CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
1925 and 2003
Rainbows: As a child, Anne loved them. The great rabbis believed that “the rainbow is a sign of peace because it shows a weapon, the bow, in a harmless state pointing away from the earth with no bowstring.”I Anne experienced the beauty of these arched wonders while living in Europe, but it wasn’t until she set foot on American soil that she actually began to believe in them.
From her hospital bed on a snowy morning in late February 2003, with her daughter, Marcy, and granddaughters, Lisa and Mindi, by her side,II Anne sorted through old family photographs. She pulled out an 8 x 10 sepia image taken in 1925 for Lisa to use in the family’s memoir. For Anne, the portrait brought back happy thoughts of rainbows—as one had miraculously appeared on the day of her aunt Bessie’s wedding in New York City. While other guests freely strolled outside to admire the colored archway that emerged just before sundown, Bessie insisted that her family remain indoors. She wanted everyone together, dressed in their new fashionable American attire, to pose for a formal family portrait.
Bessie deeply loved and valued her family: it meant the world to her to have them together in America at her wedding. Anne smiled at the photograph that was of such importance to her aunt. Twenty-three family members posed for the snapshot, and it was Bessie, standing in the back row next to her handsome bridegroom, Ben Baker, who smiled the widest.
A casual observer examining the portrait would never be able to guess, from the bright smiles on everyone’s faces, the horrors that they had endured just five years earlier during the pogroms. Bessie, in particular, suffered immensely. She overcame horrific tragedies, and was now embarking upon a new chapter of her life.
History books rarely depict or explore the horrendous suffering caused by the pogroms in Ukraine. Jewish immigrants who lived and survived such misery in Kiev Guberniya usually chose not to speak of it. Most considered their lives to have begun the moment that they stepped off the boat in America. However, their lives in the old country were always colorful. For if there was no adversity, pain, or suffering, or a story to tell, it is doubtful that anyone would venture across an ocean and leave their world, with everything and everyone they love in it, behind.
They survived, and for at least a brief moment in time at Bessie’s wedding, were all together again. Anne continued to study the portrait of those dear to her, putting names to the important faces that her granddaughter was writing about.
Standing in the back row on the left was Uncle Avrum Cutler, who came to the celebration with his wife, Slova Ova Denka, and oldest daughter, Fay, who were standing in front of him. Their infant son, born in Romania, was not in attendance. Their youngest son, Charles, who was born in New York the following year, was given the Jewish name Kalman, after his grandfather. Their family had left Jaffa, Palestine, in 1923 after Avrum suffered serious eye problems resulting from the dry climate. At the time of the wedding, they were staying with Avrum’s siblings in New York.III
At the far right were Aunt Molly and Uncle Itzie Stumacher, who brought with them a brood that had by then grown to include four children. In addition to Ruby, Moe, and Fay, little Kolman, also named for Zeyde Kalman, was born in America. Their fifth and youngest child, Abe, would be born a few years later.
Uncle Yunkel and Aunt Esther Cutler sat in the center with three of their children standing behind them, including Anne’s favorite cousin, Daniel, who courageously warded off the bandits when he was a young boy in Stavishche. Their youngest daughter, Sheva, also known as Bessie in America, stood next to both her new American fiancé, Max, and her older sister, Sarah. Their son Paul sat in the front row. Although Yunkel looked robust in this portrait, he later found himself wheelchair-bound after being stricken with terminal cancer. On December 15, 1944, the extended family heard that while trying to escape the excruciating pain of his illness, he’d jumped to his deathIV from a rooftop of a building in Brooklyn, New York. Esther lived many years afterward as a young widow without her beloved Yunkel; she remarried later in life.
Anne’s eyes then trailed to the left of the photograph, where her own mother and father sat with their three beloved children. Her little sister, Sunny, was almost nine, and her baby brother, Beryl, three, sported a pageboy haircut. Anne stood just behind Beryl, who was propped up high on a chair by the photographer, at the end of the second row. Anne was thirteen years old. Thankfully, her hair had finally grown in over her ears since suffering from the humiliating lice incident aboard the Braga, allowing her to wear it in a short, fashionable bob.
Anne finally came to appreciate this special gathering in her past. She remembered how tedious it was back on that sweltering August day for the photographer to capture his twenty-three subjects with such perfection. By the time he had finished, that enchanting rainbow had disappeared. The group picture, however, that Bessie had insisted on taking, remained for eternity.
Seventy-seven years later, Anne felt nostalgic when looking at everyone together in that photograph. The feeling was bittersweet. She realized that she and Sunny, along with a younger cousin Fay, were the last three living family members who attended the gathering. For her, the photograph embodied happy memories, frozen in time, which could never be relived.
Through Anne’s hospital window, Lisa saw the snowfall accumulating quickly. She had just one last photograph to show her grandmother—her favorite sepia-toned portrait of her great-grandmother and young grandmother taken in Stavishche. “That was on my mother’s shelf in Atlantic City,” Anne recalled, her voice weakened from pneumonia. “You used to stare at it and ask so many questions. That’s Mom holding me up on a stand, sometime before the First World War. I hadn’t met my father yet.”
It was this image, taken in Russia and now gracing the cover of Tears Over Russia, that ignited in Lisa a lifetime desire and an unwavering quest to unlock the secrets of her family’s past.V
1. I. Genesis 9:12
2. II. Anne’s beloved husband, Ben, had died the previous year, in March 2002.
3. III. Years later, Avrum and Slova Cutler moved from Philadelphia and settled in California. Jonathan Cutler shared with the author memories of his grandparents’ final years: “When my father [Charles Cutler] took us [Jonathan and siblings] to see them on the occasional Saturday morning, we’d allow them to pinch our cheeks and say over and over… ‘Bubbela! Bubbela!’ I recall that usually she’d cry… and we cried too because she pinched our cheeks so hard. Once past the greeting ritual, we’d be offered ginger ale and Hershey bars, then sent to the backyard to play while they and my father babbled in Yiddish for an hour or so; then it was time to go. I never knew them as people at all. Their house seemed dark and foreboding, with a musty smell and the drapes always pulled shut. I don’t think she left the house much if at all… they seemed fearful to me… always locking doors and peering out from the corner of the window.… At age sixty-six, Pop [Avrum] survived a heart attack but shortly after, to prove he was strong and fit… he attempted to mow the lawn and place fertilizer down on a sizzling hot summer day using the old push-mower. He died in the sun on a half-finished lawn.”
4. IV. In addition to family stories, this was sadly confirmed by his City of New York death certificate #24428.
5. V. If studied closely, one can see the water damage to the photo sustained when it fell overboard into the Dniester River with the family and their belongings during their daring escape in November 1920.
Isaac Caprove is on the right, with unidentified friend, 1910, Stavishche.
Rebecca Cutler Caprove with her daughter Channa Caprove, circa 1914–1915, Stavishche.
Rabbi Pitsie Avram (far right, with white beard) with his wife, Sara, and son, Nissan, Gaisinsky (center), 1920s. Courtesy of Esther Goldman Grossman.
Post card of the steamship Braga, which brought the Caprove family to America. Isaac purchased it in 1923, signed his name across it in Russian, and intended to mail it to his brother-in-law Itzie Stumacher.
Moishe Caprove, the older brother of Isaac, as a decorated soldier in the tsar’s army during WWI.
Avrum Cutler, Rebecca’s youngest brother, taken before the Russian Revolution.
The wedding of Bessie Cutler and Ben Baker in August 1925, New York City. Top row, from left to right: Avrum Cutler, Ben Baker, Bessie Cutler Baker, Ruby Stumacher, Daniel Cutler. Second row from top, left to right: Channa (Anne) Caprove, Isaac Caprove, Fay Cutler, Slova (Sluva) Ova Denka Cutler, Max Kaplan, Sheva (Bessie) Cutler Kaplan, Sarah Cutler, Itzie Stumacher. Third row from top, left to right: Beryl Caprove, Sunny Caprove, Rebecca Cutler Caprove, Yunkel (Jacob) Cutler, Esther Moser Cutler, Molly Cutler Stumacher, Kolman Stumacher. Bottom (front) row, left to right: Paul Cutler, Fay Stumacher, Moe Stumacher.
Bossie Stumacher (Berta Weinshell in America), Barney’s stunning sister, in a town hall opera program in New York City, dated January 23, 1926. Bossie was arrested with Barney for holding false passports in Bucharest, Romania. Courtesy of Blossom Batt Linder and Lisa Linder Danziger.
Itzie Stumacher’s house in Belaya Tserkov, 1911. The second door was a rental apartment where the Caprove and Cutler families stayed after fleeing Stavishche during a 1919 pogrom. Courtesy of Marsha Kaufman.
Channa “Anne” Caprove in America as a teenager during the Roaring Twenties.
Esther Moser Cutler and Yunkel (Jacob) Cutler, shortly after their arrival in America, 1920s. Courtesy of Hy Kaplan.
Passport of the Caprove family, 1923.
Russian writing on the Caprove family’s 1923 passport.
Passport photo of the Caprove family, 1923.
Detail from passport.
Isaac Caprove’s receipt for one dollar, for preparing the Alien Declaration and administering the oath. Issued by the American Consular Service in Bucharest, Romania, and dated July 17, 1923.
Isaac Caprove in New York City, circa 1924–1925.
Rebecca Cutler Caprove in New York City, circa 1924–1925.
Barney Stumacher in 1921. Courtesy of the National Archives.
From the List of Jews in Tarashchansky Uyezd. The list was compiled in 1882 and updated in 1893, because there were severe restrictions for Jews living in rural areas such as Skibin, where the family was living illegally. Updated in 1893, it states: Urban Commoner of Skvira, Kelman Shimonov Kotlyar, his wife, Feyga Berkova. Their children: Shalum, Jankel (“Yunkel”), Hiya, Sura, Rivka (“Rebecca”), Mariyam (“Molly”). (Daughter Sura died as a child; the two youngest children in the family weren’t born yet.)
Rebecca’s sister Molly Cutler (Stumacher) with Isaac’s sister Rosa Caprove, Stavishche, before WWI.
Bessie Cutler, circa 1921–1922. The inscription on back reads in Russian: “I am sending you my picture. Keep it, and never forget. From me, Bessie Cutler.”
Avrum Cutler (pictured on the right) in his Russian army uniform, circa 1916. At left is believed to be his oldest brother, Shalum Cutler (Kotlyar), who remained in Kiev. Courtesy of the Cutler family of Los Angeles.
Anne’s only child Marcy (in the center) with Anne’s two granddaughters: Mindi (at left) and Lisa, the author (at right, with long hair), 2016. Courtesy of Russ DeSantis Photography.
Cousins Sol Moser and Daniel Cutler (on right, with mustache), who fled Stavishche during the pogroms. They immigrated to the United States in the early 1920s; later that decade they found themselves as American soldiers in the Panama Canal Zone. Courtesy of Vivian Flamm.
Murder victim Elek Stepansky. The young blacksmith’s murder was witnessed by his cousins Sol, Daniel, and Sarah as the children watched through a window during the Denikin raids in Stavishche in 1919. His widow and two surviving children fled to Argentina. Courtesy of Elba Muler de Fidel.
Sunny Caprove and Harry Usatch on their wedding day in 1938.
Max “Little Moshe” Zaslawsky holding the Stavishche Torah Crown in 2005. In 1920, his grandfather, Rabbi Pitsie Avram, saved the crown from the ark of the burning synagogue in Stavishche that was torched by pogrom bandits. Courtesy of Marcy Brahin.
Isaac Caprove as a soldier in the tsar’s army, 1911.
Anne and Ben, taken at Sunny and Harry’s wedding in 1938.
The author Lisa on her wedding day with her grandmother Anne, 1983. Courtesy of Allan Goldberg, Coachman Studios.
Anne and Ben in Philadelphia, late 1940s. Courtesy of Marcy Brahin.
Anne and Ben on the day of their marriage, 1936.
The headstone (left) and footstone of the heroic Stavishche rabbi Yitzhak Avraham Gaisinsky (“Pitsie Avram”). The grave is located at the Old Montefiore Cemetery in Queens, New York, in the First Stavishter Benevolent Association Section. He died in March 1942 after being struck by a taxicab while crossing the street in the Bronx. Courtesy of Dr. Ira Levitan.
Rebecca Cutler Caprove and daughter Channa, Stavishche 1912–1913.
Birth record of Sunny Caprove in the Stavishche metric book of 1916. Born July 22, 1916, in Stavishche. Father: Ayzik Berkov Koprov, urban commoner of Talnoe, mother Rivka-Kelmanova. Child Sura Leah. Marriage certificate not submitted.
Pogrom Death List (partial) in Hebrew found in the original manuscript Megilat Ha-tevah by Eliezer David Rosenthal. Listed are murder victims of Zhelezniak’s gang in Stavishche, June 1919. Translation into English appears in Appendix D. Courtesy of Gnazim Archive.
Isaac Caprove’s three sisters, from left to right: Shifka, Rosa, and Piya (Pollya) with their sister-in-law, Rebecca Cutler Caprove (seated at right), Stavishche, 1911.
A likeness of a childhood portrait from the 1850s of Count Wladyslaw Branicki, the last Branicki nobleman to own Stavishche, known for his generosity and kindness. Courtesy of Count Paul Potocki.
Haika Stepansky Moser and Itzie Moser, parents of Sol, who owned the bakery in Stavishche. Haika was the aunt of the famous blind cantor, Leaper the Blinder. Taken in Stavishche before the Revolution. Courtesy of Vivian Flamm.
Channa (Anne) Caprove as a teenager in America.
The Stavishche Torah Crown, discovered in a New Jersey Synagogue in 2005. Rabbi Pitsie Avram saved the antique relic from the ark of the Stavishche synagogue as it was burning after being torched by pogrom bandits in 1920. Courtesy of Marcy Brahin.
Cantor David-Yosel Moser of Stavishche, circa 1916. The chazzan died beside his burning Torah during a 1920 pogrom. Courtesy of Hy Kaplan.
Back row, left to right: Isaac, Rebecca, and Bessie. Front row, left to right: Beryl, Channa, and Sunny, circa 1924, New York City.
Chiah Sura Postrelka Spivack of Stavishche, at left, circa 1910. She was a healer, schmaltz maker, and goose feather collector (for bedding) of the shtetl. At right is her son Leib Spivack, who was drafted into the Russian army during WWI and taken Prisoner of War in Germany. His heartbroken family never saw or heard from him again. Courtesy of Emily Bayard.