My family comes from a very religious background. My grandpa Stanley was born in a small town called Mir in Poland in 1930. Although Poland at the time was filled with lots of Jewish religion, there was a lot of anti-semitic people. The nazis, an anti-semitic group of people invaded his small town. This horrible invasion let to people getting killed and injured just because of their religious beliefs. However, my grandpa Stanley was very fortunate to escape the nazis and make it over to America. While Grandpa Stanley and other Jews took small boats in the cold at night  to America they sailed to Wisconsin so they can seek freedom of religion  a new life. On his journey to America, he took a few items to carry on his belief of Judaism with our family name  for us to pass down to different generations. Such as the one shown in the picture above. He brought over Prayer books in order to keep up with his religious belief and still cite important daily prayers also to just remember the hardships he went through to come over to America. In fact, my dad still takes them out once in awhile just to put them next to his dad's memorial candle and remember all he did for him. In return for what he has done for my family, we think of  him by celebrating all the Jewish holidays in honor of the sacrifices he made for the family name “Bernak”. He did all he could to do the most for his family. And I will make him proud by passing down these Prayer books to my kids in the future as well as tell them the background story about why these books mean a lot to our family name and all he did for us. 

– spencer bernak

Relationship:  Grandchild of im/migrant Grandchild of im/migrant