Before boarding the plane to land in the freezing December cold of Lithuania, we needed to sort out our heads and hearts. This journey wasn't planned to be an ordinary tourist "sightseeing trip." It was a mission: a physical, almost stubborn attempt to return to a specific point in time and space. To return to the dramatic moment of departure in 1928.

To understand the magnitude of the event, and the significance of the place we were about to reach, we dove into obsessive preliminary research that lasted weeks before the flight, and continued intensely even after it. The goal was clear: to get to know the "dramatis personae" in the family as if they were living people, and to reconstruct the "scene" - the house that disappeared a hundred years ago.

The Dramatis Personae: The Family Tree Comes to Life

To understand the story, one must understand the hierarchy. We aren't just looking for "Grandma," we are looking for a chain of men and women who made history, each in their own way. Now, after digging through archives, it turns out our family stood on two mighty pillars of Lithuanian Jewry: Torah (from the mother's side) and Prayer (from the father's side).

The Head ("The Gaon"): The Rabbinic Nobility of the Grodzinski House

At the top of the pyramid on Great-Grandma Pesia's side stands the Genius Rabbi Yaakov Grodzinski-Yaffe. For years, when Grandma Kalma was still alive, she proudly told us we were related to the "Gaon." Naturally, we assumed she meant the famous "Vilna Gaon" - because we didn't know another Gaon, and the family came from the Vilnius area. We left for Lithuania knowing there was "lineage," but without knowing the full details.

But it was precisely after we returned from the journey, as I continued to dig into digital archives, that the real breakthrough arrived. I found a rare historical letter from 1884, written by the Gaon's son (Pesia's uncle), Rabbi Hanoch Zundel Yaffe. The letter, sent to the Rabbi of Jerusalem Shmuel Salant, revealed all the missing details: "The Gaon Yaakov" (who lived in the late 18th and early 19th centuries) is a mighty historical figure in his own right. He served as the Av Beit Din (Chief Rabbi) of Liudvinavas - a town located exactly 10 km south of Marijampolė (which explains why the family remained in this area for many generations). Furthermore, I discovered he is the author of the Halachic book "Gufei Halachot," printed in Warsaw in 1822. This isn't just a family story, but a tangible book one can hold in hand. He is a link in the "Golden Dynasty" of the Yaffe family (direct descendants of the "Baal HaLevushim," one of the greatest Ashkenazi Halachic authorities) and the Grodzinski family (the nobility of Lithuanian rabbis). He was Pesia's direct grandfather, and through him, we are connected to the heart of the Eastern European Jewish elite.

The Great Mother: Pesia Shapiro (née Grodzinski)

Born in 1868. She is the direct granddaughter of "The Gaon Yaakov." Pesia is the key figure in the family's survival. She is the strong woman who in 1928, already a widow and elderly (60 years old! An advanced age for immigration in those days), makes a brave decision: she packs her life, takes her daughter and granddaughter, and boards a ship leaving Lithuania forever on the way to South Africa ("The Goldene Medina"). She carried with her not just clothes, but the legacy of her grandfather - the Gaon. Thanks to this brave decision, we are here today, and not in the mass graves of Lithuania.

The Singing Link: Kalman Shapiro and the Cantors

Pesia's husband, Kalman Shapiro, was until recently a shadowy figure. We knew he was an educator, a teacher by profession, and a central figure in the village who built the big house. But just in the last few days, archival research revealed his deep roots and a sensational discovery: Kalman "The Teacher" is a link in a chain of music and prayer. We found the original death certificate of his grandfather, Kalman Shapiro "The First" (son of Abraham and Chaya Shapiro), who died in Marijampolė in 1849. The documents revealed his profession: "Kantorów" (Cantor). Our great-great-great-great-grandfather was the synagogue cantor! Suddenly, the immense musical talent in the family, and especially the voice of Uncle Paul (Grandma Kalma's brother who was a famous international cantor), received a genetic and historical explanation. Furthermore, the documents revealed a drama of names: Cantor Kalman died in June 1849. Exactly seven months later, in January 1850, a son was born to his grandson (Chaim). They named him Kalman. This is our Kalman "The Teacher." Another detail: Kalman "The Teacher" died on Hanukkah 1917, in the midst of World War I, leaving Pesia and Rochel behind. He did not get to immigrate with them, and he is buried in Lithuanian soil.

The Couple from the Village House: Rochel (née Shapiro) and Herman Kowarsky

Rochel

Pesia and Kalman's daughter, born in 1901. We knew her as Grandma Rose. A woman who is a legend - married 4 times, lived to the ripe old age of 105, and passed away only in 2005. She lived to see 5 generations: when Tor (my daughter) was born, Grandma Rose was still alive. According to our new understanding, she was born and raised in the very same village house we are searching for.

Herman (Yehoshua) Kowarsky

Her husband, a central educational figure. Just before the flight, we found a rare and moving photo from 1926 that changed everything we thought about him. But the truly big discovery is his roots.

The Kowarsky Dynasty: Science, Law, and International Music

While the Shapiro family is rooted in Marijampolė, Grandpa Herman's side brings a rich history from the town of Švenčionys and the capital Vilnius. The new research revealed that this family is much more than just a "family of teachers." It is a dynasty of excellence:

• The Deep Roots: We managed to trace the ancient patriarch, Iosip (Joseph), who moved as early as 1760 from the town of Kavarskas - hence the surname "Kowarsky" - to Švenčionys. His grandson, Mordechai (Zelik), is Herman's great-great-grandfather.

  
  

• The Drama of the Name "Eizer": We discovered a family tragedy that became a symbol of continuity. Mordechai had a son named Leizer who died young in 1848. Five years later another son was born who was again named Eizer. This name refused to disappear, and it is most likely Herman's original name (born in December 1897), named after that stubbornness to live. Herman's father, Shmuel Chaim, was born when his father was 69 years old - a medical miracle in itself in the 19th century.

  
  

• The Famous Cousins: Herman didn't grow up in a vacuum. He was part of a generation of cousins in Vilnius who achieved global accomplishments, proving that the family DNA is a rare combination of spirit and science:

  
  

• The Musician (Simon "Simeon" Kovar): Herman's cousin, born in Vilnius 1890. He became a legendary bassoon player in the New York Philharmonic and the mythological teacher at the prestigious Juilliard School.

  
  

• The Scientist Who Saved the World (Lew Kowarski): Another cousin, a physicist who worked with Marie Curie. In WWII he performed a heroic act by smuggling the supply of "heavy water" from occupied France to England, thereby preventing the Nazis from developing a nuclear bomb. Later he was one of the founders of CERN (the particle accelerator).

• The Perfect Combination - Uncle Paul: These discoveries shed new light on Uncle Paul (Grandma Kalma's brother). We knew he was a world-class cantor (Shapiro legacy), but he was also a lawyer and a Justice of the Peace in Canada. He embodied the fusion of the Shapiro voice and the Kowarsky intellect and justice. He even preceded us and closed a circle with a roots visit to Vilnius in 1999.

• The Child: Grandma Kalma was born in 1923. She was born into this house, likely in the same room where her mother grew up. She is the baby named after the grandfather who passed away (Kalman the Teacher), who was named after his grandfather who passed away (Kalman the Cantor). The circle of names is closed. This is the baby who will grow up, immigrate to South Africa, and become our grandmother, carrying within her the genes of Torah geniuses, cantors, nuclear scientists, and international musicians.

The Investigation: Where is the House?

The starting point was a visual riddle. We held a rare old black-and-white photograph: an unusually large wooden house, impressive, with a sloped tin roof and two prominent chimneys. On the back of the photo was written in shaky handwriting in English: "The house of the Shapiro and Kowarsky family... Kalma's birthplace." But where did it stand? Here began the confusion. The clues were contradictory: on one hand, the postcard spoke of an urban address in Marijampolė ("Gedimino Street," "Preinergass 19"). On the other hand, Herman and Rochel's original marriage certificate we found in the archive showed black on white that they married and lived in a small village called Ažuolų Būda (which Jews called in Yiddish: "Boyd").

The Big Crack ("The Smoking Gun")

I sat for long nights in front of the computer, turning over every piece of information on the Lithuanian internet, translating old documents, until I found the loose thread. In the Wikipedia of the Ažuolų Būda village school appeared the following sentence:

Suddenly everything fit like a puzzle. The house in the photo isn't just a rural cabin. It is a large structure that served both as a residence for an extended family (Kalman, Pesia, Rochel) and as a public institution - the village school. This explains the size of the house and the many large windows seen in the photograph (designed to let light into the classrooms). Our family wasn't "just" a resident of the village - it was its center. Kalman Shapiro was the owner of the central property. Rochel was also born there, and Kalma was also born there in 1923, in that same historic wooden structure.

The Final Destination

Cross-referencing old maps with Google satellite maps led us to one clear conclusion: The historic Shapiro family house stood where the village school and community center stand today. The exact address we need to reach: Marijampolės g. 22, Ąžuolų Būda. We knew the original building (the one in the photo) is gone, and that the current structure was rebuilt, but the location - the coordinates of history - is the exact same location.

The Journey – On the Way to the Fog

The time was 08:00 AM when we left Vilnius. Two cars loaded with seven family members, three generations, on the way to the past. Outside was a dreary, rainy, and freezing day - the Lithuanian winter cut us no slack, and the sky was the color of wet concrete.

The first stop was "on the way," but it set the tone for the entire day. We stopped at Trakai Castle. Because of the weather, the ancient castle didn't just stand on an island in a lake; it seemed to float inside a cloud. The heavy fog erased the waterline and connected the lake to the sky. It was a sight from a fairytale, unreasonably beautiful, as if the universe was hinting to us that we are entering a kingdom of memories and ghosts. We took photos in front of this wonder, skipped the tour inside, and continued to the grayer reality: Marijampolė.

We arrived in Marijampolė at noon. The city welcomed us in shades of gray and rain. This wasn't the "vibrant Jewish city" from the stories, but a sleepy district town. We warmed up in a local restaurant with hot beet soup (borscht) and good, greasy potato pancakes. But the moment that threw us back in time was actually the horseradish (Chrein). Its sharp, strong taste immediately evoked the memory of Grandma Kalma. A burst of laughter rose around the table when we remembered that Grandma Kalma was an amazing, smart, and strong woman - but a cook? Absolutely not. The culinary memory of her amounts to dry, cold toast with jam. And yet, this horseradish in Marijampolė felt like a sharp and loving greeting from her.

After the meal, we went out to the central square. A giant Christmas tree stood in its center, surrounded by the emptiness of a city in the rain. in the adjacent Poets' Park, we saw a surreal sight: a display of dozens of fir trees, each designed by a different commercial company in the city. A strange mix of creativity, advertising, and local kitsch. And then, like any family trip with kids, we had to have a break. We found ourselves in a Chinese Discount store in a deserted shopping center (everything was closed on Saturday), buying nonsense to recharge energy for the real thing.

At 16:00, when darkness had already descended on Lithuania and turned the world black, we left the city and drove to the village. A 20-minute drive separates Marijampolė from Ąžuolų Būda ("Boyd").

Myself, Tor, and Rom arrived first. Chen, Lee, and the girls got lost on the way. We stood there in total darkness, in front of the house at Marijampolės g. 22, and waited for them for half an hour. It was half an hour of strange, almost mystical feelings. We knew this was the place. The GPS and historical research pointed exactly to this spot. But the house itself? It wasn't the house from the photo. Instead of Kalman Shapiro's magnificent wooden structure, there stood a building serving as a school and kindergarten.

But the land speaks. This place is still the beating heart of this small village. This is the center of gravity: here is the school, here is the grocery store, here is the post office. Exactly like 100 years ago, when the Shapiro family house was the center. While we waited in the cold, we crossed the road to the small grocery store to buy coffee and cookies, and then we discovered an amazing detail we didn't know from the maps: less than 50 meters from the house lies a beautiful lake, surrounded by a dense forest. Suddenly we understood: they didn't just live "in the village," they lived inside nature, on the lake shore, surrounded by oak trees ("Boyd" means Oak Lodge). It was a small paradise, before it became hell.

When the two cars finally joined up, excitement flooded all of us. We stood there, seven family members from Israel, in total darkness, in sub-zero cold, in front of the place where Grandma Kalma was born, the place where Grandma Rose grew up, and the place from which Great-Grandma Pesia set out on her journey of survival.

We pulled out the Hanukkiah and candles we brought from Israel. We placed them on the stairs of the current school - exactly where the wooden stairs of the original house stood, the ones the village students climbed a century ago. It was the seventh candle of Hanukkah. The symbolism pierced the heart like a needle: Great-Great-Grandfather, Kalman Shapiro, the man who built the house that stood here, the teacher and educator, passed away on Hanukkah of 1917. Now, the year is 2025. Exactly 108 years later, his seven great-grandchildren and great-great-grandchildren stand on the same soil and relight the light. But tonight we know we are lighting a candle not only in his memory but also in memory of his grandfather - Kalman the Cantor, whose voice fell silent in 1849 and returned to echo through us.

While we lit the candles, a mixture of dark humor and historical anxiety crept into our hearts. We laughed in a whisper that we hope no one sees a group of strangers lighting a fire at a school entrance in the middle of the night, and imagined the villagers coming with pitchforks and torches... but beneath the laughter lay the chilling knowledge of what really happened here. This wasn't just a village. The Jews here were few, about 15 families, but they were the economic and cultural heart. And these neighbors, who lived in the adjacent houses, are the ones who on the day of reckoning in 1941 became murderers. This soil absorbed not only life but also blood.

At the peak, we sent videos to Mom in Israel. She sat in her warm house in Israel and saw through the shaking screen the place where her mother was born. The circle was closed.

When we returned to the cars and drove back to Vilnius, we left behind the burning candles on the steps in Boyd. Seven small points of light within the great darkness of history, marking the place where it all began, and the place to which we returned to say: We are here.