Michigan: HIAS's Valery Bazarov, April 6

New Yorker Valery Bazarov is the director of the HIAS Location and Family History Service. Many researchers have been personally assisted by Valery in making contacts with family recently arrived from the FSU or with family members who never immigrated.

A frequent speaker at the annual Jewish genealogy conferences on a variety of topics, he is a genuine mensch (a good guy!) and I am proud to know him.

Members and friends of the Jewish Genealogical Society of Michigan will enjoy hearing Valery at 1.30pm Sunday, April 6, at the West Bloomfield Community Library; his topic is "History in the Making," including a presentation illustrating case studies of different immigration periods.

Originally from Odessa, Valery Bazarov joined HIAS (The Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society) in 1988. He is currently responsible for the HIAS Location and Family History Service; helping immigrants of different generations and countries to find family members and friends with whom they have lost contact over years, sometimes decades. He is especially committed to finding and honoring the heroes who rescued European Jews during the Holocaust. He travels to Eastern Europe, working in various archives and locating documents related to HIAS activities, spanning the last 100 years.

The history of HIAS will be shown through the contents of archives from the beginning of the 20th century through the Holocaust and after World War II; including rescue operations occupied Poland, Czechoslovakia, and France. Valery will address HIAS work in DP camps, saving Jews from Moslem countries, work during the Hungarian and Cuban Crises; and the "Let My People Go" project, resulting in saving more than 400,000 Russian Jews from the FSU.

For more information, click here.