Ukraine Trip Post #2--Day 2 (September 2, 2016)

(To see everything from my Ukraine trip, see here.)

We had spent the night in Shklyn, so we started driving through the town.  We saw two ladies on the side of the road, and one of them brought us to an older lady's home. She didn't recognize the name Fine, but when I said my great-great grandfather was Moshe Dovid Fine or Moshko, she got excited.  She said she remembered "Moshko the Jew" and said he was a very nice man.  She would be taking care of her cow, and he would stop and say hi to her.  She remembers when his family would come to visit him in Shklyn.

View from across the road from my great-great grandfather's house

Ukraine Trip Post #1--Day 1 (September 1, 2016)

(To see everything from my Ukraine trip, see here--I'll be posting regularly.)

I'm just back from a spectacular trip to Ukraine, which was more successful than I could have imagined.  I'll be posting details of what I saw here, so stay tuned!

It took a long flight to get to Vienna from Washington, a layover in Vienna where I had time to walk around the city center, and then another flight to Lviv. Did I mention I can't sleep on planes?

Here I go!!

Moshe Dovid Fine Tax Record

I did a deep dive earlier on my great-great grandfather, Moshe Dovid Fine.  Since then, I have a new document that backs up some of the stories that my grandmother had told about him and the fact that he had enough land to have a large vegetable garden and fruit trees.

He was a land-owner in Shklyn--enough to pay taxes:

Tax Record for Charukov Township, Town of Shklyn, 1930s--line 247; Source: State archive of Volyn Oblast. Fond 36, opys 4, file 281, page 114

Moszko Fajn owned 800 sazhens of land (equal to about .8999 acres) in Skhlyn.  He owed 0.42 zlotys in state tax and 0.25 zlotys in municipal tax yearly.

Sheva Baich Declaration of Intention

I was named for my great grandmother, Sheva Fine Baich (and my great grandmother Esther Rutner Joshowitz).  As I wrote earlier, she was born in 1885 in Shklyn, Volhynia, Ukraine when it was part of the Russian Empire, lived through the Holocaust, immigrated to Baltimore in 1947 and died in Baltimore in 1951.

Recently, my father found and gave me the original of her Declaration of Intention, the first step she would have to take to become a United States Citizen.

Sheva Baich Declaration of Intention, 1947

A Fine British(?) Connection

My grandmother had told me that she had an uncle Mordechai "Motke" Fine who had come to America, but that because he was diabetic, he was sent back to Russia where he was drafted into the Russian Army to serve in World War One, and then he died soon after.

My great-great uncle, Mordechai Fine (picture taken around 1919)

I'd searched sporadically for a ship manifest to document this, but I'd never found it (Fine is a relatively common name), even using M followed by a combination of wildcards.  When transcribing my grandmother's story, I decided to give it another try.  I didn't know when Motke was born or when he came to the US, but I bounded the search for all Fines, Feins, and Fajns from Russia within what would make sense given his sister Sheva's birthdate (she was my great grandmother) and the fact that he was back in Russia to be able to serve in World War One.

Sonia Bajcz Diamond: Living in Shklyn and the Senkevychivka Ghetto (Part 3: 1936-1942)

This is the third in a series that summarize an interview of my grandmother, Sonia Bajcz/Beitch Diamond (then Sara Bajcz), from about 20 years ago.  This talks about the years leading up to WWII, living with her grandfather in the village of Shklyn.  Previous posts in this series are here and here.

When I was finishing seventh grade, we heard rumors of what was happening behind the borders.  We had been supposed to build a new house, and we already had all of the materials.  But with the rumors we were hearing, my father decided that it was not the right time to build.  So he called a Ukrainian man he knew from the nearby village of Bludoff, and the man came with a big long wagon, and he picked up (in several loads) our brick, cement, lumber, and other building materials.  Around then, my bubby (my mother's mother) had passed away in Shklyn.  My zaidy said to my mother that since you're not building a house now, and your current house's rent is very high, why don't you come to live with us.

My mother did not want to go back to the village.  But my father said we should just go for a short while until the situation calmed down.  So my parents went to Shklyn.  However, my sister and I remained in Horochov with my father's mother who had said that she wanted to stay in the city--she was born in the city, was raised in the city, and she did not want to go to a village.

Sheva Beitch - Ancestor Deep Dive

My great grandmother was Sheva Fine Beitch (also spelled Bajcz in Polish).  I'm named for her (my Hebrew name is Sheva Esther).  She was born on May 12, 1895 in Shklyn in what is now Volhynia, Ukraine, just to the northeast of Horochiv.  Her parents were Moshe Dovid and Devorah (nee Garber) Fine, and she had two sisters Sara and Baila and a brother Mordechai.

She married Avraham Beitsch and had three children.  The oldest was my grandmother Sonia (originally Sara Etta), followed by Malia (emphasis on the first syllable), and then the baby Herschel.  Herschel died as an infant.

Beitsch Family.  (L-R): Malia, Avraham, Sheva, Ronia (Avraham's mother), Sonia.  This picture was saved by Sonia from a pile of garbage after the ghetto was destroyed

Although Sheva was from Shklyn and Avraham was from nearby Huben, the Beitch family lived in the bigger town of Horochiv (also Horochov or Gorokhov).  The town regularly switched between Russia and Poland--until the Germans arrived.  Then the Beitch family was moved into a ghetto in nearby Senkevychivka.


Life in the ghetto was difficult.  But then on October 14, 1942, rumblings were going on about a large deportation.  Sheva had Sonia and Malia sneak out of a hole in the ghetto's fence; they ended up hiding in a barn where Malia would be murdered.  That day the ghetto was liquidated.  Among those killed in the ghetto was Avraham Beitch, Sheva's sisters Sara and Baila, Baila's children Cheike (and husband Mendel) Wollich Chechman and Moshe Wollich, and Cheike's daughter Devorah Chechman.  Sonia believed her mother was dead as well.

Shortly after, Sonia (who was hiding wherever she could) met up with Pesach Dimant, who she vaguely knew from before the war.  He told her that he believed her aunt had survived.  He took her to an attic--where she found her mother Sheva!  (Pesach knew it was her mother but wanted to break it to her gently.  And yes, he later married Sonia, but that's another post to write.)