To the left is my cousin Beile Ronder, daughter of father's brother Yudel. Next to her is her friend from Lithuania with her daughter, who was born in Palestine. I do not remember their names. The picture was made in Kedainiai in 1938, when they came from Palestine.
I did not know paternal grandparents as they died long before I was born. I know that grandfather's name was Menachem Rondem. I cannot recall grandmother's name. Menachem was a gardener. He was especially good at cultivation of the cucumbers, which Kedainiai, took pride in. That business was taken over by children, my father in particular. Father had siblings and all I know about them is that they left for South Africa. I only knew about father's elder brother Yudel. He was born in the early 1870s and died one year before I was born. I was named after him. I do not remember his wife either. She perished in ghetto. Yudel's daughters Mina and Beile left for Palestine in 1934 with their numerous offspring. Mina had lived in Haifa all life long. She died in 1990. Beile remained single. She passed away in the 1980s. Yudel's son Chaim Ronder was a close person for me. During occupation he managed to run away from ghetto and had been in hiding and he was by a hair's breadth of death. In 1943 he happened to be in a partisan squad, which entered liberated Vilnius. Chaim died in couple of years after war. She was still very young. Yudel's younger son Aba perished in ghetto.
