Part 2 of our story on Norman Abramson – the father of two Halborn descendants and grandfather of three – who, 50 years ago, developed and analyzed the theoretical model for random access digital communications now known as ALOHA channels, the technology still used today as the fundamental means of connection in all two way wireless communication systems.

Norman Abramson, husband of Halborn descendent Joan Abramson, played an important role in creating the technology that formed the basis for the internet. He created the first wireless links to the ARPAnet in 1971, developing the fundamental digital technology that even today enables all two way wireless communication devices around the world, including our mobile phones, tablet devices and computers.

Included in this post are a few of the documents I’ve collected over the years of family members who immigrated to the United States and became citizens. These are all public documents available on the web. Our family is a family of immigrants that now has members who are citizens of at least eight countries.

In our Halborn family book, we included a sidebar about Alina Halborn, who escaped from Poland in 1939 with her father, Samuel Halborn and her aunt, Helena Halborn. They were assigned by Soviet authorities to the village of Bajsun in Uzbekistan, where Samuel worked as a doctor and Alina attended school. But in the book we were mistaken about where they ended up after Alina finished elementary school. Here’s the update.

At the end of October 2017, Jewish Records Indexing Poland and the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee (JDC) announced an agreement to enable searches of the JDC Archives names database. The newly available data gave us the opportunity to fill in a gap in in the story of our cousin Rafał. Our post about Nisla Halborn Freulich's grandson was called Cousin Rafal, and had been on our website for a few months when the new JDC record source was announced. And surprisingly, we found his name in those records.

Broken Earth is an American film written and directed by Halborn descendant Roman Freulich in 1935. The 11-minute short film stars Clarence Muse as a sharecropper and widower who plows his farm and tries to care for a sick son, pleading and praying for divine intervention.

A continuation of the story of the Obermans, pieced together by Joan Abramson and Roman Weinfeld as part of the research for their book, “The Halborns.” This is part four of a four-part series.

A continuation of the story of the Obermans, pieced together by Joan Abramson and Roman Weinfeld as part of the research for their book, “The Halborns.” This is part three of a four-part series.

A continuation of the story of the Obermans, pieced together by Joan Abramson and Roman Weinfeld as part of the research for their book, “The Halborns.” This is part two of a four-part series.

We began our search for Halborn family members for many reasons: the desire to find where branches of our shared family originated and had settled; curiosity about the way family members lived and survived. But above all, is our belief that it is important to discover and document as much as possible about the fate of those in our family who did not survive the Holocaust and to trace and contact those who did survive and were able to establish families around the world. Here we present what we have learned about one branch of the family — the Obermans — part 1 of a 4 part series of posts.

In 1905, there was a pogrom in Orsha — carried out while Russian authorities did nothing. Thirty Jewish residents of Orsha were killed.  My mother and Ida both remembered that pogrom — they watched it, terrified, from the root cellar of their Orsha home… It was time for the family to leave

Ida was the Merkin sister who most closely watched over her siblings. It was Ida who visited when she could and called as often as possible. She shared what she knew, first with her sisters and her brother and later, when they were adults, with her nieces and nephews.

In a world growing more fragile it seems compelling to document what we know about ourselves and our ancestors. With that in mind, this story — helped along by old photographs that have brought back lost memories — is meant to recount my frequent visits over a period of 40 plus years to Ida Merkin Riskin and Abe Riskin, a beloved aunt and uncle who lived in New York City.

Rafał Jeleń, grandson of Nisla Mirla Halborn and Ajysyk Frelich, was a cousin to all of us in the Halborn family who are alive today. We used several pictures of Rafał in our family book: The Halborns: Ancestors - Immigrants - Survivors. Some were taken in Łódź in 1938, the year before the invasion of Poland by Nazi Germany. With the help of Roman Weinfeld, who provided all of the translations from Polish and who found some key documents about the Jeleń family. In this post I have put together what we know about Rafał's life and about his fate.

Our Polish ancestral towns have changed. Remnants of the past grow older, and some are disappearing. Still others have been converted to different uses. Łódź still retains some Jewish memorials and memories. Roman Weinfeld, my husband Norm and I traveled to Łódź together in 2010, to visit some of the places where our relatives lived and died.

In September 2010 my husband Norm Abramson and I met Roman Weinfeld for the first time in Warsaw. The three of us traveled together to Częstochowa, Łódź and Żarki. Roman and I had been exchanging email about our shared genealogy for over a year. In Żarki we hoped to locate the graves of some of our Halborn ancestors. Our trip together started us on the path to writing a book about the Halborn family.

Katia was the mother of two Halborn descendants, the grandmother of four, and the great grandmother of three. The video is intended to introduce Katia's great grandchildren, and all Halborn descendants, to a person, and a garden, that played a large role in the lives of the people Katia influenced so profoundly, especially her children and grandchildren.