As the snow continues to fall outside and I have a snow day from my job, I decided to continue searching in my Grandma’s Photo Album. Since my last photo once again lead me to the Yad V’Shem data base and to another story of death during the Shoah, I searched for perhaps some happier photos. I was successful.
I found three photos from the 1940s. The first two were taken on November 25, 1945. Perhaps the photo with the three people is a wedding photo for Felix and Martha, along with Martha’s sister, Rosa. They are celebrating something, as Felix and Martha are wearing flowers. The two women look so much alike. They have the same exact smile. I know that they must be sisters.
The third photo, from July 14, 1947, is inscribed: “To you, dear cousin, from Rosel.” I am sure the ‘dear cousin’ is my grandmother. It surprised me because this photo was taken a few days before my grandmother’s 41 birthday.
These two girls are much younger than my grandma. Closer in age to my mother, who would have been 18 in 1947. So perhaps they are the surviving children of one of my Grandma’s first cousins. There were so many of them. Her mother had seven siblings and her father three or four. Although my grandmother’s siblings survived, many of her cousins perished in the Shoah.
Martha, the girl who I think married, looks so much like my mother. Not her smile, but the shape of her face. I can see that they are somehow related.
Now I am on a search to see where they settled after the war. I have emailed cousins and my siblings in this search. Mainly because I remember these names. I have heard together. I have heard my grandmother say them. One of my mother’s first cousins has no memory of these people. But since I spent so much time in Israel and traveled there with my grandmother, I am hoping these are among the people that I met so many years ago. (See blog below.)
I know my grandparents sent money to relatives after the war. Were these people among those who they helped? I do not know. My grandfather once said that he was always helping grandma’s family. But I know he did not mind. It was something that had to be done.
I wish these photos included a last name as that would make my search so much easier. But in the long run, perhaps it does not matter. At least I know they survived and that alone gives me joy.
https://zicharonot.com/2014/08/19/old-photographs-bring-memories-to-life/
https://zicharonot.com/2019/09/26/another-photo-another-trip-to-the-yad-vshem-database/
https://zicharonot.com/2019/06/17/my-obsession-with-grandmas-album-leads-to-the-shoah/
https://zicharonot.com/2018/07/20/viroshov-wieruszow-a-jewish-community-destroyed/
https://zicharonot.com/2014/04/28/speaking-yiddish-always-brings-me-holocaust-memories/
zicharonot 
Do you think they lived in the US or Israel? I hope you can find them.
I am beginning to think Israel or Australia. Cause my mom’s first cousin in the USA did not know them.
Hope you can find them. They certainly knew English, but used the European style form of writing the date. But that doesn’t help much, I suppose. If they were in the US at all, there might be a ship manifest?
Can you trace only using first names?
I think on Stevemorse.org you can search with a companion and perhaps the two or three first names might bring something up. Felix isn’t that common a name, I’d think.