In 1812 Napoleon’s armies followed the Nieman River through northeastern Lithuania into Russia. During World War I this part of Lithuania was again on the western front as the German armies advanced eastward. Out of fear that the Jews would betray them to the Germans, the Czarist government deported entire shtetlakh of Jews far into the Russian interior in 1915.
World War I forced my mother’s aged parents to wander hundreds of miles from home, and they died in exile. I can still see my mother sitting in our kitchen weeping--it was 1919--with the letter in her hand telling of their death. --Benjamin Kovitz (son of Louis Kovitz)
The Revolution of 1917, the Russian Civil War of 1918-1920, and the new borders created in 1919 by the Treaty of Versailles brought upheaval and dislocation on a grand scale. Regardless of whether Jews stayed in the new Soviet Union or returned to their homes in the former Pale of Settlement, their poverty was even worse than before World War I. Between 1919 and 1939, all communications by mail, telephone and travel were severed between newly independent and mutually hostile Lithuania and Poland. Jewish communities were cut off from each other, students from their yeshivas, and traditional Jewish livelihoods from their markets. The new economic policy of "Lithuania for Lithuanians" forced large numbers of Lithuanian Jews, estimated at 75% of the total Jewish population, to rely on begging to survive. Businesses and property of many wealthy Jews were confiscated.
Philip Kovitz (b. 1927), whose Hebrew name Shraga Menakhem was in memory of his grandfather Fayvel, recalls from his childhood:
Whenever my father (Roy) received letters from the family in Lithuania, he would spend a couple of hours trying to erase the postmarks on the stamps so he could mail them back with his reply letter, to be reused.
The desperation of the period between the two wars drove many Jews to emigrate to the United States, Canada or South Africa, but, as we know now, these departures were a blessing. With the arrival of the Nazis in Lithuania in the summer of 1941, all contact with Jewish Lithuania ceased.
In 1941 Josef Berk and his family were still living in Troskunai as was, so far as we know, Velvel Itzykovitz and his family. Born in 1878, Velvel would have been 63 that year and his daughter Mousha and his sons in their 40s. Sonia Propis knows that her mother and younger brother and sister were murdered by the Nazis in 1941, as was Rabbi Shmukler, the rabbi of Troskunai. "If a man had a beard, they took him." Sonia and her cousin Roska were deported to Stutthof Concentration Camp; Roska was also for a time in the Kovno ghetto. Both survived. Selwyn learned from his grandfather Dov Ber that Vikhna perished.
ZUSSMAN ITZYKOVITZ
Zussman Itzykovitz, youngest brother of Fayvel, left Troskunai at age 42 and arrived in America in 1911 on the ship Adriatic (per Ellis Island database). His eldest son, Arthur (Asher, b. 1892), had previously emigrated in 1903 or 1904 with the Paul family, relatives of Zussman’s wife Bessie (Brynna) nee Rubin.
Zussman’s second son Joseph (Josef Dov, b. 1894) left Troskunai in 1910 at age 16, traveling on foot from Lithuania to the nearest train line, which was in Hamburg. Joe came illegally through Liverpool on the Mauritania, sister ship of the Titanic. A cousin who had promised him an exit visa changed his mind, and Joe had to resort to bribery to complete the journey. Bessie came on the ship Lakonia in 1913 with the five younger children: Eva (Vikhna) (b. 1898), twins Abraham and Fannie (Feyga) (b. 1901), Frieda (b. 1908), and Sally (Sorifke/Sora Rifke, b. 1912).
The family settled in Chelsea, Massachusetts. Zussman was a founding member of Congregation Anshei Lubavich, a litvisher shtibel on Everett Avenue. The rabbi, Rov Yitzhok Benkovitz, walked to shul every day right up to his death at age 106. He was a tall, stately man with a long white beard. --Morton Covitz (grandson of Zussman Itzykovitz).
Zussman was a bootmaker and made a meager living as a cobbler in Chelsea. He was fortunate to have two successful sons, Arthur and Joseph, who essentially supported him and his wife and the unmarried children. Zussman had a shoe repair shop on the back porch of his house. He and the family dovened at Congregation Anshei Lubavitch, that lasted until 1972 or so. Joseph Covitz was its president in later years. Zussman was always learning or saying Tehillim (Psalms). Every time we visited, he put down the Tehillim book and conversed in Yiddish. He had a full beard and a tall yarmulke. He smoked cigarettes that he rolled himself. Sometimes he smoked Camels that had been cut in half. If only he hadn’t smoked he might have lived longer. The family knew he had brothers but I never spoke to him about that. He didn’t laugh a lot but he was funny. Eva was very frum and somewhat traditional, but she too had an amazing sense of humor. Her good cheer was infectious. Frieda and Sally were much more modern and they resisted shiddukhim (arranged matches). Sally met a very nice man, but the family rejected him, partly because he was russishe. There was an extreme tendency in the 1920s and 1930s to marry in one’s own group. My mother (Marion), a Romanian, was teased by her uncle, saying, Di host zikh geshmadt ("You have converted"), because she married a Litvak (Abraham Kovitz). --Sheldon Kovitz (grandson of Zussman Itzykovitz)
My mother (Feygie) was nine years old when she came to America. She said their house had dirt floors and just two rooms: a kitchen and a sleeping room with benches around the walls. The oven was Russian style and took up a wall, with a warm place above to sleep. The kitchen had shelves holding copper pots. I have a large battered copper pot (called a mednitsa) that the family brought with them. The bathroom was outside and my mother was often warned she would get pneumonia if she went outside with a wet head. Zussman made shoes for the family. Whatever they needed, they made themselves. --Ina Kornetsky-Langerman (daughter of Zussman's daughter Feygie)
After his wife Brynna died, Zussman lived with Frieda in Everett and later with Fannie in Chelsea. Here is a picture of Zeyde Zussie with his daughter, Eva (Vikhna) Rosenthal, taken in December, 1950. This was at my Bar Mitzvah. Eva, the eldest daughter, had been given a religious education at home in Troskunai. She dovened three times a day. I have a similar picture of Zeyde with Cousin Ina Melamed [below] about two months earlier at my brother's wedding. Zeyde was a very religious man. He was also a devoted husband, father, and grandfather. He always shtooped us with Chanukah gelt and Purim goodies. His children were extremely solicitous of him. He was clearly the head of the family. Zeyde had a little shoe repair shop in the back of his house on Bloomingdale Avenue in Chelsea. I remember him working on our shoes and tseygen (showing) me how it was done. I do not believe he made a living at this, but that was all right with his children, who always worked hard and helped their parents. They took extraordinarily good care of him in his declining years. Zeyde was a man with a sense of humor and a taste for the schnapps. My father (Joseph) was his supplier. I will never forget when my father was visiting him and Zeyde (Tateh to my father) told him that he was out of branfen (liquor or spirits). My father was getting weary of being the "mark" and replied in Yiddish: Ich hob nikht keyn branfen (I don't have any liquor), whereupon Zeyde countered, Fur gelt do kenst koyfen (For money you can buy some). We laughed at that exchange for years. --Morton Covitz (son of Joseph Covitz and grandson of Zussman Itzykovitz)
I was born in my grandparents' house in Chelsea and lived there with my parents until I was six or seven. Zeyde Zussie would sit on the back porch making leather repairs by hand. When we moved to our own place, it was just two blocks away and we would visit every Sunday morning. I remember helping Zeyde Zussie learn the Pledge of Allegiance when he was preparing for citizenship. He used to teach me a little Yiddish. I recall that there were photographs of the family in the buffet drawer in the house in Chelsea. In 1941 the letters stopped coming.--Ina Kornetsky-Langerman
Before leaving Lithuania for South Africa in 1927, Dov Ber and Chana Golda lived in Ponevezh with their daughter Feyga Masha Khaya. Selwyn says that Dov Ber decided between going to America or South Africa by spinning a coin. Dov Ber had a good singing voice, was a fine baal kore (Torah reader), and was known for his rendition of the "Volga Boat Song." Dov Ber was tough, shrewd, resourceful, deeply devoted to his family, reserved yet with an underlying sweetness of nature. He had great physical strength, was slender all his life, and had unusually long arms and big hands. Cousins Dov Ber and Louis not only shared these very traits, but also had blue eyes and wavy, reddish-blond hair in their youth and were about the same height (5’8"-5’10"). Selwyn Bolel says of Dov Ber: "He had huge hands like paws and could lift 200 pounds of wheat on his own." Louis too was able to heft very heavy loads. His son Ben says: "I always admired his big strong hands. Nevertheless he could do very fine and exact work." His daughter Miriam recalls: "Mama always talked about Papa’s goldene hent."
The great Ponevezher Rov, Yosef Shlomo Kahaneman, who had officiated at the marriage of Dov Ber and Chana Golda in Ponevezh, visited them in 1936 on his trip to South Africa. In the photograph below, the Rov stands left of center in a dark hat; Dov Ber and Chana Golda are on the right and Feyga, age 16, is kneeling in front.
The Bolel family was from Raguva. Selwyn’s father Issy (Yisroel Eliyahu) Bolel, named for Izrail (b. 1843), emigrated to South Africa, where he met and married Dov Ber's daughter, Feyga Itzykovitz.
Feyga and Issy's two sons are Zuse Benyomin (Selwyn) and Shem Avraham.
Although my grandmother had been red-haired, when she came to America in 1927 her hair was snow-white. The whiteness took me by surprise when she removed the dark shaytel (wig) she ordinarily wore. I remember her as a short sturdy woman with a composed manner, who first came to Canada because of the immigration quota but spent her final years in Duluth. We drove to Winnipeg to see her when she first arrived from Europe. I had an early lesson in linguistics when my grandmother asked the other women the meaning of the word vindeh, which was foreign to her vocabulary. It was, of course, "window," yiddishized and displacing the original Yiddish word fenster. I also noted with interest her observation that "Litvish," the Lithuanian language, was grob (crude) in comparison with Polish, which she found more elegant. Grandmother finally grew short of breath with advancing age, but remained in remarkably good physical and mental health until her death at the age of 86. Once, as my parents were driving to Duluth to visit her, they were wondering how good their own judgment would be at her age. In the days before we owned a car we took the long streetcar ride to West Duluth to see my grandmother’s sister, the Mume (aunt) Esther (married name Cohen), a sweet freckle-faced gray-haired lady who plied us with mead (home-brewed, of course), milkhedike cholent made, as best I remember, of dough enriched with cheese and raisins, and tea to be drunk with raspberry preserves or sipped through a lump of sugar from a saucer, Russian style. The Mume Esther had two daughters. Sadie, the elder, was already married to Henry Ringer and had two girls of her own. Sarah, the next, was a few years older then me, kind and friendly, often giving me books to read. (Sarah later married [...] Gordon.) The older sons were tall and red-haired, good marksmen who practiced target shooting in their basement. The youngest, Srolke or Srolinke (affectionate diminutive for Israel) was my age and we played together. The Fetter (uncle) Itsyk Cohen was a short, vigorous red-faced man with a graying beard, always cheery and active. --Benjamin Kovitz (son of Louis Kovitz)
Papa’s mother Yokhved was said to have had dark red hair, although none of us did, and her younger sister Esther, Papa’s maternal aunt (we called her the Mume Esther), had red hair and freckles, as did several of her children, Papa’s cousins. I have a little snapshot of the Bubba Yokhved taken when she stayed at our home in Superior. By then, she was a tiny lady with a cute little nose in a sweet little wrinkled face, wearing a dust cap. When she came to America she arrived in Winnipeg and lived with her youngest son, Ben. Papa went to Winnipeg by himself to see her when she first came. I told him to bring me back a camel and he did--a little brown felt toy camel on wheels! Once we all took a trip in our Studebaker to Winnipeg to meet the Bubba Yokhved and Uncle Ben, Aunt Libbie, and Cousin Mendel, who later changed his name to Dave. The two younger children, Frank and Victoria, were born later. --Miriam Kovitz Cohn (daughter of Louis Kovitz)
In 1937 when I was ten, I traveled with my father to Duluth to visit Yokhved, my grandmother. When we arrived, Yokhved was in a chair on the porch fast asleep. While she and my father talked, I saw a Yiddish newspaper nearby and picked it up and began to read it. She noticed and exclaimed, Er leynt Yiddish! --Philip Kovitz (son of Roy Kovitz)
According to Frank Kovitz (son of Bentsel), Louis made the stone curbing around Yokhved’s grave, which is located in the Superior, Wisconsin cemetery.
My father (Joe) always had something smart to say, some funny remark. --Lillian Eckovitz Gould (daughter of Joe Eckovitz)
I last saw my Uncle Joe in Chicago in June, 1972. At that time, as in 1937 and 1952 when I was in Chicago, he was a great humorist and I still remember a couple of his jokes (one of which I will not repeat to you.--Philip Kovitz (son of Roy)
At Grandma’s funeral I was sitting next to David and all of a sudden I heard what I thought was Grandpa’s voice, even though Grandpa had died a few years before. I felt chills run up my spine. Not only the voice, but the Yiddish accent was exactly the same as Grandpa’s, and I felt that he was there with us. I turned around to see Grandpa’s only surviving brother, Joe, whom we kids had never met before. I was fascinated by him but afraid to approach him. He seemed almost like a ghost from the past. After the funeral we congregated at Aunt Rochel’s house, and I still couldn’t get him out of my mind. I kept regretting that I hadn’t spoken to him. Suddenly he appeared again! This time I introduced myself and we had a short conversation. He turned out to be very warm, witty, and lively (at age 90 or 96, I think). I asked him where he lived, and he answered, with a twinkle in his eye, "In a house!" --Johanna Kovitz (granddaughter of Louis Kovitz)
Grandfather Roy lived into his 90s and was sharp as a tack until nearly his last day. I remember that he used to make handcrafted leather goods--handbags and briefcases. I don’t know how he was as a younger man, though I remember hearing that he was tough, but in his older years I remember him only as very sweet and affectionate. He always brought us cupcakes when we went to visit him. Also he used to give us handcrafted leather bags, briefcases, etc. that he used to make. My brother Aaron met one of Roy’s brothers, Ben, in Toronto many years back. Aaron said it was scary how he had the exact same voice and dialect as my grandfather, maybe even physical appearance. --Yitzhak Kovitz (grandson of Roy Kovitz)
Mama sent me to get my father when I was little, so I ran into the room where Papa and several of his brothers were sitting and talking. They all looked so much alike that I ran up to the one I thought was Papa but it was Hilke, and they all burst out laughing. I started to cry so Uncle Hilke gave me a coin to buy ice cream. --Frances Kovitz Bubley (daughter of Louis Kovitz)
When I was five or six, my father and I were downtown on our way home one wet and chilly night, when we saw a little newsboy crying on a street corner. He was evidently having poor luck selling his newspapers, and my father stopped to comfort him and bought his remaining papers.--Benjamin Kovitz (son of Louis Kovitz)
I recall how Grandpa would take care of Grandma, always doing things for her, helping in the kitchen, setting the table. Once at the dinner table we got on the topic of Grandma’s wedding dress and Grandpa described with a big smile what a beautiful dress they picked out. "After all," he said, "you just get married once." --Sonia Kovitz (granddaughter of Louis Kovitz)
What I remember most about Grandpa is that he was so peaceful and easygoing. We would jump all over the place and ask if we could do this and if we could do that, and his answer was invariably, in his strong Yiddish accent and a very kindly tone of voice, long and drawn out, "Oh sure." This expression became his trademark for us. --Johanna Kovitz (granddaughter of Louis Kovitz)
On the last day of the kids' visit to Superior, all of them were hoping to hear Grandpa say "Oh sure" one more time, but he didn't happen to say it. When we were piling into the car to leave, someone called out, "Take care of yourself, Grandpa!" and he replied, "Oh sure!" -- Frances Kovitz Bubley (daughter of Louis Kovitz)
Grandpa was so quiet that I always felt maybe he didn’t like me. Then once Grandma told me what Grandpa thought of me, that I was a little like her as a girl, and I was surprised but happy. --Deborah Kovitz Barkat (granddaughter of Louis Kovitz)
.... 
I remember Papa as fun, gentle, and caring. He was handsome and always stood straight and tall. He had very European manners. When he first arrived in America and didn’t know a word of English, Papa learned the language by riding around in the streetcar where he could listen to people speaking. One of the jobs he took was carrying buckets and scrubbing floors. He was a very good worker and became the foreman. I spent a lot of time with Mama and Papa, since I was the last one home. Their store had customers who were Poles, Russians, Finns, Swedes, Norwegians, and Mama and Papa could speak their languages and often helped them when they were in trouble or need. One night Papa, Mama and I were in the back of the store after a day’s work. Papa was working at the shipyard then and Mama and I ran the store (I was in college). We all worked till 9 p.m. Mama was complaining how we worked so hard for our money. Papa laughed and tossed the day’s cash in the fire. As Mama and I watched and gasped, he grabbed it back laughing. He took the job at the shipyard to earn extra money to get out of debt. They were always burdened with medical bills and the store wasn’t a big money-maker. Papa earned enough to pay back a loan of $10,000. Mama and Papa counted it out. They taught themselves to read and write phonically. When problems and troubles came along, they always were able to figure a way out. I remember when I worked in the store and the adding machine broke. They wanted $15 to fix it. So Papa opened it (to me it was a sea of springs and wires) and took it apart. He found a broken spring, replaced it, put it back together, and it worked right off the bat. Papa told me what the soil must have in it for things to grow. He thought about whatever he did and invented little ways to make things work better all the time. --Frances Kovitz Bubley (daughter of Louis Kovitz)
In Superior the big thrill was to see our name on the sign: KOVITZ GROCERY! My favorite part of the store was the right rear corner, where Grandpa had a little work space for his tailoring. I was deeply impressed by his demonstration of how to overcast a seam allowance on his old treadle sewing machine; he lifted the foot and manually shifted the fabric back and forth as the machine stitched. --Johanna Kovitz (granddaughter of Louis Kovitz)
I remember a coat that Grandpa tailored for Grandma out of leftover pieces of very fancy fabric. He had pieced these together so ingeniously that the seams were completely invisible on the outside. It was a masterpiece. Aunt Fran and Aunt Rochel tried several times to persuade Grandpa to get a new sewing machine that could zigzag and make buttonholes, but all his life he preferred the same treadle Singer sewing machine that he bought when he first came to this country. After his death in 1970, Aunt Rochel was going through his things and gave me a piece of his cloth tape measure, which I still have. It had fallen apart so many times over the years that the pieces had been stitched back together almost every other inch. Grandpa was generous with others and content with little for himself. In 1969, on what turned out to be our last visit, Grandpa said he wanted to make something for me, so we decided on a skirt and I picked out a piece of charcoal flannel from the closet where he kept his fabric in neatly folded piles. The shelves of fabric that I chose from were like a magic treasure chest. It was twilight and I could see the streetlights come on outside, while he worked on the skirt in his small workroom at the back of the apartment in Skokie. Grandpa's first great-grandchild, my son Benjamin Louis, then five years old, sat with me as we watched Grandpa create a beautiful lined skirt in classic, flawless tailoring, in less than an hour. I had named my son for his grandfather and great-grandfather, unaware, in my almost complete state of Jewish ignorance at the time, of the Ashkenazi tradition of naming offspring for departed, not living relatives. Of course I was abashed as soon as I learned of my error, but was told soon after that Grandpa was delighted and had said, "Now I don't have to wait until I die to know that someone is named for me." At the end of the visit after the usual farewells in Grandma's and Grandpa's apartment, I was surprised to see Grandpa reopen the door and step into the hallway, where he stood looking at us for a moment without saying anything. The expression on his face was intense, private, and searching. At that moment he revealed more of his inner life than I had ever seen. I felt he was thinking that this might be the last time we would see each other, and it was. --Sonia Kovitz (grandaughter of Louis Kovitz)
Grandpa’s quietude. I loved the way he would say, "Oh sure." His face and hands, his skin, had that hard, cool and pale look, like clear marble. Those hairless arms looked tired, like they’d been through a lot over the years. His eyes set in those weary lids that made him seem tired after such a long and intense life. And yet wasn’t there an inner sense of satisfaction that things had indeed turned out as he had hoped? Grandpa was a real pioneer. I think he appreciated how much we kids loved and appreciated him. In our minds Grandma and Grandpa had been, since time, began, ascribed legendary status, and it seemed that Grandpa Louis stood alone atop that great pyramid by which we measure all men. --David Kovitz (grandson of Louis Kovitz)
On a visit late in life to see his son, Louis stood looking at a standing screen decorated with a beautifully lettered Greek text copied from an ancient manuscript. "I grew up in a house with a dirt floor. And here is how my son lives," he said. Like many of Fayvel's other artistically gifted offspring, Louis had a talent for calligraphy, as when he wrote to Leah’s parents asking for her hand in a beautifully hand-printed Yiddish letter (Yiddish is ordinarily written in script). Louis continued to print in this fashion whenever he wrote to his mother Yokhved, while she still lived in Troskunai, since printed letters were easier for her to read. The letter to Leah’s parents asking for her hand in marriage has been lost, but below is one of Louis’s letters to Yokhved.
Bentzion, youngest son of Fayvel, displayed the same graceful talent at calligraphy when he hand-lettered the invitations to his and Libke Berk's wedding.
Sarah Barr Charniss was in her 90s when she earned a college diploma, the occasion when this picture was taken in 2000.
The following two photographs taken in Lithuania were contributed by Frank Kovitz, Bentzion's youngest son, but with no further identification. The first one, of a farm, was taken in Troskunai according to the photographer's stamp on the back: "Fotografija Troskunuose A. Patamsio" (the same stamp is on the back of the photograph of Frida Berk). The family group may also have been taken there, but we don't know for sure.
Zussman’s grandson Morton Covitz recalls a visit in the early 1950s from a woman with red hair who was born an Itzykovitz and lived in Brooklyn, but her married name has been lost. At the time of the visit to Boston she was divorced and brought along three red-haired children, two twin girls and a boy who was a student at Etz Chaim Yeshiva in Brooklyn, but this yeshiva no longer exists. Unfortunately we have no way to find out more about this branch of the family.
In 2002 I spoke by phone with Morris and Miriam (nee Schumacher) Krakinowski, and learned the following. Miriam was born in Troskunai in the 1920s and is a friend of Sonia (nee Berk) Propis. Miriam's paternal aunt, Elke Schumacher, married her cousin Nosson. Nosson was a carpenter in Troskunai; he was a Yuzent, but his sons are Glezers (yet to be explained). Nosson and Elke survived World War II in the Soviet Union and from there emigrated to Israel. They had two sons, one of whom is Misha Glezer. Misha married a niece of Miriam, Iarit, and they now live in Bnei Brak. Nosson, who died in 2001, used to tell wonderful stories in Yiddish about life in Troskunai, and Miriam's husband Morris persuaded him to write them down. Miriam and Morris now have Nosson's 30 pages of handwritten Yiddish--this would be a treasure for us all if it could be translated and shared.
We hope you will send us your comments, questions, impressions, photographs and stories connected with Troskunai. Hebrew names for those born in America would be especially useful. Please contact Sonia Kovitz or Don Ugent using the e-mail addresses provided on the home page of this website.
