papa told me he remembered the first time he saw the sun. He was a baby and finally big enough to walk to the door by himself. He remembered that it was dazzling. When Papa was older, his father rented an orchard and the boys had to guard it at night. Papa told about the dogs they had to pass in order to get there. If the dogs came at him, he would jam a stick in their mouth. Papa's father didn’t appreciate Papa’s artistic talents and tore up some of his drawings when he was little. When I saw Papa's large hands I used to marvel at the intricate work and sewing he did. He learned quickly and became a master at fixing mistakes other tailors had made. Papa would stroll through Roth Brothers Department Store and buy a remnant off the table for 50 cents. Then he would sit up all night making me a gorgeous new skirt for school the next day. He and Mama would go to the movies; he would see Joan Crawford or some other star in a pretty suit or dress and then he'd come home and reproduce it for us. When I was taking art in college, Papa carved a gorgeous camel out of Ivory soap. He found me with a bag of soap chips and I had produced zero. The teacher thought Papa’s camel was so great that she kept it on her desk.--Frances Kovitz Bubley (daughter of Louis Kovitz)
My father could make people laugh, and it seemed that everyone liked him. He early showed a talent for drawing. When a troop of traveling artists passed through town, they saw some of his work and wanted to take him along as an apprentice, but Grandfather (Fayvel) wouldn’t hear of it. Grandfather was a shoemaker and served also as the town’s unofficial doctor (feldsher). He was a strict man with a temper, but devoted to his family. He saved every kopek to help his sons escape Russian military service and emigrate to this country. Grandfather died in 1922 at age 66, after scouring the countryside a whole day in pursuit of the family’s runaway cow. My own father always kept at a project until it was finished, like his father, who would not give up looking for the cow even though it cost him his life. --Benjamin Kovitz (son of Louis Kovitz)
In the difficult years following World War I, fewer gravestones were formally engraved by stonecarvers than was previously the custom. The neat inscription on this stone was probably done by Fayvel's oldest son, Velvel. Other examples of beautiful hand lettering by Fayvel's sons are included at the end of this narrative: Bentzion's invitation to his and Libke Berk's wedding, and Louis's letter to Yokhved. A graceful and well-proportioned printing style and interest in calligraphy are shared by several generations of Fayvels's descendents.
My mother Feygie (daughter of Zussman, Fayvel's youngest brother) talked about the cow the family left behind with great regret when they emigrated from Lithiania. The cow's name was Magdele. --Ina Kornetsky-Langerman (granddaughter of Zussman Itzykovitz)
My grandfather (Roy) told us that his father (Fayvel) took medication when he was a young man to damage his heart so that he wouldn’t be drafted into the Russian army and have to eat non-Kosher food. All of Fayvel’s children, especially Sarah, who lived to 103, lived to a ripe old age. My father (Rabbi Chaim Shlomo Zev Kovitz, son of Roy) used to say that they all lived so long in the merit of their father having shortened his own life. --Yitzhak Kovitz (grandson of Roy Kovitz)
My father told me that when the family cow ran away, his father chased her through the fields and finally caught her. When Fayvel got home he lay down and said, "I’m going to die." He died that night. --Frank Kovitz (son of Bentsel Kovitz, Fayvel’s youngest son)
Bentzion (Bentsel), the youngest son, stands on the right and Daniel in back. The girl on the left is too young to be Pesl, who was born in 1882; she is, I believe, Vikhna, the niece of Fayvel and Yokhved (more on this below). At the time the photo was taken, Harry, Joe, Louis and Hilke had emigrated. All the brothers worked hard to bring over those who remained. The last of the brothers to leave was Bentsel in the mid-1920s.
Papa told me how he used to sit on the table to sew in Russia. One day he heard the police at the door of the shop where he was working; they were looking for him for the army service. Papa ran out the back door and eluded them. Papa’s father got his boys to America on the same passport. After each brother arrived, he sent it back for the next brother to use. Cousin Frankie remembers that Papa and his older brothers sent money to help get Frankie’s folks (Bentsel and Libke) out of Europe. --Frances Kovitz Bubley (daughter of Louis Kovitz)
Once a boy was taken into the army, he was usually lost forever to his family and to Judaism. Anyone reading the census lists of the Russian empire will often see the poignant note CONSCRIPTED beside the names of 14-year old boys--for example, Shevel Yankel Kikhel (see Kikhel family outline below)--or MISSING beside the names of older boys and young men. Discrepancies between the birth year of male offspring as recalled by the family and as recorded in the census sometimes indicate attempts to evade the Czarist draft.
My father (Bentsel) was drafted when he was young and he went and hid in the woods so they couldn’t find him. The government threatened Yokhved that they would put her husband in jail if their son didn’t report to the draft, so my father came out of hiding and had to enter the army. When Joe, Louis, Hilke and Roy in America heard about this, they put together $500, a huge sum then, and sent it to Velvel to get Bentsel out of the service. My father poured water in his ears, then went outside so the water would freeze, which landed him in the hospital. While he was in the hospital, Velvel traveled there and waited outside the hospital until he saw the doctor leave. Velvel followed the doctor in the street and offered the $500 as a bribe to get my father out of the army, and it worked. A few years later, after he was married, my father was ready to emigrate but couldn’t get into the U.S. or Canada so he got a visa for Cuba. He caught a train to travel to the seaport where he had booked a passage, but the next day he didn’t feel good about the trip and came back home. Again his brothers helped him. Joe gave money to some landsleit in Canada to pay a farmer to write a letter saying that he would hire my father to work on his farm, which allowed my father to emigrate to Toronto. When Bentsel got to Canada, he didn’t work for the farmer; instead he came to Winnipeg where he worked as a tailor and saved money to bring over Libke, Dovid Mendel, and Yokhved. In order for Yokhved to enter Canada, Joe had to write a financial statement to prove he was able to support her. Lillian (Joe’s daughter) still has it and it shows that at the time Joe was a millionaire. He made a lot of money in real estate but lost it all in the depression. My father told me that Fayvel once found a small bag of about a dozen gold rubles that had been left on the high window sill of a public bathhouse. Fayvel gave them to Bentsel, who in turn gave them to my mother (Libke) to keep and to bring to Canada when she came with Dave and Yokhved. Libke came a year or so after Ben came to Canada, with the coins in the insoles of her shoes. The coins still survive. All the grandchildren received one. The amazing thing is that my parents never spent the coins, even though I am sure they could have used the money. --Frank Kovitz (son of Bentsel Kovitz)
Ma once told me that before Pa left for America, he was sent on a secret and very dangerous errand to bring back a younger brother who had run away to a part of Russia where Jews were not allowed [i.e. beyond the Pale of Settlement]. Ma gave no more details and said this was not to be talked about. Hearing Frank's story about Ben hiding from the draft makes me think that Pa may have been sent to bring Ben back from Russia to Troskunai to report for the draft so that Fayvel wouldn't be arrested. --Ruth Kovitz Ellin (daughter of Louis Kovitz)
Bentsel worked as a tailor in Winnipeg to earn enough to bring over his wife, son and mother. In 1927 he sent the money for their passage. The group photograph below was taken in 1927 at the Troskunai train station on the occasion of the departure of Libke, Dovid Mendel and Yokhved to join Bentsel in Canada. The travelers are surrounded by members of the Berk, Glezer and Itzykovitz families and other townspeople. Yokhved's husband Fayvel Itzykovitz had died in 1922.
This photograph originally belonged to Mary (nee Kikhel/Cohen) Kovitz, wife of Hilke, and is now in the possession of their daughter, Sonia (nee Kovitz) Crost. Mary’s notes on the back of the photo give some of the identities, and others were given by Sonia (nee Berk) Propis, the niece of Libke Berk, Bentsel's wife. Sonia Propis, who was born in Troskunai in 1929, now lives in Florida. (Don't be confused--including the author, this adds up to three Sonia's.)
The matriarch Yokhved stands front and center of the gathering, wearing a dark coat and scarf. She is flanked on the right by her oldest son Velvel, bearded and wearing a cap, and on the left by her second daughter Pesl. Velvel and Pesl were the only two of Yokhved and Fayvel’s ten children who remained in Lithuania.
Louis often talked about his older sister Pesl, with whom he was very close while they were growing up; he said she helped care for him. We know that Pesl married, but died before the start of World War II. The woman beside Velvel in the light-colored scarf is probably his wife, and the boy beside her their son.
Sonia Propis said the girl on the left is an Itzykovitz; she could be a younger sister of Mousha. The boy on the right is Dovid Mendele, son of Bentsel and Libke, and the girl in the center in the plaid dress is Leah, daughter of Roska nee Glezer (married name unknown). Roska, in a dark coat with a furlike collar behind and to the left of the three children, is the daughter of Buna Gitl (nee Berk) Glezer.
Buna Gitl is the oldest daughter of Zalman and Khaya Feyga Berk, the bearded man and short woman on the right side of the photo. Despite the blurred image caused by their movement, they were delightedly recognized by Sonia Propis as her grandparents.
Zalman and Khaya Fegya's oldest daughter Buna Gitel married Leybe Glezer and they had three children: Borukh, Dverka, and Roska (above with daughter Leah). Borukh (Botske) Glezer is the dark-haired young man in the back on the left, behind and between Mousha and the young man man in a flat white cap. The latter, standing behind Guna Gitel (whose head hides the lower part of his face), is Gershke Glezer, Botske's cousin.
Sonia Propis said that Gershke and Rivka Glezer were the children of Buna Gitel, but also said that Borukh, Dverka and Roska Glezer were the children of Buna Gitel. The census resolved this puzzle: it turns out that two women named Buna Gitel Glezer lived in Troskunai in the 1920s, but only one was born a Berk, as clarified in the Glezer family outline below. Botske Glezer, son of Buna Gitel nee Berk, later emigrated to Palestine and then sent money to bring his sister Dverka. Dverka (nee Glezer) Lor is now in her 90s and still living in Israel.
When the 1927 group photo was taken, six of Zalman and Khaya Feyga Berk's 11 children had emigrated with the assistance of Josef, next in birth order after Buna Gitl and the second son. The firstborn and eldest son, Dovid Itzyk Berk, was conscripted in 1896 at age 22. Evidently Dovid Mendel Kovitz, son of Libke nee Berk, as well as Cantor David Propis, son of Sonia nee Berk, were named in his memory. Sonia's father Josef Berk helped his three younger brothers emigrate to New York and three younger sisters to Winnipeg, since they were unable to earn a living in Lithuania. Reyzl (nee Berk) Fishl survived World War II in the Soviet Union. Reyzl Fishl’s two daughters now live in Lithuania: Zlata in Vilnius and Leike, who named her own daughter Reyzl, in Panevezys. Sonia Propis met Zlata and Leike when she visited newly independent Lithuania in 1992.
Josef Berk wears a Homberg hat and stands behind and right of Velvel. Josef’s wife Toba (nee Kodn) is behind and between Yokhved and Velvel. Sonia remembers the gray Persian lamb coat worn by her mother Toba in this photo, and says that she and her sisters used to put it on to "model" it.
The stylish dress of the Berks contrasts with the shabbier clothing of the others. Josef Berk started the only store in Troskunai, a general store that sold a little of everything, including iron, and the family was better off than the rest of the town. For many years Josef was president of one of Troskunai’s two synagogues. Sonia remembers her mother Toba travelling to Ponevezh to buy goods for the store, which was the only two-story building in town. It had an iron balcony and iron door. The balcony was removed by the Russians but the building is still standing, painted tan over the white that Sonia remembers from her childhood. She used to play in the store's entryway.
Josef and Toba remained in Troskunai with their five children: the eldest son Berel; three daughters, Frida, Sonia (Sheyna), and Dvora; and the youngest son Zalman, named for his grandfather.
To return to the group photo: the older man beside Velvel, his face partly hidden by Velvel's wife, is, I believe, Velvel's uncle, Benyomin Josef Itzykovitz.
Zussman's granddaughter, Ina Kornetsky-Langerman, recalls Zussman's telling her that he and an older brother lived side by side in adjoining houses, and that a rivalry developed between the two wives, since Zussman’s wife Brynna had seven children while the brother's wife had just two. This story precisely corresponds to information supplied by Selwyn Bolel: that his great-grandparents Benyomin Itzykovitz and Sheyna Rivka (nee Ugent) had two children, Vikhna and Dov Ber (Selwyn's grandfather).
The dark-haired young woman between Velvel’s son and Toba Berk, directly behind and between Pesl and Yokhved, is, I believe, Benyomin's daughter Vikhna. Sonia Propis confirmed that this woman is an Itzykovitz and agrees with me that she is probably Vikhna. Both in features and somber expression this woman resembles the girl with Yokhved and Fayvel in the 1911 photograph above, and her age in the 1927 group photo corresponds to the passage of about the same number of years. When Benyomin Josef (b. 1864) and his wife Sheyna Rivke (b. 1867) were recorded on the 1891 Troskunai census, they apparently had not yet had any children. Vikhna, if she is in fact the solemn schoolgirl in the 1911 photograph with her aunt and uncle, Yokhved and Fayvel, would have been born around 1900 and Dov Ber a year or two later. Selwyn Bolel said that his grandfather Dov Ber "had an apprehensive and pessimistic streak." This trait is evident in the expression of Dov Ber’s sister Vikhna.
Dov Ber told his grandson Selwyn that Sheyna, Dov Ber’s mother, became very ill and Benyomin went to Vilkomir at night in a sledge through a snowstorm to see the Vilkomir Rov, a renowned rabbi. He asked the Rov to come back with him to Troskunai to pray for his wife. The rabbi returned with Benyomin that night and Sheyna recovered. Since we know that Sheyna and Benyomin did not have children until they were in their 30s, possibly Sheyna had a chronic health problem. If Vikhna's mother died prematurely, that would explain why Vikhna went to live with her aunt and uncle, and thus was present, with a schoolbook under her arm, when the informal outdoor photograph of Yokhved and Fayvel was taken in 1911.
Vikhna's younger brother, Dov Ber Itzykovitz, married Chana Golda Ugent. In 1927, the year the group photo was taken, Dov Ber, his wife Chana Golda, and their daughter Feyga (Selwyn Bolel’s mother, b. 1920) left Ponevezh for South Africa.
Selwyn was told that his grandparents Chana Golda Ugent and Dov Ber Itzykovitz were second cousins, but didn't know the details. Now we know that Dov Ber's mother was Sheyna Rivka Ugent, and Chana Golda's father was Zussman Leybe Ugent (see Ugent family outline below). Zussman Ugent was said to be a "master of mishnayot" (Talmud).
Note that there are two different women named Sheyna. Sheyna Rivka nee Ugent, wife of Benyomin Itzykovitz, was Selwyn’s PATERNAL great-grandmother, and Sheyna (maiden name unknown), wife of Zussman Leybe Ugent, was Selwyn's MATERNAL great-grandmother.
On the left is Chana Golda before she married Dov Ber. Next is her brother Moishe, who never married; he was murdered as a young man while smuggling, possibly tobacco. Seated is their sister Rivel, who later married and emigrated to South Africa. The identity of the lady on the far right is unknown.
It was while rooming with his cousin Dov Ber in Ponevezh that Leybe (Louis) Itzykovitz met his future wife Leah (Lena) Zetcher, when she attended a party in Dov Ber’s home in 1910.
Like many young Jewish men and women of the time, Leybe and Leah left the shtetlakh where they grew up and moved to a larger town to find work. When she was 15 Leah learned to use a knitting machine and moved to Ponevezh, becoming financially independent selling the gloves, scarves and sweaters she made. Before Leah met Leybe, she received a marriage proposal from a non-Jewish soldier who owned a fine horse and carriage, but she refused him. Leybe was working as a tailor in Ponevezh in 1910 when Leah was invited to a party in Dov Ber’s home, where Leybe was living. Leybe usually didn’t remain at home when there was a party, but this time as he walked through the house to leave, he noticed Leah, whom he had not seen before. He left the house and walked a short distance, then changed his mind and came back to the party in order to meet her. At the party they played a game where you throw a hanky back and forth. Each one later claimed that the other threw it to him or her first. When the party was over, lots of young men asked to walk Leah home but she turned them all down. Meanwhile Leybe was there, a quiet and good-looking young man who hadn’t spoken to her all evening, though the two had kept looking at each other. She accepted his offer to walk her home, and that was the beginning of their lifelong love affair. Leybe once made a gift to Leah of an orange, an unusual luxury. They hadn’t known each other long when Leybe left for America and as yet there was no engagement. For a long time, maybe a year or more, Leah heard nothing at all from Leybe. Everyone told her she was foolish to wait, but she never lost confidence in him. Then a formal letter from Leybe in beautifully hand-lettered Yiddish arrived in Pushelat, asking Leah’s parents for her hand. Leah traveled to Trashkun to meet Leybe’s parents. Fayvel, who warmly approved of her, bought her a gold ring for the wedding. Dov Ber, a dealer in silver, gave her two silver spoons made in Vilna. Leah planned to wait until her 20th birthday before coming to America. Then Leybe had a dream warning him that she should come at once. He sent the money for her trip and she sailed from Hamburg on the Kaiserina Augusta Victoria. They were married on March 13, 1913 in Superior, Wisconsin when Leah was not quite 19. A year later the Archduke Ferdinand was assassinated in June, and in August 1914, the same month Leah turned 20, Germany declared war on Russia. If she had waited until her 20th birthday, it would have been too late to leave Lithuania. --Composite account based on notes from children Ben, Ruth, Miriam and Frances; and grandchildren Sonia and Johanna.
One of the last times I was with Mama she talked about how meeting Papa saved all our lives and rescued us from the fate in Europe. --Miriam Kovitz Cohn (daughter of Louis Kovitz)
Selwyn Bolel’s comment that Dov Ber made his living as a trader of silver spoons is how I realized that the silver spoons given to Leah and Louis as a wedding gift must have come from Dov Ber and Chana Golda. On the underside of each spoon’s handle is the word VILNA engraved in Cyrillic characters. Many years ago Grandma gave one of the spoons to me, her first grandchild, and the other to her granddaughter Jean, daughter of Frances and Stanley Bubley.
The discovery of the source of the silver spoons is just one of a great treasure chest of glimpses into our shared family history that opened up in January 1999, when Isaac (Yitzhak) Kovitz, grandson of Roy, found me on the Internet. He had been searching for members of the extended Kovitz family, and it was a great moment when he and I realized we were both great-grandchildren of Fayvel Itzykovich of Troskunai, Lithuania! Yitzhak (Dr. Votson) and I (Shiralock Holmes) began to work together via e-mail and over the course of a year concluded that our great-great-great grandfather Orel (Aharon) Itzykovitz had three sons: Fayvel, Benyomin, and Zussman. (How we put all the pieces together is a story in its own right.) The three lines of descendents from the three brothers had lost contact with each other until Yitzhak and I began to share our discoveries.
Our deduction about Aharon’s three sons was confirmed in April 2001 when I saw the 1891 Troskunai census after joining the Ukmerge (Vilkomir) group of Jewish Genealogy. Please investigate the extraordinary resources of this worldwide volunteer effort at the site below, and remember that donations are always needed so that additional Jewish archival records may be purchased, translated, and shared.
www.Jewishgen.org
www.JewishGen.org/Jewish-Gen-erosity/
Before following the stories of these families into the 20th century, we will circle back into their earlier history using the old Russian census records. According to the 1891 Troskunai list, the Berk, Glezer, Itzykovitz, Kikhel, and Ugent heads of household were REGISTERED IN RAGUVA. Fortunately the 1846 and 1858 Raguva records had already been purchased and translated by Jewish Genealogy, and from them I learned that Raguva was indeed the home of these five families before they moved to Troskunai. The Bolel family also lived in Raguva but did not resettle in Troskunai.
Read Part II
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