Voice/Vision Holocaust Survivor Oral History Archive

Lanka Ilkow - October 12, 1991

Extended Family

Tell me about your extended family. You had cousins, aunts, uncles.

Yeah.

Who else? Some were already in the United States. H...how many do you think still lived in that, in Novosela, but in...

Yeah, nobody uh, survived. Nobody lives there. I have cousins--how should I tell you--his father and my father was first cousins.

But how many were there before the war, do you think?

We was a lot. We was about--I shouldn't come up with the exact number, close to a forty, first cousins.

Forty first cousins.

Yeah.

Plus aunts and uncles.

Yeah, but we was very close. You know, all the Moskovitch family was very close. Even here. I have a cousin here, her father is my father's cousin. And he doesn't live anymore. So she's already, third, fourth, I don't know. The children, fifth, sixth. But they still call, call me cousin. And they give me--as a matter of fact I went to Woodstock for a bar mitzvah and you will see the write up what they did. She did something, a paper for uh, for the--she was raised here nothing, nothing with Jewish. And she went to Woodstock and she had uh, three sons and a daughter. So she decided that she wants to raise 'em Jewish. Because in Woodstock it's a little town, which she uh, you know uh, she sent me the clippings. And she went in uh, inquire for a Torah in Czechoslovakia. And they brought a Torah, two Torahs, so one is torn and you can't use it and one is good. So she uh, was very proud to have that Torah and... [interruption in interview]


© Board of Regents University of Michigan-Dearborn