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Jeffrey (Ronkin) Barrie |
This interesting series of messages was sent to us by Jeffrey (Ronkin) Barrie on August 16, 2000. It describes visits to Velizh, Russia in the "hunt for Ronkin and Zak roots." E-mail Jeffrey at jbarrie@bigfoot.com.
I'm back in Moscow. Mom shared the long letter you wrote to her. I have a video tape with commentary in Russian on my first Velizh trip. I am attaching a copy of three notes that resulted from it. Best, Jeff
(9/23/1993) Dear Family:
Thanks to information from Herb Lazerow and Anita Rankin over the Summer, I was able to make a trip to Velizh (Welis) last week. It was really great, and I'm forwarding a copy of a letter I wrote to my immediate family when I got back to Moscow from that visit. I want to add some information here, with the hopes that somewhere out there additional information will turn up to allow the hunt for Ronkin and Zak roots to continue.
The teacher I found in Velizh, who spent an afternoon telling me the history of that city, is Alexander Grigoryevich Bordyukov. Also there were his wife Yuliya Eduardovna and daughter Marina Alexandrovna. Alexander has been working on a book listing the names of all the Jews who perished in the Velizh ghetto during the war, and I copied the following names from that book:
Middle names refer to the father's name, so that Shalom Abromovich Ronkin's father's name was Abrom (Abraham). Possible clues to relationships with my grandfather, Abram Ronkin.
At least one Velizh Ronkin is still alive and living in St Petersburg. His name is Leonid Mikhailovich Ronkin, Podboiskogo Street, St Petersberg, Russian Federation 193231. He is an engineer/shipbuilder by profession. I don't know how old he is, but will be getting in touch with him.
(JB note: I met Leonid shortly after writing this note and we became friends, and in 1995 he joined my mother and me on a second trip to Velizh (overnight). But later that year he died at close to the actuarial age of Russian men, at around 58 years old. He seemed in great shape (we swam together and he did much better than I). He is survived by a daughter Galina, a St Petersburg physician. I met her last year and she told me that there is one relative still living in Alma Ata.)
We also uncovered a Canadian professor whose parents are buried in Velizh, and who visited three years ago looking for his own roots. I've asked Andy to try to track him down. He is a Professor Kerr (originally Krivosheyev), an animal biologist sufficiently well known to have been invited to lecture at a university in Helsinki, Finland.
There seems to be a rich vein of information in Velizh, and I'm looking forward to returning there, and making the trip from there to Ilyno (probably by either tractor or horseback) for some more studies. Following also is a translation of a ten year old brochure on the city to give you some flavor. I will be putting the video I took there together and try to get copies to you before the end of the year.
I am going to open a bank account where donations can be deposited for work on this project. Any contributions you care to make will be used to help people like Alexander and defray expenses along the way. In about half a year it should begin to be possible for anyone who likes to visit these places with enough information to get closer to where the family roots have probably been in place since around the 17th Century.
Dear Mom, Andy, Marc, Brian:
Just back from a fascinating trip into the past. With a business trip to Smolensk planned for Monday, I decided to take the train out on Friday evening, and use the weekend to do some exploring north of Smolensk around Wellis, or as it is called here -- Velizh (accent on the e -- VYElizh). Marina and I rented a van, which took us two hours north of Smolensk to this town. Of course, the video camera was with me, or with Marina for the entire trip.
First stop was the central market, where I asked Marina to find an old woman to ask if there were any Jews around. We came up with a real specimen, who told me while munching on an apple that the only Jews in town were in the Jewish cemetery. She told the driver how to get there, and we were off.
Five minutes later, we wound through a country lane, past the Russian Orthodox cemetery, to one of the starkest scenes I've seen here. Bordered on one side by a huge transformer station was a long field of headstones, most of which seemed to be scattered about in almost random fashion, almost all of which were canted at the same angle out of the ground. It looked like they had all been knocked over at the same angle. Perhaps ten of them had legible Hebrew letters on them, the rest almost seemed to have been erased.
We found a woman near the cemetery herding cows in the opposite direction and asked her how we might find more about this cemetery. She gave us the name of a school teacher who she told us know everything about the Jews, because his wife was Jewish. The street she named was the main road through town, and when we reached it we stopped the first man we saw for help. As I explained what we were looking for, he threw down the apple he was eating, and said he'd take us to the teacher himself -- his next door neighbor!!
Ten minutes later we were sitting inside of a traditional Russian house -- peasant hut -- with the teacher, his wife and daughter. He is in his early sixties, retired from teaching history in the town's single school, and his passion is the heritage of Velizh. He told us that between war veterans and family of those who perished in the war, he has entertained some 1500 people in his home over the last twenty years.
After I explained the family history I knew, and told him about Ilyino, he began pulling out maps and pictures and spinning an incredible story. Velizh was a regional commercial center of some 16,000 persons in the middle of the last century, a real polyglot of nationalities and professions. Steamboats brought passengers up the Dvina from Vitebsk, and cargo barges were pushed further north past Ilyino. In those days, the road to Ilyino was only twenty miles long. Today, traveling by car, one has to follow roads through Veliky Luki on a two hour trip.
A large Jewish population grew up in Velizh, and by the end of the century there were six synagogues. We talked a lot about the pale of settlement, restrictions on Jewish travel, etc, and when I asked how or why our grandfather might have moved up to Ilyino, he said the most probable reason would have been marriage.
Of course I asked about Rankin -- and he immediately corrected me and said RONKIN, and began pulling things out of his shelves. First a file card of the only surviving Ronkin he knew about -- in Leningrad. Then a red bound book which he has lovingly been collecting on the victims of the war -- and especially of the Jewish ghetto in the town, and opened it to the R's. There were eight or so Ronkin entries, two born close enough to Abraham's to have been his brothers. The day stretched on, filled with pictures of Velizh in the nineteenth century, but mostly of the war and its aftermath, which permanently removed almost all traces of the past and left a normal Soviet town in its place.
All on video, with promises on my side of return visits, help for his work, and the expectation of writing to the Leningrad Ronkin. Wish you were all with me. Please pass this letter along to the rest of the family. This looks like a rich vein that we can -- if we choose -- mine for several years to come.
Love and hugs, Jeff
(Published by the Smolensk Department of the All Russian Society for the Protection of Historical Monuments and Culture)
Velizh is located on the Western Dvina River, near the center of the Smolensk Region of the Russian Federation, some 70 miles north of the city of Smolensk. It is one of the oldest cities of this region. Velizh was first mentioned in the 14th Century Bykovets Chronicles: "we found the great prince Vitol'd making preparations near a Pskov beautiful city called Velizh.." Continual wars desolated the city by the beginning of the 16th Century.
Ivan the Terrible described the city in the early 16th Century as follows: "in the Summer of 7044/1536, on April 19th, the great prince Ivan Vasilyevich and his mother the great princess Elena established a city in the Toropets District, the city of Velizh..." The construction of the Velizh castle in 1536 is considered the official date of the founding of the city. The castle was wooden, with nine towers. It was located in the old part of Velizh on left bank of the Western Dvina at its confluence with the Konevitz Stream.
The Polish historian Geidenshtein wrote in 1580: "Velizh was never a very populous city, and probably took its name from its spaciousness." The name more likely comes from the Velizh River, which feeds the Western Dvina, on the banks of which the city is located.
In 1563, twenty-seven years after the construction of the castle, the Latvian Hetman Radzivill burned the city, but was not able to take the castle. From that time until the end of the 18th Century, Velizh remained a bone of contention between the Polish-Latvian and Russian governments. As a border city, it was passed from hand to hand, and only after the partition of Poland in 1772 did it finally become part of Russia, which designated it a district city of the Vitebsk province of the Pskov Gubernia.
Napoleon's invasion of Russia in 1812 did not pass the city by. In July, 1812 a detachment of French cavalry fell on Velizh, meeting resistance from a regiment of recruits which almost completely perished in the attack.
For most of the 19th Century the city had a population of around 10,000 and there were seven stone and four wooden Russian Orthodox churches, a Catholic church and seven Jewish prayer houses. In 1802 38 boys and 5 girls were recorded as studying in city schools.
Located on a semi-navigable river, Velizh maintained active trade in flax seeds, hemp and wheat with Vitebsk, Polotsk and Riga via shallow draft boats built by Velizh craftsmen. Timber was harvested and floated downstream to Vitebsk. Velizh carpenters plied their trade widely throughout the district. By the end of the 19th Century, as steam navigation of the river was started in 1892 to Vitebsk and Polotsk, the construction of small river craft in Velizh was sharply reduced.
Velizh has a rich revolutionary history. In 1797, officers stationed here from the Petersburg Dragoon Regiment participated in a secret organization called the "Smolensk Volnodumtsy," founded by A. M. Kakhovskyy.
In 1901, a Velizh branch of the Vitebsk Russian Social Democratic Republican Party was founded, numbering around 25 members. The members distributed anti-government pamphlets and led strikes of local workers. Close ties with the group were maintained by Ts. S. Zelikoson-Bobrovskaya, and active agent of the Leninist Iskra.
The first Communist Party organization in Velizh was begun after the February Revolution of 1917, which was formalized on October 18th, 1917 by a group of Velizh Bolsheviks led by M. I. Kasavinim. Soviet control of the area was not completely established until 1927, and during the intervening years there were constant struggles between Communist and Kulak/Socialist Revolutionary (SR) forces.
My note: the Kulaks were land owning peasants who fought the advent of Communist power. Many SR's were Jews who never accepted Bolshevik tenets. Reading between the lines here, the Civil War seems to have lasted longer than normal in this region, and Jews must have suffered considerably as a result.
Soviet power led to considerable progress in Velizh. By 1941 there were four high schools, a teachers college, a nursing college, a regional farming technical school, two clubs, one movie theater, an outdoor theater, a sports stadium, a library and a regional museum. Local industry included a brick factory, a shipbuilding wharf, starch factory, and many industrial workshops.
Peaceful work was interrupted by Fascist invasion. On July 14, 1941 Hitler's forces occupied the city. Part of the "new order" was the mass murder of the elderly, women and children. The occupation forces shot and brutally tortured more than 2,000 residents.
In January 1942, after the defeat of the Fascist forces near Moscow, the Red Army brought its counter-attack to Velizh, considered an important supporting point to the approaches to Smolensk and Vitebsk. For twenty months units of the 4th Shock Army conducted persistent battles for the city, and on September 20, 1943 freed it from German-Fascist occupation.
Some 30 monuments have been built in Velizh to commemorate revolutionary and military victories in the region. Velizh street names are also named for Revolutionary and Military heroes. The city square is named in honor of Prokhorov, the family name of the father and son who were killed by gangs of Kulaks. The most impressive monument in the city was erected to celebrate the 30th anniversary of the victory over the Germans in the Great Fatherland War. Its five bayonets pointing West symbolize the five divisions of the Fourth Shock Army which fought here.
The highest place of honor in the city is Lidov Hill, rising above the Western Dvina River. Here are buried more than 10,000 soldiers and officers of the Soviet Army, who gave their lives for the freedom of Velizh and the restoration of Soviet power.
During the war the city was completely destroyed and years of titanic work were required to raise it from the ashes, and return it to livable form. Velizh residents worked heroically in the years following the war to restore their native city. The most dramatic changes in the city followed an act of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union and Council of Ministers of the USSR "On measures for the development of agriculture of the Smolensk Region." As a result the majority of the city's streets have been paved. A steel-concrete bridge was built across the Western Dvina River, joining the two parts of the city. Also built were a hospital, department store, center for services and communications, bus station, bread factory, first class flax factory, high school, music and sports schools, house of culture, restaurant, reconstruction and expansion of the furniture factory, and development of micro-regions for residential housing.
Today Velizh harvests 400,000 cubic meters of timber, which are moved by dozens of powerful diesel tugs and other machinery. Skilled carpenters produce home furniture. And commercial activities continue to grow from the regional agricultural enterprises, the flax factory, milk factory and light industrial factory. Professions such as metalworker, educational specialist, cultural-educational specialists thrive. More than 1200 children attend Velizh schools. The Velizh Agricultural College graduated its first class in 1983.
Velizh youth organizations collected rich historical materials over the years, which have formed the basis for a museum of revolutionary and military honor, which is located at the Regional Agricultural Technical School.
Residents of Velizh preserve and remember their glorious revolutionary, military and labor traditions and continue the program of building Communism.
(published in 3,000 copies by Smolensk Printing Company)
