Danny Verbov, a personal historian and editor/translator living in Israel, wrote a book about his grandfather and completed it for the latter’s first yahrzeit. His grandfather, Rabbi Leslie Hardman, had been a British army chaplain during World War II and was among those who liberated Bergen-Belsen. Because Rabbi Hardman was a public figure, Verbov was able to draw upon published sermons, Holocaust history, and synagogue archives to convey his values and wisdom. The book has brought the Israeli family and the British grandfather and great-grandfather together. “I now feel closer to my grandfather than I ever did while he was alive,” Verbov said. “Now every one of my children has a copy of that book and also feels far more connected to him… Through the book, the man and his memory and his messages live on. He’s a living presence in our life.”
History For Whom? A generation accustomed to fleeting messages that take no longer than the time it takes to type a few keystrokes to record may not think about life stories that are less ephemeral.
Does it matter? Studies show that the more kids know about their family history – the good and bad, the obstacles, the triumphs and even he failures – the more successful they are in meeting their own challenges in life and the higher their self-esteem. For a child who hears the stories and the memories, just knowing makes a difference.
For the narrator, the process of recalling past events can be emotionally satisfying, especially for elderly people. It’s not therapy, personal historians point out, but telling one’s story to a sympathetic and non-judgmental listener can be therapeutic.
For the interviewer within a family, it may be an opportunity to ask the questions that may go unanswered forever. As personal historian, Nechamie Margolis relates, she had been close to her grandfather but never thought to ask questions about his life. “He was in his late 80s and speaking about all his struggles in life … I was in my 20s so for me to see that emotional aspect was a very powerful experience.”
As for me, my search has taken me from the battlefields of World War I to the pushcarts of the Lower East Side to the streets of Brooklyn and the world of my parents’ generation: the Great Depression, World War II, and raising a family in the baby boom era.
Ed Schwartz, who claims not to remember very much, has given me two precious fragments of history that I would not have known: One, that due to my great-grandfather Uri Schwartz’s reputation as a skilled cobbler, even the Cossacks would go to the shop in his home to have boots made; and two, that this same Uri Schwartz walked home to Rohatyn from exile in Siberia.
Now or generations hence, my children can tell it to their children.
