I can't! The only time I use an image I don't own myself without attribution is when despite my best efforts, I can't find one. I don't recall at this point where on the web I found it, but it was used there by someone claiming no credit for it and subsequent image searches via Google and TinEye produce 0 results. It looks likely AI generated to me.
Jay, what a breathtaking marriage of family history with fictional techniques. The story you tell so movingly here contains elements of many familial stories, mostly unknown and told. My mother’s parents left their respective shtetls in Ukraine at a terrible time, and I thought of them while reading your essay.
If you thought of your own family, Rona, what more could I ask? It's that resonance we hope for. You know your words, from a writer whose talents I admire so much, mean much. Thank you.
It's almost impossible for us to fathom what our Jewish ancestors endured before escaping the old country (and discussed only glancingly, if at all). As my grandmother's family waited on the pier to board their ship, her mother announced that the youngest child, a sickly little girl, should be abandoned. She had a large family to feed and resented the burden of daughters. My grandmother insisted that she would carry the baby on her back, and the two were inseparable forever after.
My husband, an ardent and informed family historian, suspects the story is at best an embellishment of the truth, and I've never been able to corroborate it. Everyone who ever heard it, heard it from Grandma, who was prone to exaggeration. That said, I'm inclined to believe the story because it explains a lot about my grandmother. Your essay reconstructs the kind of world in which a woman might decide to abandon a sickly girl to give healthy boys a better chance. And conditions on those ships were pretty brutal.
Rona, that is quite a compelling story, and then yours and your husband's thoughts about it comment so well on the endeavor of seeking to tell these stories. What gets misreported or exaggerated by memory? How do gaps in knowledge get more reasonably filled based on how they comport with known facts and a person's character. And when writing both about history and family, the issues concerning both historical fiction and memoir come into play.
I happen to read about ship conditions doing my current research, and, yes, apparently, they were brutal. Not quite the slave ships of the Middle Passage, but I read there was a 10% death rate.
There is in your descriptive narrative both a cinematic quality - that of being able to visualize the events as if happening in front of us, perhaps because of all we know of the history of which you write - and a dread sense of inevitability of loss and sadness that ultimately gives way to safe passage and hope, which in turn mean survival and endurance. Fine writing, Jay.
Thank you, Maureen. Yes, it is cinematic for me. And you're right. If we're reasonably knowledgeable, we know about the outcomes, so it's all about the juxtapositions and the perceptions they produce.
This is remarkable in every way.
Thank you so much.
Also, can you tell us about the image of the moon over the river?
I can't! The only time I use an image I don't own myself without attribution is when despite my best efforts, I can't find one. I don't recall at this point where on the web I found it, but it was used there by someone claiming no credit for it and subsequent image searches via Google and TinEye produce 0 results. It looks likely AI generated to me.
Jay, what a breathtaking marriage of family history with fictional techniques. The story you tell so movingly here contains elements of many familial stories, mostly unknown and told. My mother’s parents left their respective shtetls in Ukraine at a terrible time, and I thought of them while reading your essay.
If you thought of your own family, Rona, what more could I ask? It's that resonance we hope for. You know your words, from a writer whose talents I admire so much, mean much. Thank you.
It's almost impossible for us to fathom what our Jewish ancestors endured before escaping the old country (and discussed only glancingly, if at all). As my grandmother's family waited on the pier to board their ship, her mother announced that the youngest child, a sickly little girl, should be abandoned. She had a large family to feed and resented the burden of daughters. My grandmother insisted that she would carry the baby on her back, and the two were inseparable forever after.
My husband, an ardent and informed family historian, suspects the story is at best an embellishment of the truth, and I've never been able to corroborate it. Everyone who ever heard it, heard it from Grandma, who was prone to exaggeration. That said, I'm inclined to believe the story because it explains a lot about my grandmother. Your essay reconstructs the kind of world in which a woman might decide to abandon a sickly girl to give healthy boys a better chance. And conditions on those ships were pretty brutal.
Rona, that is quite a compelling story, and then yours and your husband's thoughts about it comment so well on the endeavor of seeking to tell these stories. What gets misreported or exaggerated by memory? How do gaps in knowledge get more reasonably filled based on how they comport with known facts and a person's character. And when writing both about history and family, the issues concerning both historical fiction and memoir come into play.
I happen to read about ship conditions doing my current research, and, yes, apparently, they were brutal. Not quite the slave ships of the Middle Passage, but I read there was a 10% death rate.
Outstanding story—really enjoyed it Jay. 🙏
Thank you, Dee. I know you've been reading the installments. This one caps off that story.
There is in your descriptive narrative both a cinematic quality - that of being able to visualize the events as if happening in front of us, perhaps because of all we know of the history of which you write - and a dread sense of inevitability of loss and sadness that ultimately gives way to safe passage and hope, which in turn mean survival and endurance. Fine writing, Jay.
Thank you, Maureen. Yes, it is cinematic for me. And you're right. If we're reasonably knowledgeable, we know about the outcomes, so it's all about the juxtapositions and the perceptions they produce.