Table of Contents
(?)
Site Page Counts
Public: 510
Restricted: 677
I asked Sevllana if we could go for a walk in the village to see if I remembered things from my childhood and if it had changed a lot. I left Volchin when I was eight years old and that was a long time ago.
We walked in the village and things had changed a great deal. A lot of houses had been burned down in the war but she took me to where my aunt, uncle and family had lived. They had a bakery and a restaurant in the village. When I saw the place, I could not hold the tears back and cried and cried. The actual house had been burned down and a new house stood in the same place.
I asked Sevllana if it would be possible to look inside and we asked the owners: would they mind if I looked around? They replied, “no”. I looked and tears poured down my face as I remembered the happy days I had spent with my parents, brothers and sisters, my aunt and uncle and their family, and now they were all gone, except one cousin in Israel. I asked the lady if there was anything left from the previous owners of the house, a picture, a plate, anything small, as I would love to have it. She said she was very sorry but the place had burned down and everything had perished.
As we walked on, I did see a few old houses that were left. Sevllana told me that these houses were where the Jewish people used to live and they had tried to preserve them so that the younger generation would know that it was once a Jewish community. We went back home and Sevllana laid a beautiful table with lovely crystal, china and tablecloth. I was so surprised as one hears and sees how hard things are, and yet here they have a nice home with nice things.
