Saturday, June 15, 2024

My weird Facebook groups

 As soon as the grandparents entered Facebook en masse the young people abandoned it. I know this from my grandchildren who told me more than once that Facebook is for old people, and that is the reality.                                I don't write anything on Facebook but I am a member of several groups, some of them are strange and interesting.

At the time of Covid, when the whole world was in lockdown and with the feeling of the end of the world, I was busy connecting all the descendants of my grandmother and her ten sisters who were scattered all over the world, it was a wonderful adventure.                                                                                                                                      And so I came to a group in Poland, a group of residents of a small Polish village from where my great-grandfather came to Leipzig in Germany in 1898.         My grandmother would be born two years later in Germany. I have no idea how he arrived with his nine daughters, his son and his wife who would die nine years later, from that small village to Germany. But it happened.                                                       And so in order to know more I joined the Facebook group of this small village that still exists. Thanks to Google Translate I corresponded in Polish with some women in the village. I don't know how ridiculous Google made my Polish but they understood me and I understood them.                                                    One of the women with whom I corresponded the most told me that there were Jews in her family, but it was a secret that was kept all these years, they were afraid to reveal it, anti-Semitism existed then and still exists in many, she said. She searched in the district archives and found some documents that were discovered in the attic of one of the houses, which contained lists of Jews, residents of the village, all of whom were killed in concentration camps.                                                                                                                  There were no Jews left in the village, they were all murdered there or sent to concentration camps during the war. The Jewish cemetery was destroyed , but later someone else sent me pictures of a group of people who decided to restore what was left of the tombstones.                                                                Every time I tried to post in the group a picture of the beautiful and old synagogue that was burned in the war, someone deleted the picture. Some things still exist. I am still a member of the group.                                                           The second group is also in Poland, my father's hometown. There are seven small towns with the same name, my father was not the person of the small details, and he also left this town when he was one year old so he didn't know much. I managed to find out that the town he thought he was born in was actually a different town and so I joined her Facebook group to understand more.                            The third group is the archive group of the city of Leipzig, where I pursued documents such as the birth certificates of my grandmother and my mother, my mother's library card when she was in first grade, and more.                                                                                                                                                      About the rest of my strange groups in another post.


                                                                                                                                  

14 comments:

  1. Facebook can be both a useful tool ..or a curse. You have found some very interesting groups, although it is sad that those old prejudices still exist.

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    1. JayCee, thankfully I have come across only good things on Facebook and indeed, when people see someone through their opinions they can end up with very harsh behaviors. It happened. I hope one day it will go away.

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  2. It sounds incredible to me that you can take part in a Facebook group using Google translate. How clever of you. So much more of your family puzzle can be found. Like JC I am very sad that so much prejudice still exists amongst these younger generations.

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  3. It's not just the younger generation, unfortunately, Linda, there are still quite a few adults too.

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  4. My sister is the one who is searching for more about our ancestors. I will mention to her about Facebook groups from the towns our ancestors came from. My ancestors were from Poland, Ireland and Italy. Thanks for the Facebook tip, Yael!

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    1. Ellen,I was also able to find other family members that we didn't know about in Brazil, Australasia and South Africa, all through Facebook and once also through Instagram.

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  5. It's great that you're a member of these groups and can explore your family history this way (tragic as it is!). Have you contacted the moderator of the group to find out why the synagogue picture is being deleted? It would have to be one of the group admins doing it, and they ought to be able to give you a reason. Maybe they don't understand what the picture is showing...?

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  6. Steve, (The first time you don't go through the spam,,,), I know it's the group manager who didn't want the photo, the woman I talked to turned to him and came back to me with a very unfortunate answer, antisemitic. It still exists in the world as we know it. She opened another group as a sign of protest where she uploaded pictures of Jewish life in the area before the war. This village had a total of 500 inhabitants, 200 of whom were Jews who disappeared.

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  7. I have just read the awful news that eight Israeli solders were killed in Gaza. How terribly sad that young people would lose their lives this way.

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  8. I was just leaving a comment but it disappeared midway through, maybe I "sent" it by mistake! Anyway, I was saying how interesting family history research can be. My mother's father was born in what is now southern Poland; he came to the USA in 1910. They were German speaking people, and so after WWII those who were left were forced from their home and sent to Germany to live. I think all the men were dead from illness or the war so it was only his mother and sister who survived. My father's side of the family were mostly English and Irish and have been here since the early 1600's. I find hearing about other people's families interesting too; it's all part of the human story, so I for one would love to hear more. It's wonderful how you were able to find so much information on Facebook, and are still connected with some people in Poland. Isn't technology great at times! We can communicate with "translator" when we don't speak the language. Those translations have got to be silly at times, but the people can figure out what is being communicated anyway.

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    1. Sara, it is indeed amazing how many fascinating family stories people have all over the world, I wonder how they will follow our footsteps in the future if all we leave behind are virtual clouds that may disappear one day.

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  9. I very rarely post anything on my Facebook page, but it helps me keep in contact with family members who do.

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  10. Facebook can be very useful if you know how to use it correctly.

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