Visit to New York and New Jersey

Statue of Liberty with the Manhattan financial district in the background

In the beginning of the 20th Century part of my Aunty Betty's Lulinski family emigrated from Lithuania to Scotland and part went to the United States. This past autumn a dream came true and I finally visited New York and New Jersey, meeting my American-born family whom I had only discovered when embarking on this project. This weblog post will give a brief overview of the many events that were packed into the few days of my short visit.

Having landed at Newark Liberty Airport my wife and I were picked up by my cousin, Sandy, and her husband, Saul, who took us to their home in New Jersey. Later we met Sandy's sisters, Joyce and Lynda. The three sisters are descendants of one of Aunty Betty's siblings who emigrated to New York.

Family reunion

Family reunion

A family reunion was planned at Joyce's house. Although can you speak of a reunion when in the case of some we had never met in person before? It's just like how Ethel, the sisters' mother, put it when we embraced each other: "How long has it been? Well a lifetime, I suppose!"

Before the "reunion" though we met up with my cousin, Frances.

Left to right: Frances, myself and my wife, Catelijne

Frances is from the Scottish side of the family. She emigrated from Glasgow in 1965 to the United States. She is a granddaughter of Betty's sister, Annie, my great grandmother (for more about Annie see "Annie and the Gorbals"), and she brought an album with fascinating photos, postcards and letters from the Scottish side of the family.

Sydney's Leather Pouch

During coffee at Sandy's house I interviewed Sandy and Lynda. They told me all about the American side of the family. Sandy gave me a leather pouch. It was one of the few belongings which Aunty Betty's brother, Sydney had taken over with him from Vilna. It contains a number of papers, mostly in Polish because Vilna was in Polish hands at the time, which were connected to his journey to the United States.

Sandy and Lynda

Sandy showed us a family video taken in the early years of her and her sisters' childhood in the early 50s. Aunty Betty's brother and sister feature in this film.

Interview Ethel

For the Aunty Betty project my sister interviewed Norman and Ethel Cohen in 2011 (click here for the article "New York"). Norman Cohen is a 2nd generation descendant of the American branch of Aunty Betty's family. Sadly, in the meantime Norman passed away before I was able to meet him in person. I did however meet his wife, Ethel, at the family reunion. The day after the reunion I had the opportunity of interviewing Ethel at her retirement home in New Jersey. In this interview Ethel shed more light on what was often not an easy life for her husband Norman and his parents, who were first generation immigrants to the United States.

Ethel Cohen

One particular anecdote which stood out was the following. Norman's father, Sam Cohen, died when Norman was a child. To help his mother make ends meet, Norman would go to the theatres on Broadway to collect autographs of the stars on postcards. He and his mother would then sell these postcards to bring in some extra money into the household. One particularly famous autograph which Norman acquired was that of George Gershwin.

Ira Lulinski

It was a pleasure and an honour to visit Ira Lulinski and his wife at his daughter's home in New Jersey. Ira (Israel) Lulinski is one of a handful of survivors of the Jewish community of Miory, a town in Belarus not far from the Lithuanian border and also not far from Svintsyan, where Aunty Betty was born. 

Ira Lulinski

We were trying to find a connection between the two Lulinski families. We haven't as yet found a direct connection but as Jews and both having family from this region I felt a meaningful bond between us. Ira's account of survival is a harrowing one and if you are interested to know more about his story then please see The Holocaust Survivors Project.

New York and Ellis Island

We exchanged the green, gently rolling expanse of Manalapan, New Jersey, with its blinding autumn foliage and pumpkin fields, for the unceasing throb of Hell's Kitchen in New York City, the city that literally never sleeps. I went to Ellis Island to try to experience what it must have felt like for my family to arrive in New York. The view of the downtown Manhattan financial district was awe inspiring and even though the skyscrapers looking onto Battery Park and the Upper Hudson Bay have become even taller than back in the first quarter of the 20th Century when my family arrived in New York, the skyline must have surpassed anything they had seen previously. 

I tried to imagine the sense of excitement that Aunty Betty's brother-in-law, Sam Cohen, must have had when his ship reached Ellis Island. Having seen the Statue of Liberty standing in the Hudson Bay, beckoning to him with the offer of freedom and opportunity, he may have stepped onto Ellis Island with some trepidation, anxious if he would be allowed access to the promised land.

The former Registry Hall, Ellis Island

Part of our planned itinerary was to visit the graves of Esther and Sam at Mount Carmel Cemetery. My cousin, Lynda, took us to the cemetery. The cemetery covers a huge expanse of land with roads traversing it. Unfortunately, parts of the cemetery were closing as we drove around like mad people trying to find access to the right area before it closed. The cemetery is a fascinating mirror of the multicultural melting pot that is New York. We stopped to ask the way at a large group of Afro-Americans tending to the grave of a young man. We passed Serbian graves in Cyrillic. We passed the Greek section and the Chinese section. And we passed one Jewish section after another. We had to give up at a certain point when closing time had long passed and there was no more hope of entering the right section. The strong family bonds we re-forged during this visit were more than enough reason to return to New York but if I needed any further reason then it would be to see these family graves.

Workmen's Circle

Aunty Betty's brother-in-law, Sam Cohen, was buried by the Workmen's Circle in a special plot for Workmen's Circle members. Sam was a member of the Workmen's Circle and I was curious to know more about this Jewish labour organisation which still exists and thrives to this day. We were kindly granted an interview with the Workmen's Circle's current Executive Director, Ann Toback.

Ann Toback, Executive Director Workmen's Circle

With enormous enthusiasm and bubbling passion Ann described to me the workers' organisation's past and its relevance to the future of the struggle for social and economic justice in the United States and beyond. The fuel of this movement as Ann explained was and still is "Yiddishkayt" or in other words elements of Jewish life imported by Ashkenazi Jews from Eastern Europe. She named Jewish food and the Yiddish language in particular as important aspects of this culture. As a European Jew I was struck indeed by the vibrant presence of Jewish life in New York, for example in the food but also in the Yiddish language itself with which Saul, Sandy's husband, whom I mentioned in the beginning of this post, was brought up and which he still speaks.

Yonah Schimmel's Knishery (Knish: Jewish filled dough snack from Eastern Europe)

Afterword

I unfortunately did not manage to see all my family in the United States. I would however like to thank everybody we met on this trip for their hospitality and warmth. We felt extremely welcome. This visit was without doubt an intense experience to remember for the rest of my life and in the coming months I hope to write at greater length on this weblog about the interesting material that I have gathered during this trip.