Goldfoot Genealogy

This is from Joseph Stephen Alpert, MD, " professor of medicine at the University of Arizona Sarver Heart Center.  Currently, he serves as the editor-in-chief of the American Journal of Medicine. He is a member of the editorial board of 10 internal medicine and cardiovascular journals. He is the author of 48 books and monographs, and 650 publications including more than 200 original scientific publications, more than 400 book chapters, review articles, and editorials, and more than 100 abstracts. 
                                                     

Klaipeda, Lithuania

Dear All:
I am sitting in the transatlantic flight on my way back from Lithuania, I want to
give you an idea of what happened there since it reflects on our family
background.
                                                                     
As you probably know, our grandparents emigrated to the US
from Lithuania in the latter half of the 19th century with the Kopsofsky’s (mom’s
family) coming first sometime after the end of the Civil war and ending up in
Pittsburgh.

The Alpert branch of the family came somewhat later but still
before the turn of the century ending up in New Haven.  According to
documents from the family historian, Dorothy in England, the Alperts can be
traced back as far as the 17th century to a small town in Southwest Lithuania
where they would have had serially renewable rights to live. Jews were not
allowed to own land so that all the families derived their livelihood by working
various trades such as blacksmith, woodworker, inn keeper, beer brewer, etc.

Since the Jews always emphasized education, they were probably almost
universally literate and were often employed by the local nobility for various
administrative tasks which may have led on occasion to distrust and enmity
between themselves and the local population. They had primary and secondary
schools including gymnasia that prepared students for matriculation at
universities. In order to gain admittance to a university, a Jewish student had to
have a place that should have been taken by a non-Jew. Apparently, it was not
difficult to obtain these slots from non-Jews since most of these families did not
send their children to university.

The Jews in both towns that I visited were remembered by the local population
as good citizens who worked hard and sent their children for as much education
as they could. As far as I could understand (the names and the national
control—Poland and Russia-- have changed over the years), the Alperts lived in
Kuzenetz and the Kopsofskys lived in Kopcewa.  Kuzenetz was a much larger
town which eventually had a Jewish population of 1400 out of a total of around
3400.  Kopcewa was much smaller and only held about 40 families.

Each town had a synagogue (destroyed by the Nazis), a separate graveyard (still existing
and seen and photographed by me), a funeral society, educational and social
clubs, their own butcher, bakery, and various other shops that both Jews and
non-Jews frequented.

As far as I could ascertain relations between the Jews and the local population were good.
                                                                 

I did meet a Holocaust survivor in Vilnius (the Lithuanian name for the town;
Vilna is the Russian and Yiddish name) named Alperovich who said that his
family had lived in Vilnius for as far back as anyone could ascertain so that he
was not related to us.

The Jewish community in Lithuania (the so-called Litvaks) was the most
educated and sophisticated Jewish community in Europe with scholars, artists,
authors and publishers as well as many institutions of education and study.
There was at least one famous genius known as the genius of Vilna. At the time
of the Holocaust, there were approximately 80,000 Jews in Vilnius with many of
them prominent and wealthy including university faculty, etc. Only 5% survived
the Holocaust. The doctor in Kuzenetz at the time of the Holocaust was named
Grossman and was eventually murdered by the Nazis.

I met a woman in Kuzenetz who showed me a large stone in the ground where the synagogue had stood.  She was in her 80's and remembered when a good friend of hers, a Jewish girl of 12, had been murderred by the Nazis during the war.  This lady told me she still had recurring nightmarres stemming from the time of WWII.  She also told me that she saw one of her Jewish neighbors shot and killed in the doorway of his home.

I will have more personal reflections on my visits with the current townspeople and the small museums that exist in each town later in this communication.

I had much more success finding Kopsofkys in Kopcewa. In both towns there
were small and meticulously kept museums with town history and mementos
of earlier times including information on the Jewish community that had lived
there until it was destroyed by the Nazis. Dora had visited the museum in
Kopcewa and had left extensive records of her research on the Kopsofskys
including photos which I hope I was able to copy with my handheld camera. We
will see when I get back to my home computer in Tucson. In any case, I found
the most incredible thing there in this museum. There was one photo of a
Kopsofsky couple from 1905 which would have been a few decades after Joseph
Kopsofsky, our grandfather, emigrated to the US. The man in the photo could
have been Howard’s twin!!! The family name was Kopcive: Clearly these were
Kopsofsky relatives.

As noted above, I met with an elderly (80’s) man in Vilnius
who was the head of the Vilnius Jewish Society. Although he was evidently not
related to us, his secretary’s family was originally from Kopcewa and
undoubtedly has some connection to the Kopsofkys since there were only 40
Jewish families living there at that time. She took the family tree printouts and
my email address and was going to contact her family’s historian to see what
connection could be made. The Kopcewa Jews were also exterminated during
WWII.

Now for some personal and emotional reactions to my visit in Lithuania. I must
say that this was one of the most moving experiences of my life. People were
so friendly that I was constantly overwhelmed by what they did for me. My
host, Pranas Serypetis and his son, ( a medical resident in cardiology training)
took my everywhere, spent three days constantly driving me around Lithuania
and not allowing me to pay for anything at all despite my urgings that it was
unfair for them to pay for everything. Pranas is the professor of cardiology at
the University of Vilnius University Hospital. He has patients all over the
country. Lithuania is a small country with only 3.1 million inhabitants.

Consequently, everywhere we went, doors were opened, and we were warmly
greeted and taken in. Food was prepared and at one home they even wanted
us to stay for a sauna. We ate but unfortunately we could not stay for the
sauna!! The retired librarian of the town museum of Kopcewa filled the table
with homemade meats, smoked fish, pickles, bread, etc. and hovered over us
just like our grandmother Alpert did when she was feeding us in New Haven!
She was convinced that we had not eaten enough!! Her husband, a retired state
forester (Pranas’s patient) was equally friendly and gracious. I was treated by
everyone as if I were a Lithuanian and an old family friend. I guess in one sense,
this is true since Howard and I are, indeed, Lithuanians from the Litvak
community since both the Alperts and the Kopsofkys came from that group.

My personal feelings during my entire time in Lithuania are as follows. I had a
complete sense of being at home even though I could not speak the language.
The food and the culture were entirely familiar—no surprise since what we
think of as Jewish food in the US is really Baltic food, something that I
discovered decades ago when I first lived in Denmark.

During the entire time that I was in Lithuania, I really felt as if I were a member of the Serpytis family.

I ended by telling them that I knew somewhere in Lithuania I had Litvak cousins
and that the Serpytis family were my Lithuanian Catholic cousins (the country is
predominantly Catholic—like Poland—with many Russian Orthodox churches
also present). The people I met at the conference (doctors, nurses, business
people from the biomedical industry, patients, and friends) were as genuine,
kind, open and honest as any group of people that I have ever met.

I cannot begin to describe how Pranas Serpytis and his son cared for me constantly
during the 2.5 days that, we travelled from one end of Lithuania to the other. I
was constantly introduced as one of their own and indeed that is how I felt. It
was a remarkable and incredibly emotional experience for me.

The Lithuanian cardiology society holds this international meeting every two years under
the direction of Pranas Serpytis and I was invited back in two years. I hope that
some of our family will accompany me at that time. I can guarantee you a
remarkable experience that you will never forget as long as you live. I took lots
of photos and can give you a more personal sense of my remarkable personal
and emotional experience when we meet.
 Joseph.

Dr. Alpert is a member of Halpern & Branches on FamilyTreeDNA and one of my family's DNA matches.                                                            


Resource: http://heart.arizona.edu/faculty/faculty_213