Lauren’s cold blossomed last night. We were up for an hour early in the morning and then went back to sleep till 8:00. We met Vanya downstairs at nine. “Communist Party Headquarters Vanya. And step on it.”
We had two goals there. One: find out the hours of the regional ZACT office (Civil Registration Office) where we would need to bring our new birth certificates once we got them in Rado after our waiting period. We wanted to find out when they would be open to give us the official stamp we would need to apply for passports. (Still trying to figure out why we need to certify a document that is already official, but we’ve given up on figuring too hard about such things.)
Two: we understood that the regional archives were located in this building, and I (Michael) want to see what I can dig up on my two ancestors that hail from the area.
Turns out that the ZACT office is open on Monday and Tuesday the 8th and 9th, but the lady told us they won’t be taking any documents until the 10th. Our experiences thus far tell us that something like this might be able to be worked around under the right circumstances.
As for the archives, the records we were looking for were in another building nearby.
We drove over there, and the building had a very foreboding, fortress like look to it. In fact this particular archive housed mostly records from the communist party. We were directed to yet another facility, also nearby.
Here I met a woman who spoke very good English. Actually one of only three or four Ukrainians I’ve met on this entire trip who can do so. I was very excited. She asked me to write an official request for the records I was seeking. (I’ve become very familiar with the form of this request, as we’ve had to write them for almost everything we need here. It’s called a ZAYABA, and it’s written in a particular fashion, like a legal document.) I put down all the information I had on my grandfather Itzik Ozer, brothers Joseph and Samuel, sister Dora, and their father David, with approximate dates of birth. And on my grandmother Minnie Marinov (Marinovsi?).
The lady consulted an old book and said that it was her opinion that the Ozer family probably came from a small village called Ozerani. (I wrote several weeks ago that I had found a town called Ozerani on the map not far from Radomischle and wondered if there was such a connection.)
I looked over her shoulder and saw that there were five or six towns called Ozerani. She said that most of the Jews at that time lived in very small villages and this particular village was the smallest in her records. However, she said, it wasn’t in Zhitomer region.
I said I was positive that my family was from Zhitomer. My grandfather had told me on more than one occasion that he was from Zhitomer, near Kiev.
The lady said that this research would be difficult and that she couldn’t promise anything would result. I told her that I was aware that I didn’t have much to go on, but I appreciated her efforts, and I would bring a gift when I returned.
We’ll call her next week and see if she came up with anything. This is very exciting for me, and even if she has nothing, I’ve opened a door. I have more detailed family records at home that I neglected to bring with me and that I could send her in the future.
We headed over to the UKR Telecom building to get on an internet terminal and check out some apartments in Kiev. Our plan now is to move there after the new years holiday. We want an apartment with high speed internet where we can work from home and commute to see the kids every other day until their release.
Indeed we seem to have found a nice place. You can see it at www.rentaparments.com.ua. Look under 1 bedroom plus living room at listing number 260. I’m a little concerned that the agent doesn’t want a deposit and hope she’ll hold this for us as she promised to do until we move in when the current tenants leave on the 4th.
We made the drive to Radomischle where we visited the judge. He issued us a document correcting the errors in his earlier order. Our plan was to bring this to the office of the ZACT clerk who had caused so much trouble for us the other day. We wanted to be sure that she would accept the correction and if not, we wanted to get it in an acceptable form NOW and not at the end of our ten day wait.
As we’ve already explained, due to the weekend and holidays, the standard ten day wait is in our case thirteen days. We hoped we might be able to convince her to come in on the 10th day, a Saturday, to do the certificates so we could at least have the kids for the holidays. Lauren waited outside while Svieta and I went in to put the question to her. No dice. She had no problem with the document, but Saturday would be impossible because she can’t act on the order until the 11th day!
I’d given up arguing with her. It will be what it will be. They’ll tack on whatever days they want to tack on and we’ll live with it.
Perhaps because of this “reasonable” response, she volunteered to come in on Monday the 8th, a holiday, and do our certificates at 8:00 AM. If it does happen this way, we would be able to get the kids (provided the director of Sasha’s orphanage cooperates – a long shot) and try to validate the certificates in Zhitomer that day, then apply for passports on the 9th or 10th.
We changed some money, always a challenge in Radomischle, because they refuse many of our $100 bills due to stray pen marks, over use, or remarkably, when they are the old bills with the small picture of Ben Franklin.
We had some lunch, also a challenge of late, because there are only two restaurants in Rado: Carpatia (named for the mountains where Vanya’s family lives) and Dynasty. And both of them have been hosting private holiday parties most days lately, leaving us to grab what we can from the small store next to the hotel.
We drove Svieta over to the bus station to catch a ride to Kiev and then a train home to her family in Kherson on the black sea. Then we headed off to see the kids.