Relationship | Family/ Pre-Marriage Name | First Name | Father’s Name | Mother’s Name | Occupation or Nickname | Place of birth/ Residence | Age or birth date | Place and date of death |
Husband | Notelovich | Ber | Without children | The man who calls people “In shul arein!” Berka the “shul-caller.” | Shkud | 55 | Shkud, July 1941 | |
Wife | Notelovich | Henya | Housewife | Shkud | 50 | Alka Hill, 15-16 August 1941 | ||
*** |
According to Hana Shaf-Brener, Ber (Berka) Notelovich was married to Henya. The couple had no children.
A passage in Kehilat Shkud pays tribute to Berka the synagogue caller:
“On Friday, preparing the home for receiving Shabbes was the main task. Everybody washed, cut their hair, and polished their shoes with great care. The signal to close the stores for the entrance of Shabbes into the shtetl was given by the shtetl council’s official town crier, Berka, the synagogue caller. After the announcement ‘in shul arain,’ everyday life stopped, and the Shabbes in its soft and honoured cloak enwrapped the town and its inhabitants. Fathers and sons went to shul, and on their return, with or without a guest, sat at the already-laid tables just like kings’ sons. The Jewish houses in the shtetl were flooded with electrical lights, and Shabbes candles were lit, glittering in the dark night with happiness and joy” (Kehilat Shkud 31).
During my third trip to Skuodas in July 2010, I was guided by Viktoras Vaitelavičius, a local resident who remembered the prewar Jewish community. He took me to the corner of J. Basanaviciaus and Birtutis steets where the New Shul had once stood.
On these streets, Viktoras explained, were also Jewish shops, including Fogelman’s hardware store, the taxi company, and the newspaper kiosk. On this corner, near the newspaper kiosk, Viktoras went on, the synagogue crier used to call “In shul arain” on Friday evenings. As Viktoras called out the Yiddish words he remembered, it seemed as though I was hearing a voice out of the past, Berka’s voice …
Jewish Gen’s Lithuania Marriages database records the marriage of Bere Notelevich, age 50, a musician, son of Binyamin and Feiga, to Khene Levin born in 1888 to Menashe and Sheine (nee Fard). The marriage took place in Skuodas in 1926. Ch. Mines, almost certainly my father’s uncle Elkhanon (Khonon), was one of the witnesses.
As of November 2013, Yad Vashem provides no information on the Notelovich family of Shkud.