Family Geography

Erev Shabbat before the trip to Carpatho Rus. Buying things we need (batteries, food supplements, etc.) and packing. Got the file on Kashrut abroad from our Rav, Elyashiv Knohl. Made arrangements for our early morning drive to the airport on Monday. (Arik, our tzadik son-in-law, volunteered to drive us.)

In preparation for this trip I have been in contact with my cousins, Helen Spiegelman and Lillian Lieberman who have been enriching my knowledge of our family who lived in the Munkacs (Mukachevo) area, now in the Ukraine, then Czechoslovakia and before that, part of the Austro - Hungarian Empire. Lillian has gotten some more information from her mother, Frimet Gross.

Below is a copy of the family tree of my mother's family, the Klines, put together over years by another cousin, Allen Stark with the help of Lillian Lieberman's years of work.


My grandmother Sura Rivka Hershkowitz, nee' Kline, came from the town of Kedaniv about 12 kms. from the city of Munkacs. My father's family, the Werbers, also lived in Kedaniv. After her marriage to Moshe Hershkowitz, my grandmother moved to the village, Solotvyno (Nyzhnje Solotvyno, I think) about 14 kms. northwest of Kedaniv.

Kedaniv - Munkacs Area

Apparently after the deaths of my great grandparents, Alter Akiva and Toibeh Kline, my mother's uncle, Harry Kline, who was living in New York City, visited the "old country" and erected respectable tombstones on their graves in the Jewish graveyard in the town of Benedykivtsi right near Kedaniv. Will we be able to get to these towns on our trip? Will we be able to find the tombs or their remains? We certainly hope so!