Dubromil - 8/16/2012

headstone paving the courtyard

headstone paving the courtyard

former cemetery on this hill

another hill shot

8/16/2012:  (home of Steve, Russ, and Ed's paternal grandmother) Dubromil (in the footsteps of Ely—one of the towns where Ely’s mother’s family came from) – Ely had visited here in 1987 – Steve had asked Alex about Ely’s guide in the earlier trip (also named Alex) – our Alex replied that he was the only Alex working in InTourist  in the 1980’s and guessed that Ely’s guide was KGB.

Dubromil was pretty run down, roads (as usual) pretty rutted.  Alex was generally vg at finding places with clean bathrooms (I’ll spare you details). 

Steve and brothers had worked out a spreadsheet of towns and what they wanted to do in each:  the items for Dobromil were to find the house (formerly of the head of the Gestapo) where the courtyard was paved with tombstones from the Jewish graveyard, and to find the spot where the cemetery had been.  We also found a professor at Lviv univ who had written a 1200 pg book on the history of Dobromil (he had grown up there).  The professor discoursed (in Polish, Alex translating) for some time, so it was well after 2 PM by the time we had lunch.  

Alex’s lunch plan was he’d come up with a meat and a non-meat menu with the restauarant, and we could choose between them (but no mix-and-match).

After lunch, we headed up the hill to where the cemetery used to be – and then S, E, and R spent ¾ hour stumbling around over the uneven ground figuring out the exact spot where Ely’s 1987 pictures had been taken – matching hills and fields and houses.

I insisted on eating at the Vintage (where the food was good); Russ, Ed, Eileen & Caroline went off for pizza.