Recently, I helped Aimee recount her travels in Poland back in the year 2000 to the Internet community. In no way did we anticipate the extent of filial bonding and rebuilding of history that would follow. Coincidentally, right as we posted the final draft of the story to the web, a woman named Penny Kornstein contacted Aimee regarding her family. She searched for "Kleinhandler " (Aimee's mother's maiden name) and "Chmielnick" (the shtetl in Poland where her grandparents were from) on Google looking for the long lost Kleinhandlers in her family. Penny and her cousin René's paternal grandmother was named Rose Kleinhandler.
After first stumbling upon one of Aimee's earlier blogposts that mentioned Kleinhandlers, Penny e-mailed Aimee about her personal family. Aimee included her mother in on this e-mail, Penny added her cousin René Bien to the list, and quickly this simple inquiry evolved into a group dialogue. Since Aimee and I had just finished writing a more in-depth blog on the family history and her trip to Chmielnik, Aimee directed Penny to the Poland blog. When René read the story, she was in utter shock and felt that this was more than a considerable coincidence of identical names.
Perhaps "Kleinhandler" is a popular enough Jewish name and the sharing of it doesn't necessarily denote blood relation, but the similarities don't end there between Aimee and René. Both of their Kleinhandler ancestors come from the small Polish town of Chmielnik. What's more, René has an old set of hand-made candleholders that, she assured Aimee, appeared nearly identical to the photo of the ones we posted on the blog. Her whole life, René had only known of Rose Kleinhandler, and Rose could only presume the relatives she left behind in Poland perished during the Holocaust. In order to deal with the pain of being so separated, Rose never talked about her family.
Here are the candles René brought.
And here are the ones Aimee saw in Poland.
After seeing Aimee's blog, René felt she had found the opportunity to discover who this long-lost part of her family really was and to find living relatives that were kept concealed to her. She wanted to meet Aimee and unravel this ancestral mystery, but that's not to say that the excitement was strictly on René. Aimee was ecstatic that the blog had made this kind of an impact, and in such short time at that! And if you get to know Aimee, or even from just reading about her Poland story, you can tell that family holds a significant place in her heart. Enthusiastic at the thought of expanding her family and connecting further with her relatives, she too wanted to meet with René.
It would be standard to assume that a long-lost relative would physically be at the far reaches of the other side of the Earth in relation to you, thus fitting the implication of "lost." But coincidentally, out of anywhere in the world, René happens to live in the Bay Area-- in Emeryville to be exact! Getting together wouldn't be an issue.
Aimee on the left, René on the right with the candles.
They met on a Friday at Aimee's house, with Aimee's in-laws and myself joining in on the excitement. Over tea and cookies, Aimee and René chatted and were captivated in each other's stories. René brought a few photographs of her family and passed them along the group to view, while Aimee elucidated all she knew on her family history in Poland. René brought the candleholders she mentioned about on the phone, and lo and behold, they did have an uncanny similarity to the mis-matched pair that Aimee saw on her Poland journey.
In this intimate environment of incredible coincidences and genuine interest, both felt comfortable enough to even share their personal life stories to each other, strangers of a week ago. Digging deep into their emotions, neither of them held back. Tears emerged, both of pain of the past and joy of the present.
Later, we all went downstairs to talk to Aimee's mother via Skype so she could get a chance to meet René and help figure out the truth of their family connection. René also got her mother on speakerphone to join in this effort of discovery. It must have gone on for at least an hour, maybe more, of René hurriedly explaining all she knew of her family past, Aimee's mother correcting to her knowledge or adding on to the information discussed, and Aimee sitting on the side engrossed in thought, taking the whole experience in.
René to the left, Aimee on the right, Aimee's mother on screen
After much deliberation, they concluded that Rose Kleinhandler must have been Aimee's grandfather's aunt. Still, even when this was decided, they persisted in sharing their stories with each other. After the Skype discussion, Aimee tried to show a video about her grandmother living in Chmielnik, but unfortunately there were some technical difficulties. (Here is the video if you're interesting in viewing it.) They looked at the photo album of Aimee's poland trip as Aimee described the story using the pictures. And they just continued to talk, steering away from the Kleinhandler past and towards the present.
These two strong, passionate women connected on a variety of levels; not only do they share genealogy, but both value family dearly, lean toward art and creativity in life, and resemble each other personality-wise. Though the spurring of this relationship was not all my doing, my efforts in writing the blog still helped to initiate it. Being part of this coincidental and almost movie-script situation of lost families reuniting, I was in awe.
Who would have thought that an innocent search on Google could incur such a profound experience?
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