Inspired by Toni Morrison’s “Sites of Memory” chapter in William Zinsser’s edited volume, Inventing the Truth: The Art and Craft of Memoir, I began to think about my trip to my grandfather’s shtetl in 2008, recalling my thoughts about the shtetl when it was filled before 1939 with 2,000 Jews. This morning in Emily Stoddard’s Hummingbird session, prompts led me in the direction of “place,” and so I wrote down my observations as well as the landsmanshaft my grandfather joined in New York, the Zaromber Progressive Young Friends Society.
I still have not been able to identify the man with my grandfather in the photo I posted last week. This piece, which may have started out as a “snap shot,” is turning into a full-fledged creative nonfiction essay.
Photo of the home in Zaromb (Zareby Koscielne, Poland) that may have once belonged to my Pryzant family.
This Week
I still need to call the synagogue that’s been sending Yahrzeit notices to my cousin about our great-grandmother in my quest to find out where this ancestor is buried. I will continue to work on the essay about my grandfather Max Perlman (aka Avram Mendel Pryzant).
The Whole Megillah 