In the mid-1800’s, my maternal great-great-grandparents were born in a Russian shtetl outside Ekaterinoslav, now Dnepropetrovsk, Ukraine. After they married, they moved into the city where Sima, the eldest of their eight children, was born. Sima married Hillel Shleifman who owned two successful furniture companies in Ekaterinoslav. After the Revolution, he sold his business and opened a kosher bakery where he worked until the day after Shavuot in May 1921 when he, Sima and their children began their long journey to the United States. Finally settling in Portland, Oregon, their youngest child, my grandmother, was born.
Jews settled in Ekaterinoslav-Dnepropetrovsk since the founding of the city in 1776. In the late 18th Century, more than 300 Jews lived here and that number continued to grow. By the time my great-grandparents were born, the city was nearly 40% Jewish and a quarter of all businesses were owned by Jewish entrepreneurs which brings me back to the furniture store.
During the Revolution and World Wars, most of the city’s documents were destroyed in looting and fires. Dnepropetrovsk, in particular, has very limited records but that did not stop my colleagues at the Tkuma Center for Holocaust Studies from digging a little deeper to help me learn more about my family’s life here.
I am holding a copy of page 287 of the Ekaterinoslav "Yellow Pages" from 1913 which lists my great-grandfather Hillel Shleifman and his two stores at Trotsky Bazaar (booth 88) and Ozerka Bazaar listed under furniture. Not only are both bazaars still in use today but they are where I shop, only minutes from my apartment.
As I haggled a babushka over the price of onions last weekend at Ozerka, I wondered if my great-grandmother had the same favorite honey vendor or if my great-grandfather was friendly with the father of the old man who sells me walnuts, carrying on his family tradition. When I walk through the market now it seems magical (before it was just dirty). In spite of everything, it appears that I was meant, at one time or another, to buy my groceries at Ozerka. Discovering my family roots and then literally living in their shadows has been extraordinary, making my experience in Ukraine even more meaningful.
