Friday, July 23, 2010

Need a Cemetery Map?

The Museum of Family History's Cemetery Project contains much of interest to the Jewish genealogist. Information on more than 130,000 burials in the New York metro area, a directory of cemeteries, an exhibition of society gates, the inner workings of a typical Jewish cemetery, and dozens of photographs of cemetery maps.

These cemetery maps are not of individual society plots, but of the maps that you pick up when you visit the cemetery office, that allow you to know where your family member is buried and how to find it. Most of the maps provided are of New York and New Jersey cemeteries, but you will also find maps of Jewish cemeteries in the states of California, Florida, Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, Maryland, Illinois and Ohio, not to mention the provinces of Quebec and Mannitoba in Canada.

The latest maps to be added are from Massachusetts, i.e. from Sharon Memorial Park in Sharon, and from Los Angeles, i.e. Hillside Cemetery. It is hoped that more such maps will be added in the future, though this will mostly depend on people like yourself who can obtain such maps, scan them and e-mail them to the Museum. Please mail these maps to steve@museumoffamilyhistory.com. Ideally, they should be unmarked.
You can find the maps of the New York and New Jersey cemeteries, as well as links to maps of Jewish cemeteries in other states and Canada, by clicking here.

Three More Films from Tomek Wisniewski

Now you can see the three new Tomek Wisniewski films appearing at the Museum of Family History. There are now fifty-one of Tomek's films available for you to view, each interesting in their own right.

The first of his new films is entitled "Over the Rooftops" and is a nearly thirty-minute series of views of Bialystok, often from a "birds-eye" view. You can find the film here.

The second film is also about Bialystok, is more than thirty minutes long, and is entitled "Bialystok: Yesterday and Today, From the Heavens and the Earth." To see this film, please click here.

The third film is about the Taibl Pomerantz Jewish nursery school of Grajewo, 1926. The film is basically a seven minute scan of a student group photograph with the frequent zooming in of the faces of the young children. To see this film, please click here.

The Museum hopes you enjoy all that Tomek Wisnewski has to offer. He is quite a creative talent and cares much about the history of the Jewish people in Poland.

The entire list of and links to the fifty-one of his films at the Museum can be found here. Undoubtedly, more will follow in the coming weeks.

More Synagogue and Holocaust Memorial Photographs from Europe

The Museum has added to its evergrowing exhibitions of European synagogue and Holocaust memorial photographs.

New synagogue photos have been added for the following countries and towns:

--Austria: Kobersdorf (Kabold).
--Croatia: Varazdin.
--Germany: Dresden.
--Hungary: Esztergom, Gyongyos, Gyor, Gyula, Hajdúböszörmény, Keszthely, Kisvarda, Mad, Mako, Miskolc, Nyiregyhaza, Pecs, Siklos, Sopron, Tapolca, Tata, Tiszafured and Zalaegerszeg.
--Poland: Krakow, Tarnogrod, Tarnow and Wrzesnia.
--Romania: Targu-Mures.
--Slovakia: Samorin.
--Ukraine: Brody, Kamyanka Buzka and Vylok.

You can find these photos by visiting the particular country synagogue page. Just click here.

New Holocaust memorial photographs have been added from:

--Hungary: Budapest and Kunmadaras.
--Poland: Deblin, Kielce, Kozienice, Krakow, Lodz, Opole, Piotrkow Trybunalski, Przemysl, Radomsko, Rzeszow, Sochaczew, Tarnow, Warszawa and Wrzesnia.
--Ukraine: Rogatyn.

You can find these and all the other exhibition's collection of Holocaust memorial photos by clicking here.

More such photographs are always welcome. You may send jpegs to the Museum at steve@museumoffamilyhistory.com. Please identify the photographs, e.g. country and town where they are located, name of the synagogue, and any other information you think is relevant.

Thursday, July 22, 2010

WWI Honor Roll and Holocaust Memorial in Great Britain

New to the Museum are two pages listing Jewish soldiers and personnel who perished during both the First and Second World Wars.

In 1990 two plaques honoring those soldiers et al who died between 1914 and 1919 were transferred from the East London Synagogue to the area of the Waltham Abbey Cemetery. A photograph of the plaques and lists can be found by clicking here. Be sure to click twice on the photograph if you'd like to read what has been inscribed on these plaques.

Also in this location you can also see a memorial conceived and built by Holocaust Survivor Roman Halter, dedicated to the six million Jews who were murdered during World War II by clicking here. This is the first Holocaust memorial from Great Britain that is featured in the Museum's "World Holocaust Memorials" permanent exhibition. More are always welcome.