Photograph of Yerachmiel Getsl Chisin (Chagai) and his wife Sara-Lea Chisin
This is a photo of the contributor's (Donny Inbar) maternal grandmother's parents. It shows Yerachmiel Getsl Chisin with his wife, Sara Lea Chisin (maiden name unknown).
- Assimilation
- Family
- Mir
- Hrodna
- Palanyechka
Yerachmiel was born in Mir around 1850-60. The exact birthplace of his wife, Sara-Lea, is unknown, but most likely Mir or its surroundings. As a child, he attended the Mir Yeshiva, but later left to become a maskil, an enlightened Jew. He loved writing, even writing on Shabbat.
In the early 1880s, he began studying Hebrew and began publishing in Hebrew journals in Poland and Russia.
He also maintained friendly relations with most members of the Haskalah. He signed his name with the acronym of his name – Chagai.
He married Sara-Lea out of love, not convenience, as was more common at the time.
The photograph itself dates back to around 1920, when a family of 8-9 people fled from Mir to Grodno to escape the Bolshevik terror and World War I, and then to Polonechka. Yerachmiel continued writing articles, but his cheese factory provided his income. At the time, Polonechka was under the protectorate of the Radziwills.
Having survived until World War II, according to repatriates from the USSR to Israel, this family perished in one of the ghettos.
According to the contributor: In the Nevezhin (Nevezhis?) ghetto—
since he was a community elder, he was made head of the Judenrat.
His wife, braver and wiser,
those who arrived when the Nazis arrived, threw herself into a well and committed suicide.
He survived and became head of the Judenrat.
And when he was forced to draw up the first list of Jews to be exterminated,
he stared at a blank sheet of paper all night. And in the morning, he wrote one name there—his own.
And signed his own death warrant.
