No. 35

Memoir: Marga Silbermann Randall

Allan Pinsker Papers

Emma Farm Association

Shelly Blumenfeld's art (pictured)

Rabbi Sivitz on Film

Calendar: New Approaches to Endogamy; Finding Your Ancestors in the Forward



Community News: Jakob's Torah, 1950 Census, Pittsburgh Jewish Newspaper Project

Memoir:

"How Beautiful We Once Were"

Johanna Adelsheimer Silbermann (standing center) with her sister Paula Adelsheimer (standing left) and her children Herbert, Hilda and Marga, in the garden of their house in Shermbeck, Germany.

—from Marga Silbermann Randall Photographs [MSP 543].

All memoirs are stories of return. 

Without ever leaving the present, the author allows their mind to swim backward through the most significant moments of their lives.

But some are also stories of physical return, not just mental return.

Marga Silbermann Randall was born in 1930, in the small town of Lemforde in northern Germany. One of her earliest memories came in 1934. The Gestapo telephoned her father, summoning him for questioning. He died of terror, on the spot, with his phone in his hand.

From that moment onward, nothing was the same for the family. Marga was sent to live with her grandparents in Schermbeck. Then came the Nuremberg Laws, then Kristallnacht, then an escape through France, Spain, and Portugal, and finally to Pittsburgh in 1941.

Her memoir “How Beautiful We Once Were” begins 40 years later, when she travels to Germany to confront these memories. The story slides between the present and the past. Randall encounters a familiar person or place, and in explaining its relevance, she takes us through the beauty and the horror of her past.

"How Beautiful We Once Were," by Marga Silbermann Randall, book and teacher's guide.

In a chapter titled “Reclaiming My Past,” Randall describes her longing for a tangible artifact from her stolen youth. “Where were all the dear things I had treasured and had to leave behind? Had they been tossed carelessly in a pile at Theresienstadt to gather dust and rot? Were they burned during bombings? God forbid, had the Nazis pilfered them? I just had to find a touchstone to the past.” She finds that link to the past in 1982, when she learns that a local woman in Lemforde had preserved her family’s old dining room table.

“Sure enough, it was our table, solid oak with a split down the middle,” Randall writes, upon visiting the woman and seeing the table in her kitchen. “Feeling weak-kneed, I sat and rubbed its worn surface, reminiscing about the good times and laughter and, yes, sometimes discipline that was shared around this monolith to our family… The memories were still alive in that work of wood. It had survived all that the Nazis could throw at it, the long split symbolizing the Nazis’ attempt to separate our kin. But there it stood, strong and sturdy like our family, worn but not destroyed, old but not forgotten.”

Today, that table can be seen in the Special Collections gallery on the fourth floor of the Heinz History Center—an artifact that is mistakenly unremarkable until Randall’s memories imbue it with such life.

New Collection:

Allan Pinsker Papers [MSS 1079]

Set drawing and finished set, c.1946.

—from Allan Pinsker Papers [MSS 1079]

Allan Pinsker (1919-2013) was an actor, stage manager and technical director whose career on stage, film and television lasted more than 70 years.

He was born in Uniontown, Pa. and moved to Pittsburgh in 1936. He served with the U.S. Navy during World War II and took a job as a sheet metalworker for Dravo after his return. Pinsker became interested in theater at the age of 18 when he participated in a one-act play festival at the Young Men's and Women's Hebrew Association. He later worked on both sides of the curtain for adult theatrical groups throughout the city including the Y Playhouse, the Pittsburgh Playhouse, City Theatre, the Irish & Classical Theatre, Gargaro Productions at the Byham Theater, and the Civic Light Opera. The Allan Pinsker Papers [MSS 1079] contain scrapbooks, programs, production stills, news clippings, correspondence, and posters documenting his career.

Jewish Encyclopedia of Western Pennsylvania:

Emma Farm Association

Emma Farm Association Progress Report to the Community, 1922.

—from Jewish Community Center of Greater Pittsburgh Records [MSS 389]

The Emma Farm Association was created to “maintain a farm in order to provide open-air recreation for children and adults and a temporary home for convalescents.”

The Association was organized by a group of 33 community leaders on May 19, 1908, after Isaac and Morris Kaufmann purchased a small farm in Harmarville, Pa. for such purposes. The association was named for Isaac Kaufmann’s late wife Emma Kaufmann and today is known as the Emma Kaufmann Camp outside Morgantown, W. Va.

Our entry for the Emma Farm Association includes early newspaper clippings, financial records from 1912 through 1932, assorted histories, and extensive early photographs.  

The glow of the past, the light of life

The recent reopening of the Kaufmann Center culminated with a tour of the building. The line was long and the foyer was crowded. I inched inside, and as I tried to get out of the way, I found myself facing a painting hung prominently by the door. 

Seeing that painting by that door, I heard a pleasing “click” in my mind. It was the wheel of history finishing one of its big, graceful rotations and locking back into place.

The painting is titled “Irene Kaufmann Settlement.” The artist is Shelly Blumenfeld. It shows the old Irene Kaufmann Settlement House amid a buzz of everyday activity — families arriving, friends leaving, kids crowding the balconies, flags waving.

[IMAGE] Manchester Bidwell Corp. President and CEO Bill Strickland at the entrance of the newly reopened Kaufmann Center, beside Shelly Blumenfeld’s painting “Irene Kaufmann Settlement House” and a salvaged section of the old settlement house pool.

“Sleeping Beauty or A Beauty Sleep, Which?”

Rabbi Mark Sameth recently passed along this remarkable footage of Rabbi Moshe Shimon Sivitiz and his family in Schenley Park in 1921. 

September 4:

JGS Pittsburgh Presents: Michael Morgenstern

Founded in 1897, the “Forverts” (Jewish Daily Forward) was a leading Yiddish language newspaper in the United States throughout the 20th century. Most of this newspaper is available to browse digitally for free through the online Historical Jewish Press database. In his talk "Finding Relatives in the Forverts," Morgenstern will examine hidden genealogical gems within this newspaper, some of which can be found with minimal Yiddish skills. Among these gems are personal inquiries submitted by readers seeking information on their relatives, letters to the editor, and the “Gallery of Missing Husbands.” This lecture will also cover the historical and cultural context of the newspaper, which will help evaluate its relevance to a researcher’s individual family history.

The program is Sunday, September 4 at 1:00 p.m. ET It's free for JGS-Pittsburgh members and $5 for the general public. Please register online. 

All attendees are encouraged to log on 30 minutes early for a virtual open house. It’s an opportunity to share genealogy stories and make new friends.

This is a virtual program. It will be recorded, and the recording will be made available for JGS-Pittsburgh members who are current on their dues.

This program is possible through the support of the William M. Lowenstein Genealogical Research Endowment Fund of the Jewish Community Foundation.

Michael Morgenstern is a native of Los Angeles, California. He has been an avid genealogy researcher since he was in high school in 2006. Since 2014, he has worked as an educator at Holocaust Museum LA. He frequently volunteers genealogy research for Holocaust survivors, focusing on those who do not have any prewar family documents or photographs. Michael has presented at IAJGS Conferences and on Uniworld's Jewish heritage themed European river cruises. His latest project has been researching the Forverts (Jewish Daily Forward) and translating segments for JewishGen.