The Heavens Are Empty: Discovering the Lost Town of Trochenbrod (26 page)

ABOVE:
A bunker in the forest camp of Medvedev’s partisan detachment. The camp was located in Lopaten, about 4.5 miles from Trochenbrod. Nahum Kohn joined this Soviet partisan unit after his own small unit was decimated. The camp has been developed into a museum of partisan activity in the area.
Photo by the author
.
OPPOSITE TOP:
A scene in Yaromel, 2006. The forest area in the background is where the mass graves of Trochenbrod people are located.
OPPOSITE BOTTOM:
One of two monuments at the sites of the mass graves of the people of Trochenbrod.
Photos by the author
.

One of two monuments at the site of Trochenbrod. This one was erected in 1992 by several Israelis and an American who were born in Trochenbrod. It’s located at what was the north end of town where the synagogue once stood that was burned after the last Trochenbroders were killed.
Photo by the author
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Photo of a Polish family provided by Betty Gold (Basia-Ruchel Potash). About this photo Betty says, “The man in the center of his family, Yuzef Berdnarski, and his son Yanek, the groom standing in back of him, were the ones who helped us survive. They were angels. We kept in touch with them until they died. My parents sent them packages, medicine, and some money.”

TOP:
Label Safran from Trochenbrod-Lozisht, upper left, and the Ukrainian family that hid him while the Nazis were rounding up Jews for slaughter: the father Davyd Zhuvniruck, and his wife Yaryna and daughter Kateryn.
Photo provided by Esther Foer
.
BOTTOM:
At the Foehrenwald D.P. camp near Munich, 1947. Survivors from Trochenbrod and Lozisht at a gathering in memory of those who perished. Label Safran is in the middle of the second row.
Photo provided by Esther Foer
.

TOP:
Head of a short-handled hoe found in the fields of Trochenbrod in August 2009 by cameraman Andriy Dmytruk, and presented as a gift to the author.
BOTTOM:
A door latch handle found in August 2009 in the area where Trochenbrod’s houses once stood. Found by cameraman Andriy Dmytruk and researcher Sergiy Omelchuk, and presented as a gift to the author. A decorative stem with branches and leaves can be discerned running lengthwise down the center.
Photos by the author
.

To this day Trochenbrod’s street is echoed in the landscape. The Radziwill forest east of Trochenbrod is in the background. Trees and bushes descended from those that stood in front of Trochenbrod houses remain tenaciously in place in the flat land of the Trochim Ford clearing.
Photo by the author
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copyright © 2010 by Avrom Bendavid-Val

preface copyright © 2010 by Jonathan Safran-Foer

map design copyright © 2010 by Rick Britton

interior design by Maria Fernandez

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