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Relatives add to Passover celebration

A St. Petersburg woman searching for her roots finds a cousin in Paris. This year, they will observe their Jewish heritage together.

By WAVENEY ANN MOORE
Published April 12, 2006

	[Times photos: Daniel Wallace]
	Raymonde Tsevery, from left, Sharon Koenig, Leon Tsevery and Alan Koenig have a long-awaited meeting at the airport.
	After some confusion inside the airport terminal, Sharon Koenig greets her second cousin Leon Tsevery after arriving from Atlanta.

Monday, Sharon Koenig's second cousin Leon Tsevery became teary-eyed as he attempted to describe the feeling of finding family members he hadn't known existed.

For 60 years, he and his brother, Jacques, thought they were practically alone, he said, remnants of a family decimated by the Holocaust. His mother, father, brother and other relatives were among the six-million Jews killed.

Then, about a year ago, he received an e-mail at his Paris home. Sharon Koenig, a woman from St. Petersburg was writing to say she might be related to him.

"I hope you will be interested in establishing this contact and exchanging information,'' she wrote in a letter that was translated into French.

Tsevery, 80, responded promptly.

"I hope as my English will be good enough to express you how I was happy to learn, to discover, after 60 years, as we still have some family from our mother's, like if you are giving us back a part of our mother,'' he wrote.

"I would like to meet you if you come to Paris, also my brother Jacques, then let us know when you could. But if you do not intend to come to Paris, I am ready to go to see you in USA.''

Tsevery and his wife, Raymonde, arrived Sunday. His brother, Jacques, died in October.

Though months had passed since he learned about his American relatives, Tsevery was still overwhelmed.

"This is not easy to express," he said, looking at his American cousin.

He went on to talk about World War II, of the cruelties to Jews, but also of the kindnesses of fellow French citizens.

He spoke of the elegant man who doffed his hat and took off his glove to shake his father's hand, even though his father was wearing the required and despised yellow star that indicated he was Jewish. "I am ashamed of France,'' the man said.

That incident, Tsevery said, "is printed in my mind.''

He also has not forgotten the priest who gave him a baptismal certificate with the hope that the Christian document would ensure safe passage back to Paris

But it was the concierge at the four-story apartment complex where Tsevery lived with his parents who helped send the building's Jewish residents to their death, he said.

As he and his brother hid, they saw their mother hauled off. July 16 and 17, 1942, are dates he will never forget, he said, because they mark the days he lost his family, friends and neighbors.

For a while, he and his brother thought they were the family's only survivors, but then an uncle returned. David Skorka had left France to visit his parents in Atlanta, Sharon Koenig's great-grandparents. World War II began during his visit and he could not return to his wife and children in France.

He enlisted in the U.S. Army and returned to France as the war ended. He discovered his family had died in Auschwitz-Birkenau. Skorka had a nervous breakdown but later offered Tsevery and his brother a home in the United States. They declined, holding out hope that their parents and brother would return. The brothers lost touch with their uncle.

In 1946, Sharon Koenig's grandparents sent Tsevery and his brother a care package. Tsevery said they sent a letter saying thanks "and asking news of David, but no answer.''

Tsevery, who saved the 60-year-old label, never heard from his American relatives again - until last year.

For Sharon Koenig, who began researching her family history after her father died about 15 years ago, finding Tsevery was a dream come true.

Key to finding him was a discovery she and her husband made on the Web site of Yad Vashem, the Jerusalem memorial to Jews who perished in the Holocaust. Tsevery had put information about his family and David Skorka's family on the Web site.

Sunday Koenig waited anxiously at Tampa International Airport. "My stomach is jumping. I'm really excited,'' she said.

"Every year at Passover we say, 'Next Year in Jerusalem,' '' she said. "This is better than Jerusalem.''

[Last modified April 12, 2006, 08:40:52]