Spring Break
Krelitz family history revealed in presentation
by Alana Abramson
Staff writer
News | 10/21/08
Posted online at 3:47 AM EST on 10/21/08
/ Last updated at 3:11 AM EST on 10/21/08
Forty years ago, Joel Alpert started a mission to uncover the history of his ancestors, the Krelitz family who lived in Lithuania and who were nearly all killed during World War II. Last Thursday, in the Heller School for Social Policy and Management, he presented his discoveries about his family's history and how it came to be featured in the Family Fates room of the Berlin Holocaust Memorial.
Alpert's relentless search to find his family members is directly related to the Krelitz family's prominent role in the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe in Berlin.
Alpert's story dates back to 1965, when he learned from his grandfather about the Krelitz family. Prior to this, Alpert said he had no idea he had a personal connection to the Holocaust. He was immediately filled with a desire to find the surviving members of the family and said in his presentation that the fact that no one had mentioned these lost family members "compounded the tragedy" for him.
In his presentation, "The Krelitz Family: A Personal Face in Berlin's New Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe," he explained that in 1993 he translated The Memorial Book for the Jewish Community of Yurburg, where the Krelitz family lived, and uploaded his translation to a Web site that provides information about Jewish life before the Holocaust.
Dr. Ulrich Baumann, the man with the vision for the Berlin memorial, learned about the Krelitz family through this Web site. The site also features 1927 film footage of the family that Alpert's cousin Ben Crane found and that inspired Baumann to put the Krelitz family on display in the "Room of Families" in the memorial, which opened in 2005.
Alpert described the film, which is currently stored in the National Center for Jewish Film at Brandeis, as a "powerful lens into pre-war Yerburg."
This film was only one part of what Alpert described as "persistence and luck," in his successful quest to find his missing family members. In 1994 he uploaded a picture of his immediate family onto the Web site with the other information about the Krelitz family.
Alpert's relentless search to find his family members is directly related to the Krelitz family's prominent role in the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe in Berlin.
Alpert's story dates back to 1965, when he learned from his grandfather about the Krelitz family. Prior to this, Alpert said he had no idea he had a personal connection to the Holocaust. He was immediately filled with a desire to find the surviving members of the family and said in his presentation that the fact that no one had mentioned these lost family members "compounded the tragedy" for him.
In his presentation, "The Krelitz Family: A Personal Face in Berlin's New Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe," he explained that in 1993 he translated The Memorial Book for the Jewish Community of Yurburg, where the Krelitz family lived, and uploaded his translation to a Web site that provides information about Jewish life before the Holocaust.
Dr. Ulrich Baumann, the man with the vision for the Berlin memorial, learned about the Krelitz family through this Web site. The site also features 1927 film footage of the family that Alpert's cousin Ben Crane found and that inspired Baumann to put the Krelitz family on display in the "Room of Families" in the memorial, which opened in 2005.
Alpert described the film, which is currently stored in the National Center for Jewish Film at Brandeis, as a "powerful lens into pre-war Yerburg."
This film was only one part of what Alpert described as "persistence and luck," in his successful quest to find his missing family members. In 1994 he uploaded a picture of his immediate family onto the Web site with the other information about the Krelitz family.
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