We are thirsty for any kind of information or documentation about any member of our family.  Our Great Grandfather, Avram Hattem had lived in Alexandroupolis since the city’s founding in 1873.  At the time, it was under Ottoman control and was established under the Turkish name of Dede-Agach.  During our meetings at the History Museum of Alexandroupolis, we saw advertisements for his Men’s and Boy’s clothing store, the name of the business was Hattem & Sons.

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          This was a precious gift to us because after the destruction of WWII, little information is left, most was destroyed, stollen or simply thrown out by the fascist Bulgarian police.  They were the forces sent in to exercise the Final Solution for the Germans and intense brutality was their way.  Avram was lucky, he died in 1941, an old man, before the deportation and murder of his large family.

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          We found the family home where they all gathered every Friday evening to welcome the sabbath.  We stood and gazed at it, imagining the family festivities, the joy, the family squabbles, the singing, the prayers, perhaps just a decade before their elimination, in my father’s words:

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“I remember my grandfather on a cool evening, when I was very young, at a seder under the large pergola in the garden of their home with vines growing all around.  Couches and pillows filled the gazebo for everyone to sit.  There must have been over twenty members of the family around the table laughing, joking, praying and singing Alhmania or something sounding like that in Ladino and Avramachi, as they used to address my grandfather, was seated at the head of the table next to my grandma on soft cushions.  Wrestling was a very popular sport in this part of the world and till today.   My grandpa would often take on both me and my cousin Avramico together and wrestle us to the ground.”

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          For those in our family living in this young port city, the nightmare began in Alexandroupolis where we began our train journey that would end in Poland.  First stop, Komotini for a few hours, then onto Xanthi where my grandparents, aunt and uncle lived.  It was from Xanthi that they were pulled out of bed in the dead of night and the horror began.

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          The 2nd class train ride was about two hours, comfortable with many open seats.  The rail tracks were the same as theirs.  We saw the same scenery through windows, they saw it through peep holes;  we sat, they stood;  we had sufficient bathroom conveniences, they had none;  we ate when hungry, they had no food;  we drank when thirsty, they had no water;  we reclined on pillows and blankets, they froze on wood floors.  As I gazed out the window, I found myself admiring the beauty of the changing countryside, lush, green, hilly.  Shouldn’t it have been brown and barren?