Oct-29-20
 | | Stonehenge: Rivka CHWOLES, aka Maria LICHTENFELD, was the daughter of Moshe CHWOLES and Chava-Leah nee BRUSKIN. The latter’s sister was my great-grandmother, Civia BRUSKIN, so Rivka was my paternal grandfather’s first cousin. That made her my first cousin twice removed. She was born in 1923 (or, according to another source, 1928) in Vilnius, Lithuania. She (and her sister Sonja) escaped the Vilna Ghetto in 1941 and assumed identities as Christian Poles, allowing them to survive the Shoah. It was during this time that she took the name Maria, by which she was known within the chess world. Her parents and three other sisters were murdered at Ponary. She won the Lithuanian women’s chess championship in 1954 and 1955 and was the vice champion in 1951 and 1952. (I assume that means she placed second.) She and her husband, Yosef LICHTENFELD, emigrated to Israel in late 1956 or early 1957, and ran a hair salon in Ashdod. She won the Israeli women’s chess championship in 1957 and continued to teach chess for much of her life. She was also known as a painter, though less famous than her brother, Rafael CHWOLES. She died in January 2017. [ https://fauxklore.livejournal.com/4... ] |
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| Oct-31-20 | | hemy: <Stonehednge> Biography of Rivka Chvoles-Lichtenfeld is included in the project "Lithuanian chess history". I'm working on this project, written in Lithuanian, together with Eugenijus Paleckis (living in Klaipeda, Lithuania). Many details of her bio were added personally by Rivka in 2015 in conversations with her friend Nonna Mudrova, living in Vilnius. I translated to English the draft of the bio from this project.
https://www.dropbox.com/s/zbmwvmcwn... |
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Apr-12-23
| | Stonehenge: Wikipedia has made a mess of her DOB and DOD. |
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| Apr-12-23 | | stone free or die: <Stonehenge> do you think any better of this version? https://he.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D7%A... The 1928 matches the year given in this detailed source about her life and paintings: https://jew-observer.com/iskusstvo/... |
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| Apr-14-23 | | hemy: <Stonehednge> <stone free or die> is absolutely right. February 10th 1928 - January 23 2017. |
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Apr-14-23
| | Stonehenge: Thank you both :) |
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| Apr-14-23 | | stone free or die: You're welcome of course. But, can anybody find a formal, or even informal, obituary for her? I don't think I managed to find one with a simple search. |
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Apr-14-23
 | | beatgiant: Have you tried checking the USC Shoah Foundation archives? https://vha.usc.edu/home (free registration required) |
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| Apr-14-23 | | stone free or die: No, I generally try to stay with fully open access sources, or the reference sources on local libraries which I can use anonymously. Do you know if the Foundation publish contemporary obituaries? |
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Apr-14-23
| | beatgiant: https://sfi.usc.edu/news/obituaries but I didn't find her there in a quick search. I did find a bio in Riga Forum here: Andrey, K., & Epstein Alek, D. (2017). Commemorating the tragedy of the Vilnius Jewry in art: Rafael and Rivka Chwoles–Holocaust survivors, witnesses and painters. In Riga Forum 2017 Digest (p. 190). https://civic-nation.org/upload/ibl... and scroll down to page 190 of the pdf. |
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| Apr-14-23 | | stone free or die: <beat> - Ack! Your source gives her birthday as 1923 as well! (Wonder if this was a typo or misreading once-upon-a-time of 1928...?) But, as I said, for the death notice I like trying to find a newspaper or funeral home obituary, as it strikes me as semi-official. I was able to find many biographical sources with the dod. Luckily they all agreed, but if they didn't, then in such cases I lean in the direction of those with the most detail reflecting more care and research, and therefore more authority. Thanks for the link (it goes right to the correct page btw). |
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Apr-14-23
| | beatgiant: OK, so I created an account on the Shoah Archive and looked her up. They also give her year of birth as 1923. They also have a 90 minute recorded interview with her taken in 1996, but it's only accessible via member academic institutions, and I don't have access at this moment. |
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| Apr-14-23 | | hemy: Indeed gravestone in Ashdod city cemetery indicating 1923-2017.
https://bezikaron.co.il/%D7%A8%D7%9... |
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Apr-14-23
| | Stonehenge: Great, there's no arguing with that. 10th of February is right? |
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| Apr-14-23 | | hemy: Buried on January 25 2017 נ''ע כ''ז טבט תשע''ז |
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Apr-14-23
| | beatgiant: The Shoah Foundation record agrees with 10th of February as the birth date. |
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Apr-14-23
| | Stonehenge: Thank you. |
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| Apr-15-23 | | hemy: Lithuanian language Wikipedia also have the dates February 10, 1923 - January 23. 2017 https://www.wiki-data.lt-lt.nina.az... |
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| Apr-15-23 | | stone free or die: One worries how all the confusion about her dob originally arose. |
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Kibitzing
