I came across this essay on BBC’s website concerning the border country between Poland and Ukraine.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/direct/ukraine/9405579.stm
As the article points out, it is a borderland that has shifted over time between sovereignties. Sometimes parts of it have been Imperial Russian, Polish, Imperial Austrian, Soviet or Ukrainian. I was interested in a personal way, because both sides of my family come from the region. We are Polish-Ukrainian Jews. So far as I know I am the first Catholic, but, for all I know, perhaps not. There has probably been more inter-marriage than one might imagine, and there may well have been cultural and religious cross-influences as well.
My father’s family came from that borderland, although it’s been a hundred years or more since they left. As for my mother’s family, the geographic facts are hard to pin down. My maternal grandmother was always referred to as a “Galician”, although I have no idea where in Galicia that might be. Her father was a fur trapper (sic!) and apparently illiterate. I once had a look at his Imperial Russian passport, wherein he was described as “analphabet”, illiterate.
When my grandmother was six years old she began field work, and when she came to America she worked in a factory, although for a few years she also ran a boardinghouse in New York. She never went to school, and could not read in any language.
As far as I know, the entire maternal side of my family that remained in Europe was murdered at Treblinka. In New York, my grandmother would sit and gaze at photographs, and silent tears would roll down her face.
Her name—God bless her soul—was Malka, Molly in America.
BORDERLAND
When your name was Malka
You grew up in the borderland
Galicia
Between white Poland and Ukraine
Afterward, when you were Molly
Old woman you recalled
Inside a sheaf of photographs
Love-searchable
White memories
Not murdered at Treblinka
Ageless tears
And you again were Malka
Weeping silently
To search the faces of the dead
Beloved family
Living in the borderland
Soundless are the tears
White drops
Like seeds
To nourish souls
Pavel
March 8, 2011
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