Sergey Kadinsky
Family background
Every last name has a story behind it. Mine is relatively uncommon, and has no noble ancestry. Like most of the world's population, I come from a peasant background.
My Father's Side:
The last name of Kadinsky originates from the tiny village of Kadino on the Belarus-Russia border. Among Jewish last names, mine is rare, and has no relation to the famous painter Vassily Kandinsky. It is assumed that last names became accepted in this region by the early 19th century. The Jews were semi-nomadic, moving from village to village, depending on work opportunities, expulsions, and persecutions. Close to Kadino is the more famous, but equally small village of Lubavichy, from which the Chabad hasidic movement originated. Eventually, my ancestors moved downstream on the Gorodnya and Vikhra rivers to the Belarusian town of Mstislavl. Coming from Kadino, we were dubbed the "Kadinsky" family. By the early 20th century, my family established itself further downstream in the city of Gomel, where we lived until the eve of the Second World War. In 1925, my grandfather Mikhail was born, but little is known about my great-grandfather David, who died when my grandfather was an infant.
The red dots indicate Kadino and Mstislavl. The blue dot indicates Lubavitch. Belarus is on the left and Russia on the right.
My mother's side:
My maternal grandfather's last name is Vaysbukh, which originates from the northern Moldova town of Soroki, on the Ukrainian border. Depending on economic and political conditions, the Vaysbukh family also moved around the region. My great-great-grandfather Elisha served as a rabbi in the Romanian city of Jassy. His son Hersh initially lived in the Romanian village of Saveni, where my grandfather was born in 1921. The family later moved to the Moldovan village of Zguriţa (Zguritsa) in 1931, where Hersh served as the principal of the Tarbut Zionist school until the start of the Second World War. With the exception of my grandfather, the entire family was killed by local pro-Nazi collaborators. My grandfather is a kohen, a Jewish caste that descends from Aaron, the first high priest of biblical times.
A Russian map of Zguritsa The former Tarbut school. Expanded after the war, it serves as a public school
Deutsche Wochenschau No. 712 April 26, 1944
The building in the video shot above looks awfully similar to my great-grandfather's school.
Here, the Nazi forces are retreating from Moldova, having done their damage.
By then, no Jews remained in the village.
The abandoned Jewish cemetery in Zguritsa, in a 2006 photograph. If I had the money, I'd restore it in a heartbeat.
The village has one main street. On the right is the elementary school.
My maternal grandmother comes from the Brodsky family, a popular last name which originated in the Ukrainian city of Brody. It is likely that they arrived in the region in the 1600s, following a wave of anti-Jewish persecution in central Europe. Her family settled in the Moldovan village of Sineshty and was able to flee eastward to escape the holocaust. Her father is a Levite, a Jewish caste that descends from Levi.
My parents:
After the war, my maternal grandparents met each other in the Ukrainian city of Chernovtsy and moved to Riga, Latvia in 1949. My paternal grandparents moved to Riga in 1946, where they married. My grandparents knew each other, and my parents lived close to each other, marrying in 1982. In 1992, my family moved to New York. Today, all my my close cousins and their immediate families also reside in the New York region.
My seventh birthday in Riga
This website was designed by Sergey Kadinsky