Hover the cursor over the individuals in the picture to learn more about them.

The Reunion in Kaunas in 1936

Marsha
(daughter of Peretz & Dena)

She was born in Kovna in 1918. Her husband and her brother, Leib, ran away and joined the Russian Army during the war.

Leibel
(son of Joe & Gitel)

Rella
(daughter of Chazkl)

She perished in the Shoach.

Rella Etta
(daughter of Joe & Gitel)

Rella
(daughter of Zusel & Dena)

Rella survived the war and lives in Atlanta, Georgia.

Kira
(son of Solomon & Manya)

Kira was born about 1924. Kira was an only child and perhaps a little spoiled. He had attended every gymnasium in Kovna. A partisan shot and killed him the day before the war ended. He was jealous over a girl.

Dena Solski
(daughter of Mordechai, married her first cousin, Peritz)

Peritz Sulski and Dena Hinda Solsky (first cousins) were married on August 30, 1913 in Jonava, Lithuania. Peritz was the son of Abbe and Rella Beilia Solsky. Dena Hinda Solsky was the daughter of Mordecai Solski and Perre Dorman.

Wolfe
(son of Jacob Leb from South Africa)

Judith Saul Stix wrote in The Wise Child's Book "In the spring of 1936, J. Saul and his brother Wolf met in New York and sailed on the Acquitania for Europe, planning three months of travel on the Continent and a family reunion with their brothers in Kovna. A newspaper account of that time, preserved by Sophia Saul Weiss, is [the] principal source of information about Wolf. He told the newspaper that he was on his yearly visit to Atlanta, accopmpanied by his wife Pauline. Wolf said that he left Russia at the age of fifteen and that he had been in South Africa for 47 years. . . . He sold ladies' wear and had lived in Johannesburg for almost 40 years. The brothers who had gone abroad and the brothers who had remained in Lithuania had been apart for 'nearly fifty years,'

Joe Saul
(son of Jacob Leb from USA)

Joseph (Jacob) Saul was born on November 14, 1870 in Lithuania. He became a naturalized US citizen before 1920. He died on March 15, 1942 in Atlanta. Judith Saul Stix wrote in The Wise Child's Book that Joe came to New York and lived with his Uncle David and Aunt Gittel. His cousins Harris and J.J. had started to work in the clothing industry, and it is believed they suggested that he move South. He went to Hartwell, GA, to start a business.

Zusel
(son of Jacob Leb from Lithuania)

Zusel was the oldest son of Jacob Leb. He was born in 1853. According to Zelda Lapedus Solski, he moved to Zapiskis, Lithuania (near Kovna) when he married Etta Rhoda.

Abbe
(son of Jacob Leb from Lithuania)

Abbe was the son of Jacob Leb. He was born in Jonava but moved to Kovna and never returned to the countryside. He developed an extensive and varied business that employed all of his sons and son-in-law. The business had 250 employees with company owned housing for all of them. It was in Yura, Lituania, about 40 kilometers from Kaunas. After his first wife, Rella Beilia, died, the shodchan (matchmaker) brought a prospective match to the house while the family was sitting shiva. His children were appalled, but he silenced them by threatening to marry a young woman and have more children if they were not nice to his second wife. At this reunion in 1936, Wolfe Sulski and Joe Saul encouraged him to leave Lithuania. But he asked them if his whole family could live as well in either South Africa or America. They acknowledged that it would not be the same and he refused to leave.

Ruda Ethel
(Abbes second wife)

She worked as a doctor and was considered an 'old maid' when she became Abbe Sulski's second wife.

Manya
(Solomons wife)

Peretz
(Abbe's son)

Peritz Sulski and Dena Hinda Solsky (first cousins) were married on August 30, 1913 in Jonava, Lithuania. Peritz was the son of Abbe and Rella Beilia Solsky. Dena Hinda Solsky was the daughter of Mordecai Solski and Perre Dorman. He perished in the Shoach.

Chazkl
(Abbe's son)

Chazkl, Charles Saul, and another man hid in the woods on a gentile's farm after fleeing the ghetto. They covered a ditch in the ground with a blanket and used it as their hiding place. Someone came and just started shooting. The three fled in different directions. Chazkl was shot in the hand, but a Lithuanian farmer took him in and washed the wound. He hid there for the rest of the war. Chackel Solski and his wife, of Yanova, are listed as Lithuanian Jews who survived the Holocaust and were found in Lithuania as issued by the American Federation of Lithuanian Jews in 1946 and reprinted in Lithuanian Jewish Communities by Nancy & Stuart Schoenburg, page 459.

Chaya
(Chazkls wife)

She perished in the Shoach.

Joe
(Abbe's son)

Gitel
(Joes wife)

Dena
(Zusel's wife)

Zusel
(Abbe's son)

Zusel Sulski was born in 1892 in Kovna, Lithuania. Zusel graduated from a phamacy school in Moscow, but never practiced his profession. Instead he worked in the family business, a lumber mill and turpentine factory.

Rifka
(Abbes daughter)

Rifka (Rebecca) Sulski Brawde was born in 1890 in Kovna. She married Alter (Shlomon Chaim) Brawde and they had one daughter.

Alter Brawde
(Rifkas husband)

Mina
(Peretz daughter)

Mina attended the Sorbonne in Paris, France. She married a handsome man, a soccer player named Benjamin Feldman. They lived in Kovna until the war. Mina was pregnant with their first child when they tried to escape to Russia. The whole family was killed.

Charles
(son of Zusel and Dena)

Charles was born in 1920. Charles Saul, Chazkl Sulski and another man hid in the woods on a gentile's farm after fleeing the ghetto. They covered a ditch in the ground with a blanket and used it as their hiding place. Someone came and just started shooting. The three fled in different directions. Charles ran to the home of a Catholic woman teacher. She hid him in her closet, hidden by an armoire for the next three years. After the war, she wanted to marry him, but he wanted to find his family. When he first went back to the ghetto, it seemed that everyone in his family was dead. Someone finally told him that his mother and sister had survived. He returned to Kovna and waited for them. When they returned, he sold a small piece of property that had belonged to his mother (all of the families estate had been confiscated) and they used that money to escape Lithuania.

Leib
(son of Peretz & Dena)

Leib Solski was born in 1919 in Kovna, Lithuania. Leib and his brother-in-law joined the Russian Army. Leib survived the war and emigrated to Israel. His Saul cousins bought him a taxi so that he could build a new life. He died of a heart attack in 1978 in Tel Aviv, Israel.

Braina

Mina
(Rebecca and Alter [Solomon Chaim]'s daughter)

Mina went to the Sorbonne in Paris about 1938. She fell in love with a politically active young man. He died. She joined the partisans, and after the war married the leader of her group, Vojo Kovacevich. He rose to the rank of general in the Yugoslavian military and was very close to Marshall Tito. Mina lived well and owned a castle in Yugoslavia. She wrote a book of her memoirs. She had two children, a son and a daughter. Her daughter lives in Israel.

Solomon
(Abbe's son)