The following information is available about people in the photograph of Tsipa Rosen’s funeral. This photograph was taken on the second day of Pesach in 1924, in Kupel. (Although it was Yom Tov, the photograph was taken because it was required by the Soviet government.) The original photograph was owned by Tsipa’s daughter Ruth Falk, who gave it to my father-in-law Leonard Potash not too long before she died. Ruth identified some of the people, and Esther Potashnick Rosen identified some more. I then sent enlarged copies of parts of the photograph to Eliav Bar-Hai in Israel, who showed them to Tova Perlshtein, Mottel Shohat, and Yenta Glazer, and they identified a few more people. The numbering system is that used in the sketch that I sent Eliav, and the system used by Eliav in the sketch he sent me, except for one case which conflicts with my system. --Mike Gerver
1. Identified by Ruth Falk as Yeera, a friend of the family.
2. A friend of Ruth’s who had recently come to town; they used to go to parties together.
3. Yankel Rosen, who later went to Mexico City; identified by Esther Rosen, whose husband Will Rosen was Yankel’s first cousin. Yankel’s father was a second cousin of Tsipa’s husband Berish Rosen.
4. Nasanel (“Sona”) Rosen, Tsipa’s oldest son, who went to Mexico City; identified by Esther Rosen.
5. Mottel Shohat identified him as a man named Shohat. Eliav Bar-Hai was not clear on exactly how this man was related to Mottel. Ruth Falk said that this man’s daughter married a son of Tsipa Rosen’s sister Rachel Rosenbaum. The only father of Rachel’s daughters-in-law who was still in Kupel in 1924 was Berel Lederman. Berel’s grandson Irving Rosenbaum remembered Berel from his early childhood, but on seeing this picture was not sure if this was Berel.
In light of the fact that Ruth had incorrectly thought that another man in the picture (#6) might be Motti Mittelman, I suspect that this statement of Ruth’s was not accurate, and that Mottel Shohat’s identification of this man was correct. He might then have been a relative of Mendel Shohat, who was married to Nechama, another sister of Tsipa, although Mendel himself was no longer alive at this time.
6. Ruth thought this might be Motti Mittelman, but this is not possible, since Motti had left Kupel long before this. One of Eliav’s sources identified this man as Todros, who owned a store. His daughter died of an illness, and his granddaughter lived with him. She later married Haim Shohat who was killed in the Red Army. She and her grandparents were killed by the Nazis.
7. Identified by Ruth as “a young man in town.”
8. Mottel Shohat.
9. Haim Shohat.
(For some reason there is no #10 in Eliav’s numbering scheme.)
11. Dr. Feinleib, who is mentioned in Tova Perlshtein’s manuscript.
12. Reizman, a music writer. He became a radio/TV name, still alive as of 1993 when Eliav sent me this information.
