Family Closer than I Thought

My grandmother's sister Anita was 12 years older than my grandmother, and so she remembered more about life in Ukraine than my grandmother (who was only 2 when they emigrated). Over the years, she told my Aunt Phyllis many stories, and I'm very lucky that my Aunt has a tremendous memory.

Anita was extremely petite. I only remember her at the very end of her life at the nursing home in Riverdale - nearly blind, nearly deaf, mind as sharp as a tack, and tiny compared to my 6' 2" adolescent body. As a child, Anita's size worried my great-grandfather Abram Broitman. He used to send her to his sister Riva's house because there were a lot of children there. He thought she would eat more with other kids around.

It got me thinking: what happened to all of these "kids"? We're still in contact with the descendants of one of those kids, who also immigrated to NY and lived very close to my mother's family. But what about the other siblings who stayed in Ukraine? On the heels of finding family on that side of the family searching through the pages of testimony at Yad Vashem, I thought I'd see if I could find any additional living family who had submitted records of family who perished in the Holocaust. So, a few nights ago I spent a little more time (literally 15 minutes) looking through the records at Yad Vashem. Eureka!

Based on my previous research (an interview with Anita before she died and a death certificate), I knew that the parent's names were Riva Broitman Krutoy and Jacob (Yakov) Krutoy. Riva was sister to Abram Broitman, my greatgrandfather. Entering "Krutoy" into the database, I was amazed to find an entry for “Abram, Krutoi,” of Odessa, Ukraine the son of Riva and Yakov Krutoi. A very likely match, given the names.

The page was submitted by Abram's son Konstantin. If alive, he'd be in his 80s. He'd be my grandmother's first-cousin once-removed. The page of testimony submission was originally in Russian, and the translations into English do not include the submitter's address. I asked a colleague who reads Russian to help me interpret the handwritten page to see if I could get more information. I assumed the address would be in Ukraine or Israel.

Nope. This cousin lives in Brooklyn! Coney Island, to be specific. One of the many older Russian Jewish immigrants in some very large apartment buildings. I wonder what his reaction will be when he receives the letter I'm writing?