Post No. 6 - Boruch Sholem and Gesia Schneerson - Kaddish and Adagio
The forgotten destruction
Update: Sound No. 14 - Sholem Aleichem: Why there is no new Chabad Rebbe?
It turns out that I am not the only one who benefited from this story, from the broader understanding of this family and the history.
Here is a partial scroll of this inquiry:
Post No. 1 - Boris Markovich Schneerson - Family of the Repker Rov - Introduction.
A Letter from Zalman Mendelivich Schneerson to Meir Yankelevich Dizengoff.
The Final Chapter
And now the conclusion. In the past weeks, the family discovered all most of the grandchildren of Boruch Sholem Schneerson. The names and pictures are irrelevant. I am trying to gather information from bits of conversations, so will probably make mistakes, but the general portrait is accurate. When Boruch Sholem was shot by NKVD in 1938 he left two orphans, 17 yo Rosa, she was in the 10th grade, and 14 yo Yaakov in the 7th grade. From what I gather, the mother and her kids moved from Chelyabinsk to the outskirts of Moscow. The surviving family of the “enemy of the people” had to live beyond 100 km buffer from Moscow and the brilliant Rosa was only admitted into one college that would take her.
During the war the family evacuated to Samarkand. Assume none of the Chabad peasants had any idea that the two princes, Rosa and Yaakov Schneerson were walking the same narrow streets of Samarkand? Where did Yehudis spent the war?
Yaakov Schneerson, son of Boruch Sholem, grandson of the Repker Rov
Yakov married a woman from the Judaic tribe of Chernigov, the same town where his zeide was once a Rov. His bride had the same name as his mother, Sophia. Yakov had a son whom he named Boris after his martyred father. Boris now lives in a Russian town, east of the Kazakhstan border. He is a spitting image of Boruch Sholem, amazing. He is also a ben ahar ben of Tzemach Tzedek and Tzemach Tzedek’s oldest son Boruch Sholem, same TT’s son who was Ramash’s zeide. Repker Rov’s wife was an einikle of Levy Itzhok Berdichever. So, this Boris is Alter Rebbe’s, TT’s and Berdichever einikle. Boris married a woman from the aboriginal tribe. They have three daughters. The snazzy Russian Schneerson girls.
I texted with Boris and sent him the full file of his zeide’s case, the two large multipage volumes. He then left me a message that I find astonishing. Boris said that “the rehabilitation, only one page in the file, is raising more questions than the case itself (not persuasive enough?)”. Here is the voicemail to confirm that I am not hallucinating:
Rosa Schneerson, daughter of Boruch Sholem, granddaughter of the Repker Rov
By the accounts Rosa was brilliant. She was teaching in a college and married one of her students who was from the aboriginal tribe. She had two children, a son Sasha, and daughter Natasha (all unique, original names). This family lived in Tashkent. Sasha lives somewhere in Russia now. Natasha lives in Ashkelon, Israel. Natasha is in her 70s now, she has a daughter and granddaughter in Israel.
Evgenia Gesia Schneerson, a daughter of the Repker Rov
It looks like Gesia was married and had a son. At this time, it is not clear whether she married before or after the war. Boruch Sholem writes in his prison form that Evgenia was 27 in 1938, so at the start of the war she was 30. Unlikely they would have drafted her with a child at home. After the war she would have been 34.
Her niece now says that one day Gesia/Evgenia/Zhenia “walked out of a window or a balcony”, in Dnepropetrovsk or in Leningrad and flew right up, to join the celestial congregation of the holy jumpers, forever under the saintly patronage of Dovke Morosov.
Let me say a few words on behalf of Zhenia, Rosa, Margolia and many others. CCCP lost 20 million people in the war. Mostly men. The devastation for that generation of women is impossible to describe. Especially if you are Jewish, from an odd family or just a special soul.
How can you come back without post-trauma after spending all four war years with an army field hospital? Zhenia knew that her father, the Repker Rov, was arrested and died on the way to exile. Her mother predeceased her father. Her brother Boruch Sholem was shot by NKVD. She would not have known, but might have assumed that Freyda and Zalman perished in the Shoa (she would have been right about Freyda). Yehudis escaped abroad, if she even knew? A complete family devastation.
Animation: Garri Bardin (Garri Yakovlevich Bardenshtein). Music: Adagio in G Minor by Albinoni.
Fascinating and I thank you.
One of my favorite pieces of music.