Number 12: Raymond’s Grandfather Victor’s parents were Dov Aryeh Leib and Sheva Channa (‘nee Weingart / Weingrad). Their four children were: Victor, Lazar, Eli and Bassa – Leah. They lived in a shtetl in north western Lithuania called: Khveidan / Khverdana / Chweidan

Dov Aryeh Leib was the shul’s (synagogue’s) “Gabbai” (person who assists in the running of the synagogue), who according to “Gramps” was “everything”. Dov was apparently capable of removing the veins from an animal’s hind quarters, a difficult task, in order to render the animal kosher. In an apparently successful attempt to avoid conscription to the Russian army Dov changed the family name from Shkolnick to Schkolne.

It is Channa Leah, Grandpa’s mother, who gave him the Copper Pot when he left for South Africa.  What her emotions were when giving her first born son the pot, after filling it with its contents for the long journey, surely knowing that the chances of her seeing him again were very low, haunts me whenever I reflect on it, which is often!   My understanding is that Channa Leah became blind and frail in her old age.

While Victor, Lazar and Eli left their parents, (never to see them again) and came to South Africa, their sister married a man whose surname was Epstein and they had two daughters.   Victor’s parents, his sister, her husband and their two children were all murdered in Lithuania during the Holocaust in approximately June 1941. Victor was told that they were taken into the woods, told to dig their graves and then shot….

Yitgadal, Ve-Yitkadash Shemei Raba