Gary M. Pomerantz

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A Story of Family: In search of Grandpa's world

A visit to the old neighborhood ...

... mirrors the
journey of a lifetime

The Atlanta Journal and Constitution
February 1, 1998

By Gary M. Pomerantz
Staff writer

We climb four cold, cement flights of steps to get to the Dregval apartment. It is a dank place with three cramped rooms. Here, Nic and his wife Nadia live with their only child, Misha.

Nic and Nadia are 41-year-old engineers. She works in a truck factory, he for an auto parts company, and they earn a combined $ 250 per month. If they are lucky, Nic says, they end up the year with about $70. Sometimes, Nic walks more than 2 miles to work.

They greet us nervously, then feed us like kings. With their extended family ---Nic's sister Svetlana, her husband Sergey and their daughter Katia, and Nic's parents Nina and Evgeniy ---we crowd around a table filled with stuffed peppers, pelmeni (dumplings), cabbage, beet and spicy carrot salad and enough vodka to float the Ukrainian fleet. They toast us, we toast them; and then we do it all over again, until the night is old and the words slur.

Misha, who sends his e-mail to Ross from a computer in Nic's office, is a gorgeous-looking kid, all boy, with mischief in his smile. I'm struck that he's virtually the same age as Grandpa when he left for America.

We exchange gifts: Misha gives me a wooden flute for Ross; I give Misha an Atlanta Braves T-shirt, wads of bubble gum and a Michael Jordan stopwatch. In English, he says, "Thank you." The Western influence is on his bedroom wall: a "Lion King" calendar, a poster of Arnold Schwarzenegger.

I ask them about the city's Jewish community. They say they know little of it, though Nic's mother and stepfather recall vividly the Nazi occupation of Kremenchuk. As a small girl, Nina recalls hungry and angry dogs barking at Nazi motorcycles. She hid underground and her home was destroyed. Evgeniy recalls a Nazi with an odd hobby: "Whenever he got drunk, he shot chickens. Blood everywhere. Blood, blood."

Thinking of the Jews, Evgeniy sighs. He stares for a moment at the ceiling, a tear forming in his eye. "They had lists of all the Jews in town," he says.

The next day he takes us to a field where Jews were shot. "The Nazis usually did it at night," he says. "So you wouldn't see it."

We offer to take the Dregval family to dinner, and they accept. They walk about 1 1/2 miles to get to the restaurant. It's the only restaurant in town they know ---and they've only been there once before.

We talk, laugh and drink more vodka. Before we leave, Dad and I give, in separate envelopes, a $ 50 bill to Nic and Nadia and a $ 50 bill to Svetlana, for their kids. Nadia weeps as she thanks us. Svetlana bursts out, "I give English lessons now to Katia!"

Before leaving, we embrace the Dregval family, one by one. I tell Misha the next time I come to Kremenchuk I will bring Ross.

Nic is smoking a cigarette with a look of sadness. He seems to doubt that we 'll ever be back.

I tell myself, I will be back.

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