Our faithful volunteer translator, Lena Gorina-Black, has
reached the milestone of letter 100 [of about 150] written from family
in Lida [between Minsk & Vilnius, now in Grodno/Hrodna district]
to family in Palestine, 1925-1940.

The recipients were Fanya and Dora, nee PUPKO, daughters of
Kalman PUPKO and Revekka nee KAPLAN, daughter of Dora and Yosef.
Kalman and his wife ran a small store in Lida; some of their cousins
owned the PUPKO beer brewery.

The letters are like a time machine trip to pre-Holocaust Lida,
so even if you don't have relatives from there, they're interesting
to read through.

Because we have a fair amount of PUPKO family material, we can
identify many PUPKO relatives in the letters. There must be an
equal number of KAPLAN relatives mentioned, but we know nothing
about them. If you know someone who is, *please* show them the
letters, and I'd greatly appreciate any help with identifying
the many people mentioned. Unfortunately, we don't have a name
list [yet]; it's a project we have in mind after the letters have
all been translated.

Also - we don't know how the letters came to be auctioned on a
large commercial site about 2 years ago. I assumed it was because
one of the recipients had died recently, and their descendants, unable
to read the letters, decided to auction them. However, one of my cousins
knows the descendants, and when he found out about the letters, phoned &
asked. They did *not* have the letters - last they knew, they thought
another cousin had them. Of course I contacted the auctioneer right
after learning that. It turns out she's a professional e-auctioneer
& had bought them from a dealer who only sells to people. She contacted
him on my behalf; I had asked, that if the original owner wished to
remain anonymous, he/she be told that cousins would dearly love
contact. However, she's heard nothing.

So, if you've heard of letters like these, I'd love to hear about their history!

Irene Newhouse

http://www.shtetlinks.jewishgen.org/Lida-District/lida-city/lida-pupko2.htm

I wanted to update you on the status of the photos.

They are now online at LidaMemorialSociety.org in the pictures section. We cannot thank you enough for helping us out - it is very important that the world never forgets what happened.

If or anyone that you know is descended from Lida or the surrounding regions we would be glad to add either you or them to our mailing lists for our annual memorial meetings and other events.

Our sincerest thanks,

Howard Konopko
Webmaster, Lida Memorial Society

CC: Amanda Lapidus - President, Lida Memorial Society

 

Thank you for your email. I would like to link to your site. You are welcome to use pictures and their descriptions, please let me know which pictures you end up using.

Thank you very much and good luck with the website,
Eilat

On Fri, Jul 18, 2008 at 1:01 PM, <Howard@lidamemorialsociety.org> wrote:

Hi Eilat,

My name is Howard Konopko and I have been working on creating a website for the Lida Memorial Society. This is a group of survivors as well as second and third generation descendants of Lida and the surrounding areas who meet annually and do activities to help honor those lost as well as ensure that the history is passed down and not lost.

Our website is still a work in progress however many areas are finalized with the exception of the photo section, and the discussion areas.

The url for the site is http://www.lidamemorialsociety.org

During my research looking for pictures and other media to include on the website I saw the site that you created which includes numerous pictures and other information from Lida. With your permission I would like to include these pictures as well as their corresponding descriptions on the memorial site.

The content that you have on http://www.eilatgordinlevitan.com/lida/lida.html is fantastic and would be a big help to us to leverage this media to improve our site.

We look forward to hearing from you.

Thank you in advance,

Howard Konopko
Webmaster, Lida Memorial Society