Finding my Roots

Irving (Usher) Dym was an interesting man. He came to Canada at an unknown age before world war 2. He believed strongly in drinking a dozen raw eggs a day for optimum health and that hockey was fixed. He lived to almost 100 and I have just heard rumors from a friend who went to an anti corruption seminar that hockey is very possible fixed. So here is a man who knew what he was talking about. (usually :)... side note: He convinced me to drink an egg once... Im going to stick to yoga.

So Zeidi taught himself English reading newspapers on the mountain and started a company in Montreal that is still in the family today and fathered 5 children, one of whom being my mother.
But where did he come from?

The answer took me to south eastern Poland to the town of Lesko.

It is not a large town, and it was my first experience where I was just about the only English speaker. After a 5 and a half hour bus ride I hiked up a hill into the center of the town and through hand signs got a hotel room. All I knew about the place is that there is an old synagogue and a Jewish cemetary. And Zeidi came from there...
First I headed to the synagogue...

It is now an art gallery which I believe was a great way to preserve the building. A friendly lady let me in for free and gave me a pamphlet with some history.

She also showed me that there is a little dungeon where Jews were kept prisoner.

The ark and other artifacts are now gone but it looked pretty swanky in the photos.

Lesko used to have a large Jewish community, dating back to around 1600! Being here is what made the holocaust feel more real to me than even Auschwitz. The current Jewish poulation of Lesko is ZERO. Except for those who fled before the war they were all killed.

There was a list on the wall of Jews from the town that were killed.

Recognize any names? Click the lower photo! A friend in Krakow said that Dym means the smoke that comes out of a chimney.

After the synagogue I went to the cemetary, thinking maybe I could find a gravestone with a familiar name... This proved impossible, partially because being one of the oldest cemetaries in Poland there were ltos of stones, and many were illegible.

There was a castle in the town... I got to it just before dark...

Any town that sells Star Wars magazines is cool by me :)

Here is the town center

And a view of the church as I headed back to the bus station

One more story from Zeidi is that He was once out in a field at night and suddenly the sky opened up and he saw God.

I thought maybe I could have a similar experience so i walked out of the town into a field at night and saw the sky. There was no supernatural force that showed up but it was fun to think that while even though the town is surrounded by fields it is possible that this could have been the very same one Zeidi walked in.

The town is on the edge of some nice looking mountains that I did not have the tme to explore and the smell was very similar to two dear places to me. One was the nature smell of the Laurentians, the trees and streams brought me right back there. The other was Guatemala as many people are burning wood to heat there homes and some of the street vendors brought me to central America.

I wandered back through the town which has surely been built up a lot since the war and wondered what was there before...

If any relatives have any stories about Zeidi in Lesko add them in the comments... you need a gmail account to comment but it is easy to sign up if you dont have one. (Or just email it to Jess or me and we can post it.)