Tartu

Estonia

21 August 2014

Estonia, rich in history, much of it bloody history, provides the traveler with a variety of unique sights and sounds.

The oldest Stone Age settlements date back 10,000 years.

Finno-Ugric tribes from the east, probably from the Urals at about 3500 BCE, mingled with the Neolithic peoples and settled in present Finland, Hungary and Estonia.  They left behind their language system, so different from the surrounding Indo-European languages.

The Vikings arrived in the 9th and 10th centuries.

Tartu

Estonia

August 20, 2014

Jewish Cemetery, Roosi Street, Tartu

Herr Schapiro buried his young daughter here (1898-1922) and then his wife Hinde Simon (1923).

The Bakst Family is here.  Slomo (1872-1940).  Liuba (1868-1949).  Boris (1901-1941).

Kune Lea Kaplan (1876-1926)

Aisik Grinson (1847-1924)

Ernestine Flachs (1868-1910)

Aron Liebermann (1879-1925)

Samuel Blum (1860-1913)

A.J. Sois (1886-1913)

Abram Pasternak (1864-1928) was buried here by his wife.

Palanga

Lithuania

September 16, 2014

Chat

Several years ago, while on a trip to London to visit my English cousin Dorothy and her equally English husband Roger, I attended a theatre performance where, by chance, I met a lovely woman from South Africa whose name was Jocelyn.  Together we planned some sightseeing for the next day.

When I mentioned my encounter and my surprisingly unplanned plans, my somewhat astonished cousin Dorothy queried, “Jan, how did you meet her?”  (According to British polite society, Jocelyn and I weren’t “properly introduced.”)  Roger immediately intervened and responded, “Jan chatted her up!”