Number 87: The once grand Edelstein home of Wulf and Tomer in Sassmaken, opposite the Werbeloffs’, stands now adorned by TV Dishes, neglected and forlorn as if crying out for its rightful owners to return, provide a lick of paint and inhabit it once again. Unlikely! The property, according to Sheila Edelstein, wife of Tony z”l, was transferred many years ago by Eric Levy, into Sascha’s name. In the early ’80s already Mendel Kaplan, told Tony that transferring it into Sascha’s children’s names means reimbursement of Taxes for each year not paid! According to Uncle Bennie the house is now used inter alia as a library. Aunty Ida spoke wistfully of the ripe pears she ate that fell from the Edelstein pear tree. “The garden was its most outstanding feature – second to none!”  

Tony told Sheila that the Edelstein’s lived upstairs and the local Police Office occupied the ground floor. Ida says the Police occupied the Werbeloff property! Whichever, it is these “Police” it seems who managed to release Sascha from prison when he didn’t report for Army duty and who years later conveyed the terrible message to the South African family of their brethren’s fate.

We sadly know little about the life of Tomer, born Hirshberg, 1858 in Minsk currently Belarus – grandmother of Winnie, Tony, Bennie and Hackey. How did she meet Wulf and come to live in far-away Sassmaken in Latvia? What was distinctive about her life  – outside of raising four children while Wulf, her husband, worked as a specialised shoemaker and landlord of the local Bakery and Pumpernickel Confectionery Business, also very involved in Shul affairs? We don’t have the answers…. Through tragic circumstances Tomer also died in Minsk  the city of her birth.

Minsk today has roughly the same size Jewish population as Cape Town – approximately 13 000 people. It’s rich Jewish history stretches back many Centuries. At the time of Tomer’s youth its thriving Jewish Community was close to 50 000  – one of the largest in the Pale of Settlement, (which rose to about 90 000 before Nazi German atrocities intervened…).