He continued desperately searching for any and all information regarding what had happened to his family beyond the end of the war — in 1946, H. Leivick went to the American occupied zone to tour the DP camps as part of a delegation and was asked by Zeitlin to find out what he could. He found where his nephew, David, had been buried after dying at Gauting Sanatorium. And happiness that there was even a physical grave to visit is absolutely heart-breaking.
From Leivick’s account: “Aaron Zeitlin specifically asked that we might find out all it is possible to discover in the camps about the fate of his family. I cannot forget a single sentence of Zeitlin’s in his letter which he gave to me en route, — sentences which follow me the entire time. From them, from the phrases, it is clear to me that Zeitlin already knows everything about the fate of all of his relations.”
(Zeitlin also wrote about his father Hillel for ‘Der Tog’ in 1952, which is available on the NLI’s ever-expanding collection of digitised issues.)
Thanks for sharing this! Yes, there are some beautiful, devastating resources by and about Zeitlin and his family in this regard. I'm particularly moved by much of what's come to us about Hillel Zeitlin's religious religious activities in the Warsaw ghetto - maybe I'll be able to share some of that in a future newsletter edition.
But thank you for this comment, and for these added details! Where can one find Leivick's account of this trip? I've seen it mentioned before but haven't come across the primary sources.
נישטאָ פארוואס — Having worked through it, I think it’s almost essential reading for the first section of Leivick’s work post-war, particularly the first section of ‘Leaf on an Apple Tree’ from 1955.
He continued desperately searching for any and all information regarding what had happened to his family beyond the end of the war — in 1946, H. Leivick went to the American occupied zone to tour the DP camps as part of a delegation and was asked by Zeitlin to find out what he could. He found where his nephew, David, had been buried after dying at Gauting Sanatorium. And happiness that there was even a physical grave to visit is absolutely heart-breaking.
From Leivick’s account: “Aaron Zeitlin specifically asked that we might find out all it is possible to discover in the camps about the fate of his family. I cannot forget a single sentence of Zeitlin’s in his letter which he gave to me en route, — sentences which follow me the entire time. From them, from the phrases, it is clear to me that Zeitlin already knows everything about the fate of all of his relations.”
(Zeitlin also wrote about his father Hillel for ‘Der Tog’ in 1952, which is available on the NLI’s ever-expanding collection of digitised issues.)
Thanks for sharing this! Yes, there are some beautiful, devastating resources by and about Zeitlin and his family in this regard. I'm particularly moved by much of what's come to us about Hillel Zeitlin's religious religious activities in the Warsaw ghetto - maybe I'll be able to share some of that in a future newsletter edition.
But thank you for this comment, and for these added details! Where can one find Leivick's account of this trip? I've seen it mentioned before but haven't come across the primary sources.
The book collecting his notes about the trip is here, and most of it (though not all) is also in Der Tog in the second half of 1946: https://www.yiddishbookcenter.org/collections/yiddish-books/spb-nybc200048/leivick-h-mit-der-sheyres-ha-pleyteh
The content regarding Zeitlin is all in the chapter about Gauting. For a happier story, he also finds and delivers a gift to Jacob Glatstein’s sister.
Thanks! I'm looking forward to diving into this.
נישטאָ פארוואס — Having worked through it, I think it’s almost essential reading for the first section of Leivick’s work post-war, particularly the first section of ‘Leaf on an Apple Tree’ from 1955.
Amazing, thanks. That is a great endorsement.