A long-overdue follow-up

Sorry to leave you on the edge of your seats with the post about Ariella's amazing discovery last week.  There is still a lot of information to be gathered, but here's what we know right now:

1.  Dr. Nachum Bogner is very much alive (and should be well until 120, tfu, tfu tfu!).  He is a well-respected military historian and has penned at least one book that a helpful treppenwitz reader was nice enough to bring to my attention.  When Ariella called Dr. Bogner on the phone he was absolutely delighted to hear from her and they had a nice conversation about his family and what he knew about other 'Bogners' in Israel (some related to him and some not).

2.  It isn't clear yet if we are related to Dr. Bogner or not.  This is because he has no idea what became of his extended family in Poland... who they were... who managed to escape... where they ended up during/after the war, etc.  Having left Europe as a small boy with only what he was wearing on his back, he doesn't know if perhaps a cousin or uncle went to the US and became the patriarch of what would become my family. 

3.  Dr. Bogner lives about 20 minutes from us and I hope that we will be able to go visit him once we have done a little more research about our side of the family.  Then, we will hopefully be in a better position to compare notes with him about his branch of the family tree here in Israel.

4.  I imagine that this sort of thing happens all the time here in Israel.  However, my fear is that as this last generation of survivors disappears from our midst, that the holocaust will cease to be real for our children... and for the children of the world.  The volumes of testimony that have been collected and catalogued can only go so far... and certainly can't compare to the sound of a friendly, helpful voice of a possible relative on the other end of the phone.