Continuing the search for Grandpa Avraham Chaim...

So this is the set up. After disappointment at not finding mention of Avram Chaim in Hordzieszka, I thought perhaps I’d find some trace in Hull.  From a Jewish burial website I discovered that he was buried in the Delhi Street cemetery. 

This morning we found that the tiny grave yard is hidden away on the far side of Hull.  Miscalculating the distance, we set out early, walking through the surprisingly green and pleasant but extensive outskirts of the city, then along a busy road, and finally we found it. As feared it was fenced off, and locked.  We peeped through the gates, and were taking photos of what we could see when a woman, Heather, appeared and told us she thought we could get the keys from a Jewish organisation somewhere. She said that a gardener came every few weeks to look after the place, but she wasn’t sure when. Generously she offered to take a photo of the grave the next time he came, and took our email address. 

Sadly we began to head back to the city centre. This time we’d take the bus. We were still waiting at the nearby bus stop when Heather drew up in her car, calling out that the gardener had just turned up. She whisked us back to Delhi Street on the way telling us that she recently discovered that some of her family was Jewish but had changed their names during the war. She drops us outside the entrance where the gardener stops strimming to let us in.  But no-one knows where Avram Chaim is.  The gardener has only just started work so the place is wildly overgrown (though obviously tended). We hunt around finding (perhaps) Moisha’s in-laws (the Sultans). But no Davidovitch. It has been a long morning so after a long systematic search, it begins to look unlikely that we’ll find anything. 

‘One last look...’ I say stumbling through thick weeds between crumbling graves towards a last area I hadn’t been able to see close up. And there, at the last moment, I find it.  Not in good condition, but unlike many still clearly legible. I tidy it up a bit (not too much, for the letters are only semi-engraved and very worn, and the in-laid material of the letters comes away slightly as I brush away the weeds). I take photos, say a few words from the Kaddish (I don’t even know what he’d have thought of that), leave a stone, and stumble back through the tightly packed graves. So, I think, perhaps a better prepared visit to Horzieszka is called for.

(More close ups and interpretation to follow)