Photograph of three sisters near their mother’s grave
Photo of three women. They are the sisters of Harvey Sohnen’s grandmother. Rezia was a teacher, Nechama a housewife, and Lea owned a grocery. They were all murdered during the Holocaust. They stand near their mother’s grave in the Jewish graveyard of Ashmyany. Rivka, daughter of Dov Tsvi Oriavitsh, died in May 1929. She was Harvey’s great great grandmother on the maternal side. The photo was taken between May 1929 and the Second World War.
On the back of the photo, a text written in Yiddish says: “when you'll see the picture you'll be reminded of Grandmother”.
- Cemetery
- Family
- Gender
- Heritage
- Holocaust
- Identity
- Memory
- Religion
- Shtetl
Harvey Sohnen: “I have a good feeling knowing where I’m from and who my family is. It's really a wonderful thing and I'm sharing these photos with people all around the world, who are my second cousins, and we're also happy to just connect with our family, our family today and our family in the past. It's a wonderful thing. I mean, I've been in contact with cousins in Russia, in Israel. It's a great thing. You know, I think more than anything else. And relatives started to talk to each other, which haven't been know each other before. So that's a long answer. It's a sentimental thing about, connecting to where I'm from".
