Preserving the Jewish heritage of the Briskers: Jenni Buch’s story

By Tasha Ackerman for The Together Plan

“There is no exact English word for Landsmans – Compatriot means people from the same country or place – however, compatriot or countryman/woman does not convey the deep bond the members of these organizations had” 

Jenni Buch, “Brest Jews in the World” from JewishGen

The concept of landsmanschaft stands out among the vast tapestry of Jewish immigration stories, highlighting the stories of resilience and cultural perseverance woven by the communities of migrants that remained bound together away from their land of origin. Landsmanschaft is a Yiddish term to describe organisations built by Jewish immigrants from the same town that formed after settling in a new country. In the 19th and 20th centuries, waves of Eastern European Jews sought migration for economic opportunities or as a means to escape persecution. The landsmanschaften in the Americas, Israel, Australia, the UK, and beyond served both as a community resource to help fellow immigrants resettle and to create a continuity of community that held memories and to remain connected with one another, similar to life in the shtetl. 

Writing stories for The Together Plan has connected me with people around the world who can also trace their roots to their Eastern European Jewish ancestors. In the spirit of the lansmanschaft, being part of The Together Plan has helped me dig deeper into our shared history which in return helps me understand more about my own Jewish identity. The Together Plan founder, Debra Brunner, recently connected me with Jenni Buch, a Melbourne resident whose father emigrated from Brest, then part of Poland, to Melbourne, Australia in September 1939.

Jenni is a dedicated researcher and translator who preserves stories and records of the Jewish diaspora.  She taught me about the concept of landsmanschaft. Her father, Shimon Shalitzky, was amongst twenty-five Jewish families who immigrated to Australia from 1937-1939, many of whom remained connected through the Brisk landsmanschaft in Melbourne. In Yiddish, Brest is called Brisk and the inhabitants referred to themselves as Briskers. The Brisk that Jenni grew up knowing through stories from her father and relatives no longer exists, but Jenni’s dedication to preserving Brest’s history encapsulates the spirit of the landsmanschaft, becoming a pillar for remembrance that both honours the past and reminds future generations of their roots

Jenni grew up knowing of her father’s origin in Brest and about the family he had there. Her father arrived in Melbourne in September 1939 intending to find employment and send for his family. He had petitioned for his wife and children to join him, though the request was unable to be processed once the war had begun with the Nazi invasion of Poland the same month of his arrival. He and his fellow Briskers who moved to Australia for economic opportunity and to escape increasing antisemitism could not have anticipated the magnitude of horror that was headed towards their hometown. When the Nazis invaded Brest in 1941, about 5,000 Jewish men were executed in the first month. Records reveal 19,000 residents of the Brest Ghetto were transported to the nearby village Bronnaya Gorra in 1942 and shot into mass graves, where Jenni would discover her father’s wife and five children were amongst those who perished.

In a town that once had a thriving Jewish population, barely any local Jews survived the war. The members of the landsmanschaft that Jenni grew up around in Melbourne consisted of her father’s close friends and relatives and fostered a strong sense of community. Beyond being just compatriots from the same place, the landsmanschaft embodied a shared experience, identity, and peoplehood that shaped Jenni’s intimate understanding of their special bond. In response to the atrocities endured by their loved ones in their faraway homeland, the spirit of the landsmanschaft helped preserve their heritage and support resilience. 

Years later, Shimon remarried in Australia and had children, including Jenni. Despite the trauma her father experienced losing his first family, she fondly recalls her childhood with him. As an Australian native with Jewish immigrant parents, Jenni grew up speaking and learning English, Yiddish, German, and Hebrew. For Jenni, Yiddish evokes nostalgia from her early years.

Later in life, Jenni became involved with the Shoah Foundation, conducting weekly interviews with Holocaust survivors. Her linguistic abilities undoubtedly became a valuable resource to connect with others and delve deeper into research. Her personal connection through her father’s family and the impactful conversations she had through the Shoah Foundation motivated her to continue researching and learning more about Brest. Since Jenni’s father passed away during her childhood, there were many seemingly unanswerable questions, regardless of his openness about his family’s history while he was alive.

However, the internet turned out to be a key resource to discovering her family’s past. She describes how she came into her work preserving Brest’s history as a synergy- a blend of her experiences and external forces such as the rise of the internet and the fall of the Soviet Union, which had made previously inaccessible archival records available from Australia. Her husband discovered a Brest Ghetto database online, which they previously had not known existed. She began raising funds to publish archival data. Her commitment to serving the purpose of preserving stories from the Holocaust and destroyed Jewish communities is evident through her work translating materials with JewishGen. Notably, she held the position of translation project coordinator on the Brest-Litovsk volume II: Encyclopedia of the Jewish Diaspora and presently serves as the Brest and District Research Coordinator for JewishGen. Through her dedication to this work, Jenni exemplifies how personal stories with historical research both honour the past and ensure a lasting legacy for future generations. 

Jenni’s depth of knowledge of Brest’s history became clear to me minutes into speaking with her, but despite her consistent apologies for sharing too much, I was delighted for her to continue to teach me the history as it was interwoven with historical records and her personal anecdotes. I was swept away by the stories spanning centuries, learning about the antisemitic takeover of Catherine the Great to pogroms into the 20th century. She also shared about the rich Jewish life that once existed in Brest, the city known for its renowned Torah studies and where Briskers prided themselves on their pure form of Yiddish. She shared about the waves of Jewish immigration through Ellis Island in the late 1800s and 1900s, and of those who also migrated around the world forming landsmanshaft and keeping communities together.

She reflected that today, many descendants of the Briskers do not know where their ancestors originated from apart from a general idea of Russia or Eastern Europe. The descendants are now around the world in countries such as Argentina, South Africa, the USA, Canada, Israel, the UK and Australia. Many though, might not know their family’s roots. The landmarks of Brest’s Jewish history were either destroyed by the Nazis or have since been covered up. Where the main synagogue once stood, is now home to a cinema. Other synagogues and structures with traditional Jewish architecture are now used as residential housing, shops, and office spaces. The land that was once the Brest-Litovsk Jewish Cemetery is now a grassy area with a running track. Remnants of Jewish headstones have now been found all over the town since the gravestones from that cemetery were removed and repurposed during and after the war. In the past decade, The Together Plan has been in collaboration with local authorities and organisations to protect these stones. Jenni and I discussed the salvaging of these headstones and the journey to restore their honour: how she connected with The Together Plan with the shared mission of creating a memorial to preserve the stones and the spirit of the landsmanschaft to fund their restoration. Why is it important to memorialize the Jews in Brest? Jenni knows her family’s story isn’t unique. The Brest that the Briskers left before WWII does not exist anymore. The stones represent life and death: a livelihood. Jenni explains, “I see the memorial as symbolic and important in validating and authenticating the Jewish community that once was. In honour of the past generations of the Jews of Brest, that lived, toiled and died there for centuries.”

Read more about the Brest-Litovsk Jewish Cemetary Tombstones

Speaking with Jenni reminded me about the purpose of history. Where history itself cannot right the wrongs of the past, where it cannot settle the score or where it cannot wipe itself clean, it moves and lives amongst the everchanging reality of a people and a place. The Melbourne landsmanschaft brought Brisk with them to Australia, as did the landsmanschaft in many corners of the world. Through the passage of time, their history becomes implanted among the generations that follow, and the fruits born from this heritage and memory adapt to the evolving climate. A tribute to the Briskers in modern-day Brest is not just to mark the loss of a once prosperous community, memorialising the tragic demise, but to remember their rich history that spanned hundreds of years. Not just for the second and third-generation survivors that still hold a connection to this past, but also for the cultural perseverance of the Jewish diaspora. For generations to hold the warmth of the landsmanschaft and to be reminded of our profound capacity to survive.

References:

https://www.jewishgen.org/yizkor/Brest2/bre611.html 

https://jguideeurope.org/en/region/belarus/polish-border/brest-brest-litovsk/ 

Further Reading:

https://thetogetherplan.com/a-historic-moment-for-the-brest-litovsk-jewish-cemetery/