Tears Over Russia
A Search for Family and the Legacy of Ukraine's Pogroms
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- $13.99
Publisher Description
A sweeping saga of a family and community fighting for survival against the ravages of history.
Set between events depicted in Fiddler on the Roof and Schindler’s List, Lisa Brahin’s Tears over Russia brings to life a piece of Jewish history that has never before been told.
Between 1917 and 1921, twenty years before the Holocaust began, an estimated 100,000 to 250,000 Jews were murdered in anti-Jewish pogroms across the Ukraine. Lisa grew up transfixed by her grandmother Channa’s stories about her family being forced to flee their hometown of Stavishche, as armies and bandit groups raided village after village, killing Jewish residents. Channa described a perilous three-year journey through Russia and Romania, led at first by a gallant American who had snuck into the Ukraine to save his immediate family and ended up leading an exodus of nearly eighty to safety.
With almost no published sources to validate her grandmother’s tales, Lisa embarked on her incredible journey to tell Channa’s story, forging connections with archivists around the world to find elusive documents to fill in the gaps of what happened in Stavishche. She also tapped into connections closer to home, gathering testimonies from her grandmother’s relatives, childhood friends and neighbors.
The result is a moving historical family narrative that speaks to universal human themes—the resilience and hope of ordinary people surviving the ravages of history and human cruelty. With the growing passage of time, it is unlikely that we will see another family saga emerge so richly detailing this forgotten time period. Tears Over Russia eloquently proves that true life is sometimes more compelling than fiction.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Genealogist Brahin debuts with an evocative and distressing account of her grandmother's experiences during the wave of anti-Jewish pogroms that swept across Russia and Ukraine in the early 20th century. Estimating that as many as 250,000 Jews were killed between 1917 and 1921, Brahin details horrific crimes committed by gangs of "vicious peasants" and soldiers of the Russian White Army and Ukrainian nationalist forces opposed to the Bolsheviks. Her grandmother Channa, who was born in 1912, was forced to flee her home in Stavishche, a village near Kyiv, and hide with her family in the forest and in the dark crawl spaces of friends' homes. Eventually, they moved in with a family in a neighboring city, where a chance encounter with a distant cousin from the U.S. resulted in the extended family emigrating. Brahin adds context to Channa's story with reports from Yiddish newspapers and diligent archival and genealogical research and paints vivid scenes of anguish and resilience: "Nearly eight hundred Jews filled the cobblestone and dusty dirt Stavishche streets, carrying their belongings, their eyes weary and grief-stricken. They were leaving the only home many had known." This is a vital personal record of Ukraine's turbulent past.
