This is Feige and Moshe Melamed.

Feige was the sister of my great-grandmother.

In the picture they are standing on the balcony of the hotel they owned in Kremenets, which at the time was Poland, and today is Ukraine.

The hotel may have been called the Bristol Hotel or it may have been called The Jewish Hotel or it may have just been called Melamed’s hotel.

In 1912, the Jewish author, ethnographer, and activist Ansky visited Kremenets and stayed at the hotel. There is an account of his visit in a memorial book about the town.

Hanokh Gilernt recollects that An-ski arrived in Kremenets accompanied by the ethnographer and musicologist Zusman (Zalman) Kisselgoff and the painter and photographer Solomon (Shlomo) Yudovin. They arrived on Friday, stayed at Moshe Melamed’s hotel, and the owner was surprised to see the Yiddish-speaking guests from St. Petersburg. Gilernt added: “Some strange Jews checked in and said they were from St. Petersburg.”

On Friday night, the streets were usually filled with young people; this time, they all gathered around the hotel and envied the group that was privileged to be inside. Meanwhile, Sender Rozental and Yashe Roytman, and Shlome the baker’s son, joined the group and were told by the hotel owner that An-ski wanted to visit a Hasidic kloyz on Sabbath morning. The hotel owner went to the caretaker, Peysi the blind, to let him know. An-ski asked for information about Hasidic liturgical rites and details about the Hasidim in town. He was quite astonished to hear that Hasidim in town lived in piece and that representatives of various Hasidic trends – Trisk, Stolin, Ruzhin, Husiatyn, Chernobyl – all prayed in the same synagogue and in the same style. He was not surprised, however, to hear the maskilim prayed with them. After a while, the young men took Kisselgoff and Yudovin for a short walk to the “mountain.” An-ski [did not] forget to greet them with “good Sabbath” and [reminded] them to behave properly, meaning that they should not smoke or speak Russian … in other words, they should behave in a Jewish manner.

No one knows why, but later, in the 1920s, my great-aunt Faye (Feige) lived with the Melameds at the hotel instead of with her parents, Malke and Israel Segal, who owned a tobacco shop on the first floor.

When Faye came to the United States with her brother Joe (my grandfather) and their grandparents Etyl and Shlomo Zalman, and some uncles, the Melameds “adopted” her brother Elizear (Lou). According to Faye’s son, the Melameds were mean and she worked hard at the hotel. According to Lou’s son, the Melameds were kind and took care of him. Later, Lou was arrested for being a Communist and later still, Lou was freed from jail on the condition that he leave the country. And so, in 1938, Lou and his parents, joined Joe and Faye in the United States. By that time, Shlomo Zalman and Etyl had died and Joe was married to my grandmother, Bessie Katz. Bessie had been born in the nearby suburb of Vyshnivets.

In 1936, Bessie and Joe went on a honeymoon trip to Europe, they took this photo and many others of both sides of their family. They are the last existing photos of many of the people and places. Kremenets was destroyed during the War, bombed by all sides. After the war, the hotel was one of three remaining buildings. In 1966 a former resident returned to Kremenets and described what was left to his fellow landsmen. Among other things he said,

New houses have been built all the way up to Melamed’s hotel. The hotel still functions, and on the ground floor are stores (a photo shop and a shoemakers’ cooperative).

This is all we know about Feige and Moshe Melamed. We know that they owned a well-built hotel where they entertained people from as far away as St. Petersburg. We know they did not have children of their own, but took in the children of relatives. We know they chose not to leave their well-built hotel with the rest of their family. We know they were murdered. Some people believe it was not by Nazis, but by locals.

Once upon a time, Feige and Moshe Melamed lived, and they commented on someone’s accent, and they ran a business and participated in family life and took pictures and that is all we have. But we have it, and so, we must tell it.