Mordka (known as Ottush to many in the family) was the father of my husband, Wolf Rosenberg. He was my father-in-law and the paternal grandfather of our children, Jeremy and Aaron.

When my husband, Wolf, and I decided to have our DNA analyzed, we both felt we had a pretty good handle on who we were and where we came from. I’d always been told our family had English, Scottish, Irish, and Welsh ancestry – in fact, when someone asked about my heritage my go-to response was, “I’m a British Isles Mutt”. As it turned out, this description was surprisingly accurate.

In contrast, when Wolf was questioned about his heritage, his response was straightforward: ‘I’m Jewish. When his results came back, the big surprise wasn’t that he was Jewish, it was that he was a whopping 99% Ashkenazi Jewish! Apparently, his people had never strayed far from the fold – prior to the events of World War II, anyway.

Wolf’s father, Mordka, was born 28 February 1907 in Lodz, Poland to Icek Lajb Rozenberg of Ryczywół, Poland and Etla (Itla) Kuperszmidt of Szydłowiec, Poland. By the time Mordka came along, Icek and Itla had already been fruitfully producing children. In fact, he was preceded by no less than seven siblings (although two of them – twins Mojżesz Aron and Szajndla – tragically died as infants before Mordka was born).

When he was born it was a much different place and time than most of us would have known. It was a world of shtetls and insular Jewish communities, cut off from the mainstream by religion (Judaism vs Christianity), customs (traditions, manner of dress, and religious celebrations), language (Yiddish vs Polish), and the prejudice and antisemitism of many of the Polish people against the Jewish people.

Right from the moment of birth, he was surrounded by family – two sets of grandparents, his mother and father, aunts and uncles, cousins, four brothers and a sister. Over the next six years the growing family would add two more boys and another girl for a total of seven brothers and two sisters. With a multitude of children to play with and a network of supportive adults to guide and nurture him, his household was a bustling and supportive environment.

They were a working-class family from all indications, so would likely have lived in close proximity to one another, maybe even sharing a home with multiple generations. The families would have been observant Jews, and likely attended one of the shuls (synagogues) in the city, especially during the periodic holidays and festivals that were sprinkled throughout the year.

Women were in charge of Jewish customs and ceremonies within the home, so Mordka would have grown up watching his mother, aunts, and grandmothers readying the house for Friday night Shabbat dinners – cleaning, baking the challahs and preparing the foods, setting the table with their best linens, and place settings – lighting the Shabbat candles and reciting the blessing, Barukh atah Adonai, Eloheinu melekh ha’olam asher kid’shanu b’mitzvotav v’tzivanu l’hadlik ner shel shabbat  (Blessed art thou, Ruler of the Universe, who has sanctified us with commandments, and commanded us to light Shabbat candles.)

In addition to Shabbat dinners every Friday night, young Mordka and his siblings and cousins would have delighted in celebrating such annual Jewish festivals as Sukkot (the Harvest Festival). To celebrate, they engaged in the delightful tradition of constructing temporary booths or shelters, which they would decorate with harvest fruits, lights, and lots of color. Then they would dwell in them for the seven days of Sukkot.

Another favorite was Chanukah, known as the Festival of Lights, which celebrates the re-dedication of the Second Temple of Jerusalem after the Maccabees rescued it from foreign conquerors. It was a time filled with the enchantment of candle lighting, indulgence in sweets, the exchange of small gifts, and spirited games of dreidel throughout its eight-day celebration.

Purim, the festival commemorating Queen Esther’s bravery in saving the Jewish people, brought another layer of excitement. The festivities involved dressing up in costumes and enthusiastically assuming the roles of characters from the Purim story.

Passover was another holiday they looked forward to, the annual observance that honors the Exodus of the Jews from Egyptian slavery. Although they knew the wait for dinner would be long while the story was being told, they could look forward to the search for the hidden Afikomen, a piece of Matzoh representing the unleavened bread carried by the Jews during their Exodus. The hope of being the one to find it and claim the reward added a touch of excitement to the occasion.

And, as young children, they might be forgiven for being less than enthusiastic about the High Holy Days of Rosh Hashanah, which marks the beginning of the Jewish New Year, and Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement. The emphasis on reflection, prayer, fasting, and atoning for one’s sins would have seemed a bit dark to young children who had a bounty of restless energy and found it quite difficult to sit still and pay attention.

Education played an important role as Mordka and his siblings and cousins were growing up. From the age of seven, they attended a traditional Jewish school called a cheder. At school they were immersed in the Yiddish language (which was the common tongue among the Jewish community in Lodz) and the study of all things Jewish: the holidays, customs, traditions, ethics and values. As they got older, they began learning to read the Torah in preparation for their transition into adulthood, which culminated in the significant milestone of becoming a Bar Mitzvah, typically achieved at the end of their studies around the age of 12 or 13.

When Mordka was about seven years old and starting school, the World was on the cusp of World War I. On June 28, 1914 the Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria-Hungary was assassinated in Sarajevo, Bosnia by a Serbian nationalist, lighting the match that would unsettle and disrupt the lives of the Jewish people in Lodz for many years to come.

Never well-to-do (Mordka’s father, Icek, worked as a laborer), the Rosenberg family suffered even more financial hardships during the war, due to loss of work, rising prices, food shortages, etc. Between 1916 (two years into World War I) and 1919, the Rosenberg family was forced to move within the Jewish area of Lodz several times. Each year that the war continued brought greater hardship and less money to pay the rent and buy food for the table, resulting in the necessity for reducing their financial obligations by downsizing their living quarters.

Yet Mordka and the other children somehow managed to continue with their schooling, and by the end of the war the extended family had survived intact and together. This can largely be attributed to the tight-knit Jewish community and the charity which its members showed to each other (the practice known as Tzedakah, taking care of one another during hard times).

One final note: It’s a story for another day, but Mordka not only experienced World War I as a child, but 21 years later, he was thrust into the maelstrom of World War II as an adult with a wife and a child of his own.