Dina Rachel Shulman (1872-1952) was born in the Ukraine in the small town of Chernivtsi, very near Kopaigorod. She was the daughter of Avram Shulman and Edith. She had 3 siblings that I know of: Brucha Shulman Tsukerman, Alec Shulman and Izak Shulman. She married Israel Friedman around 1892 in Kopaigorod and had two daughters and 5 sons. She came to Hermosillo, Mexico with the family and then settled in Los Angeles. She died on 14 Jannuary, 1952 of coronary heart disease due to arteriorsclerosis.
November 3, 1947
Hello Dear Auntie Dina {Dina Rachel Shulman Friedman},
Without waiting for your answer, I am writing you a new letter. I really hope that you would get our letter written in October.
I am Shmulek {Samuil Tsukerman}, Berel’s {Berel Tsukerman} youngest son. (The sweet name they used to call me in my childhood was Milya). Together with my sister Bronya {Tsukerman} I live in Vinnitza. I had been recently discharged from the army, and I am still not working yet. Brother Abram {Tsukerman} is doing his military service in Khabarovsk. He got married this year, he took a very good girl for himself {Bella Braginsky}. She lives in Moscow. This year she is finishing University. We often write them and receive their letters.
Two months ago I was visiting my cousins Leika {Liza Shulman Danilovich} and Ides {Ida Shulman Koffler}. Very good cousins they are…I really liked them. Leika has a very good son Musya {Misha Danilovich?}, a golden child. I got your address from them. I read all your letters with great interest and satisfaction. Your letters and your picture made me very happy.
In the last letter, my sister and I, as well as Leika wrote you what a great misfortune befell us: our parents were killed by Germans Sep 19, 1941.
It is hard to describe to you all the details. I wrote more to you in the last letter. Our dear beloved parents did not live to see their children’s happiness.
{Our}sister {Bronya Tsukerman} is not yet married, everything that {our} parents were saving for us was taken by the Germans. She is left with nothing. In this situation it is hard to get married nowadays, and we are not in any position to help her….for we survived {lived through} the same. Germans had robbed us (me and my brother) of everything. You cannot imagine what it is to be left with nothing after the war. It is as if we are newborns, and need everything, to a thread.
Dear Auntie, we do not need food. This year’s harvest is great and all that is replaceable, but it is very painful that {our} parents are no longer here.
Dear Auntie Dina, what is happening by you? How is your health? How do you live?
Where are Enia {Anya Friedman}, Chsyks {Clara Friedman}, Zalman {Solman Friedman}, Shmil {Shmuel Friedman}, Yershil {Gersh Friedman}, Misha {Moshe Friedman}, Shimen {Simon Friedman}? How do they live? Why are they not writing?
Auntie Dina please send us pictures of you and the kids, because now we do not have a single picture of yours. Everything was destroyed by the Germans.
Dear, beloved Auntie, please write with whom you live now, with children, and where do your children live? We are very interested to know, because we do not have any family, so we ask that all the kids will write us, otherwise we are very lonely. Hearty hello from sister Bronia. She kisses you and your children multiple times.
Be healthy and happy dear Auntie Dina and dear children. I kiss you and your children and your relatives very dearly.
Your nephew Shmulek
Write often, then your letters will reach us, because I learned that you occasionally write to Leika.
I and sister Bronia decided that you should write to my name:
Ukraine
City of Vinnica
Volodarskogo St., #41, apt 4
to: Tzukerman, Samuil Berlovich
Sister is at work now, she will write you a separate letter. We will try to make a photo and send you one.
Your Shmulek
My family descends from Dina Rachel. She is my great-grandmother (my father’s paternal grandmother). For many years I thought I would never be able to learn more than what is on the chart above. I had a card in my files where someone had written the 4 children of Avram and Edith. I had no idea how to go further. What follows is how I discovered and connected to the other branches of the family.
This branch I found through a DNA match to a great-grandson of Brucha. This was incredibly exciting to me. And as his family had already done a lot of family tree work I could add a large part of their tree to mine (even better!). Brucha married Berel Tsukerman and had 3 children: Bronya, Abram and Samuil. Also, I found a letter to Dina, in Russian which, when translated turned out to be from one of Brucha’s children (see letter and translation above). This letter also gave me a lot of information about the family. I am hoping I will turn up another letter from the same person (Samuil Tsukerman}.
This family also I found through a DNA connection. I had discovered through research in Ukrainian archives that Alec married a woman named Chava Lembersky but was then divorced. The DNA match suggests that he then married Edith Kramer (Kaomer) and had a daughter Anna who married Benjamin Malamud. My DNA match was a granddaughter of Anna. Anna and Benjamin had 3 children, Edith, Harold and David. But sadly, she died at the age of 33 after or during hospitalization at the Manhattan State Hospital Ward’s Island in NYC, a psychiatric center, of Tuberculosis with Dementia Precox (schizophrenia).
Back in the 1990’s my aunt Annette had a sent a check from the Dina Shulman Foundation to Manya Shulman’s family in Israel. Manya was a daughter of Isak Shulman. Manya’s daughter Raya Miller, sent a thank you note and Annette gave it to me…but it got lost (and forgotten!) in the bottom of a box until I pulled it out about 20 years later. When I found it, I was worried the address would not be good anymore, but I sent a letter to Raya anyway, and within days, her son called me on the phone! I was so excited to connect to this family because for years I had thought it was impossible to find out who they were.
