After discovering in the other box more hidden stories, we decided to dig deeper for more concrete information about the Kobrinas family story during their time in Lithuania.

We began an intensive online research on genealogy sites such as Jewish Gen, Ancestry, and My Heritage. Based on information gathered online, and from the documents we received from the “Lithuanian State Historical Archives”, we discovered the story of the Kobrin(as) family abroad.

During our research, we also discovered that our family name “Kobrin” had an additional “as” at the end, which is common in Lithuania. Lithuanian male names (Chaimas Kobrinas) preserved the Indo-European masculine endings (-as; -is) its feminine equivalent ends in -ienė for married women and -aitė for unmarried ones.

This is the story of the Kobrinas family in Lithuania.

Itzik Kobrinas was born in 1891 in Vilnius, Lithuania. His passport indicated that his occupation was a tradesman. Search of the archives revealed that since February 1919 he was a teacher in a Jewish School in a small town called Moletai, located in the Eastern part of Lithuania, 70km from Vilnius. Moletai had a Yiddish and a Hebrew school, as well as a traditional Talmud Torah.

Chava, listed under her maiden name Porudominskyte, was born in 1893 in Vilnius, Lithuania. Itzik and Chava got married on January 20th, 1913. One year later, in 1914, they moved to Vitebsk, Belarus. We have no clear indication why they made this move. Perhaps it was due to the fact that during the first World War, Vitebsk served as a way station for tens of thousands of Jews who had been expelled from Lithuania.

On August 29, 1914, Chaimas Kobrinas was born. We always thought that Chaimas was born in 1912, but archive documents revealed otherwise. In 1919, after the end of the war, Itsik, Chava and Chaimas returned to Vilnius. That year, on February 15th, 1919 Leonas (Arie), the brother of Chaimas, was born.

Birth Certificate of Leonas Kobrinas, Lithuania

The family was officially registered in Vilnius on the 5th of May, 1919.

Through the Lithuanian archives, we discovered details about an arrest that took place on the16th of July, 1919 in Vilnius. Itsik Kobrinas was arrested for carrying 1002 Rubels, a document from the Bolshevik government and some notes with addresses written on them in his pocket. Nothing else was found. Due to these findings, a personal inspection of their apartment took place. During the inspection more Rubels were found. He was suspected as belonging to a suspicious group or organisation, and thought he might have a connection with one of the other Jewish teachers from the Moletai school. The money found in Itsik’s front pocket was part of his yearly salary from the school, and the teacher they accused him of meeting in the park in Kaunas was just a former colleague he met. Eventually, all was cleared and Itsik had to sign a paper declaring the findings.

In 1931, the Kobrinas family moved from Vilnius to Kaunas in Lithuania. At that time, Itsik was a trader and owned a coin shop called J. Kobrinas, Kontora Metalas located in Kaunas.

A photo of Chava and Leonas Kobrinas placed above the ownership certificate of the coin shop. The man sitting on the left of Chava is unknown. Is it one of her brothers?

At the time, Chava was a housewife and Leonas (Arie) was a student in the Kaunas Hebrew Real Gymnasium.

After finishing high school at the age of 17 in Vilnius in 1931, Chaimas applied to the University of Kaunas. That year, Chaimas travelled from Lithuania to Palestine as a tourist. We assume that as a result of this trip, later documents from Israel indicate that Chaimas was a resident of Palestine since 1931.

The student ID of Chaimas Kobrinas, sent from the Lithuanian Historical Archives.

On the 24th of September, 1931 he was accepted to attend his first year of studies in the biology department at Vytautas Magnus University in Kaunas.

Revealing details related to the family’s registration in Vilinius, indicated the name Tzipa Kobrinas. It mentioned that she was a member of the Kobrinas family, she was born in Vilnius in 1907, and was the sister of Itsik Kobrinas. We never knew he had a sister. Where is she?

We also received birth certificates of the Porudominsky family from the Lithuanian Archives The documents indicated that Chava Kobrin(as) (Porudominsky) had a sister named Tsiva Porudominskaite (Porudominsky) born in 1905 in Vilnius, and two brothers Ber born in 1893 and Tzodik born in 1899.

This is the first time we heard about any of these family member. Where were they?

Could these names help us track down who the “mystery woman” in the family photo was? This is the only family photo we have from 1924/5 where my grandfather Chaim(as) aged about 10, his brother Leon(as) (Arie) aged about 5 and their parents Itzik and Chava Kobrin(as) can be seen. Next to Chava there is another women in her teens. Who is she? Could she be the sister of Itzik or Chava?