A dusty sefer in a Boca genizah connected me to ancestors in a way I’d never imagined
Last summer, for the first time, I fulfilled a long-held dream to visit my grandparents’ hometown in Europe. By the time the plane touched down in Budapest, I felt like I was carrying generations on my back.
My grandparents, both Holocaust survivors, had long since passed away, but their stories were etched onto my soul. I knew that they’d had happy childhoods surrounded by loving grandparents, siblings, and cousins. I knew that they were first cousins who married after the war, after each had lost their first spouse and children.
But there was so much that was hidden, too painful to share. And I was desperate to learn more, to fill in some of the missing gaps.
For years, I had dreamed of visiting their hometown of Bushtyno. I had always imagined standing where they once stood, breathing in the same air, walking those same cobblestone streets.
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