I have two pictures from the 1930s in a box of photos that my mom had that have inscriptions in what I think is Yiddish on them. On the back of each is a sentence which I’m hoping gives the names of who is in the pictures or some info about where/why they were taken.
Is there anyone who can read Yiddish and possibly translate them? Here are links to the 2 pictures on Dropbox
As you may have tried, unfortunately, Google translate doesn’t allow/provide the camera feature for Yiddish.
So glad @mwolf was able to translate below!!!
The top one reads:
To Mama and my brother Yitchak heartfelt greetings
The bottom one reads
For Dinen and Rakhlien (likely diminutives for Dina and Rachel)
To remember (or in memory).
Or, in memory of Dinen and Raklien.
Thank you so much!
The 2nd inscription creates a mystery. My grandfather had a sister Dina who perished in the Holocaust. My mom told us that her dad had tried to get her out during WWII but was unable (even more heartbreaking, the story my mom told is she had permission to leave but went back to her original city for something she left behind and was unable to leave again). But in 1938 she would have been alive, and also their mother’s name was something like Malka. So that doesn’t seem to be his sister Dina and their mother in the picture.
Below is the picture. On the bottom right is a stamp with a word I can’t make out and then the number 27. Overall this seems to be a postcard, so I wonder if it was taken in 1927 and sent later? Dina would likely have been born around the 1890s like her siblings.
One possibility is the picture was taken in 1938 when Dina would have been in her 50’s, that the picture is her and her daughter Rachel, and they sent the picture to her brother in America. But it’s just a guess, maybe no more likely than others.
here it is larger on dropbox
Bialystok is a city in Poland. A heartbreaking story.
It seems like a photo that was sent “to remember us”. I was very common. I have a photo of my great grandfather’s family - two brother and one sister, and their families (spouses and children) which was taken to send to the brother who had immigrated to the USA a couple of years before. It was also a studio photo, like this one.
I am part of a Facebook group which posts photographs from Jewish life before 1965, across the world. I am also part of Jewish genealogical group, and that is a good place to post stuff in Russian and Yiddish - they have some people who are fluent in one or both of these, and other European (and beyond) languages.
This thread is why I stick around on CC. Good luck unraveling your mystery.
This is so cool
I follow a twitter account @AuschwitzMuseum
Every day they post a picture of normal people who went to Auschwitz and how they fared. Every day I read it and think of the people lost. It’s a sobering account but very worthwhile.
Your picture reminds me of the account. Thanks for sharing.
That would likely be the name of the studio where they took the photo. As @muguet wrote, the studio was in Bialystok, Poland. So what’s written there is the name of the studio, the city, and the street address.
Szymborski, B-stok, street name (I can’t read it) 27. B-Stok is the shortened version of Bialystok.
Part of my mother-in-law’s family is from Bialystok.
As an aside, even though it’s in Poland, culturally, the Jews of Bialystok are considered “Litvaks” (including their dialect of Yiddish), as are the Jews of Lomza and Suwalki areas. The Jews of Warsaw,
@MWolf thanks again for the help! This helps add detail to a family story. Everyone who would remember them by having personally known Dina and Rachel (my grandfather and his siblings) are gone now, this picture may be all that survives them.
