Uncovering little-known chapters in history through family lore

From an early age, I was fascinated by the family tidbits I’d hear from my mother and other relatives. I made elaborate family trees, thrilled I could fill in the names and birthplaces of at least eight of my great-great-great-grandparents. Like most Jews of Eastern European descent, my relatives were born in shtetls, small villages, in the Galicia region of what is now Poland, or in areas of Russia or Lithuania...

My essay on Reading the Past blog