Subject: Inquiry
Date: Sat, 22 Jul 2000 22:20:22 -0400
From: Fred Schock <fschock@home.com>
To: shokhor@mail.ru
Dear Mr. Shokhor,
If you have time and know, I would like to ask you to explain the name Shokhor. My parents emigrated to the United States at the turn of the century and while my father was processed at Ellis Island, NY, he was given the name Schockor, When he became a citizen of the US, he changed the name to Schock while his brother maintained the Schockor but respelled it as Schocker. In 1989 I discovered my father’s Russian passport and his given name.
If you are at all interested in seeing such a passport, I would be happy to post it on the Web both in the original Russian and also in English translation.
Sincerely,
Fred S. Schock
Subject:
Date: Mon, 24 Jul 2000 09:59:41 +0400 From: Stanislav Shokhor <shokhor@inbox.ru> To: fschock@home.com
_____________________________________________________________________________
Dear Fred,
My younger brother Sergey Shokhor forwarded you message to me. My name is Stanislav Shokhor.
It is very interesting to get a message from you. I would like to know how exactly your father spelled his last name in russian. I believe there could be several transliteration of it into english. I always use the form Shokhor. And as I know all of my close relative do the same.
The name , probably, has a jewish origin. But nobody of my relative doesn’t practice it and nobody knows the exact origin. For some time I try to figure out where it came from but I didn’t have an answer yet. As 1 remember some time ago I found a guess in jewish name database that it could originate not from hebrew language but from Yidish language and could be some form of Zucker which could be derived from the word sugar. But I doubt in it. I would like to find out by myself.
Now I let you know all I know about the name. My grandfather was born in Belarus. And I believe all Shokhors lived there in 19 century. I found name Shokhor in such cities as Hmelnitsky (Ukraine), Kiev (Ukraine) and several others in Belarus. In 1930 the family of my grandfather moved to Leningrad ( now Saint-Peterburg). Now I have relatives with name Shokhor also in Moscow, Tomsk. My cousin lives in Stony Brooke. You can find a huge amount of links to his name in Internet. He works on low-temperature superconductivity. Almost all of our family are scientists, physicians, programmers.
Now the most important thing. I know about 30 Shokhors in Russia. But all of them are my relatives. I could not find any Shokhor which is not my relative. But at the same time I believe they exist. There is also name Shokhor-Trotsky. I don’t know if they are my relatives. Also I don’t know anybody living now with this name. But there were some prominent people with this name in the past. For example, in 1930 one of Shokhor-Trotskv was a founder of baptist movement in Russia. Stalin regime arrested him and he died in prison.
I don’t know if I helped you somehow. If you know anything about Shokhor I would appreciate if you let me know.
I know that older brother of my grandfather’s father emigrated in US. But the link to him was broken. And nobody knows anything about his family. I was probably at the beginning of the century.
With best regards, Stanislav.
P.S. In 1995-1996 I lived in State College, PA and was a PhD student at the Pennsylvania State University.
_____________________________________________________________________________
Subject: Inquiry Date: Mon, 24 Jul 2000
From: Fred Schock <fschock@home.com>
To: shokhor@mail.ru
Dear Stanislav,
It is very gratifying to receive your kind and informative response to my inquiry about my family’s original name. Please bear with me while I provide a few additional details.
My father’s father (Pesach) died in Russia when he was two and his mother (Freda) died leaving him an orphan at the age of ten. He had a brother Issac, five years his senior, and other siblings (he lost contact during WWII – one of his sisters’ married name might have been Rosenberg and they might have immigrated to South Africa).
My father, Harry Schock, came to the United States in 1914 from Kaunas (Kovno), now Lithuania, then Russia, and became a U.S. citizen in 1922 changing last his name from Schockor, to Schock from the original Shokhor; officials at Ellis Island had changed his brother Issac’s name from Shokhor to Schockor when he came to the US five years earlier. Harry’s given name Girsh (see Russian passport), Hershel in yiddish, and Harry in English. He died in Lindenwold, NJ, November 8, 1978.
When my father died, I discovered several documents, of one which turned out to be a passport issued by the Kovensky Military Authority on August 28, 1914. While I waited patiently, my cousin in Oregon had the document translated by a Russian professor she knew. At the time, I thought it might answer some of my questions; as it turned out, it raised more questions than it answered. So far those questions have gone unanswered. For example: why was my father given a passport in the first place and why does it state that it is “valid only for travel to Jewish settlements”? Did this, for example, allow him to travel to Hamburg in order to board a ship to come to the United States or had there to be other documents. Was he considered illiterate? He told me about going to Russian school and that he was able to read and write Russian. What does “metalworker” mean? I ask this because he never talked about any metal work; he often mentioned that he repaired typewriters but I’m not sure that was in Russia although I do know that when he immigrated to the US he immediately began working as a meat cutter.
Any insight you might have to help me better understand my heritage will be greatly appreciated.
I have posted the aforementioned documents on my Web Page at:
http://members.home.net/fschock/HarrySchockRussianPassport.html (no longer valid (06/08/06)
Please notice that at the bottom of the English translation there’s a comment; it reads: “[Comments in square brackets are the translator’s. Italics indicate handwritten sections.]”
Sincerely,
Fred
_____________________________________________________________________________
Subject: Re; Inquiry
Date: Mon, 24 Jul 2000 20:01:58 +0700
From: “Sergey L. Shokhor” <shokhorgmail2000.ru>
Organization: SLS Group
To:”Fred Schock” <fschock@home.com>
Hello Fred S. Schock!
I am very glad to see your letter. Its very intresting! ! !
I think that all people whose name is Shokhor are relatives.
My name Sergey, I am 24 and now I am a post – graduate student. And I really interesting to see the passport both in the original Russian and in English translation. All my life I live in Russia, in Tomsk (this is a small Siberian town). My parents’ and grandmother also live in Tomsk and my older brother live in Moscow, but he was in USA in 1995-96 in Pennsylvania and wrote to men whose name was Shokhor but he answered him nothing…
see you later
with best regards
Shokhor Sergey
_____________________________________________________________________________
Dear Sergey,
Thank you for your kind reply. Earlier today, I also received a note from Stanislav Shokhor, your brother, I believe. I answered his note (see below) and included the passport which can be seen at:
http://members.home.net/fschock/HarrySchockRussianPassport.htm (no longer valid (06/08/06)
I do appreciate your forwarding my note to Stanislav and hope that, somehow, more information might eventually become available about the name Shokhor.
With deep appreciation, Fred Schock
(above e-mail to Stanislav attached)
_____________________________________________________________________________
Subject:
Date: Mon,24 J412000 17:41:48 +0400
From: <shokhor@potolok.com>
Organization:
To: fschock@home.com
Dear Fred,
1. From what I could see on the original documents I got the following 1. Your father spelled his last name exactly as I do in russian
2. I couldn’t see that the passport is valid only for travel to Jewish settlements. Maybe the fax copy is not so good. But I don’t see this phrase.
3. There is no evidence that he was illiterate.
4. His occupation was slesar which means mechanic.
5. 1 am trying to figure out what the city of Kovnya is now. (The city of Kovno is now Kaunas.)
I forwarded you reply to my father Lev ( Leo). Maybe he will give me more info.
Sincerely, Stanislav.
_____________________________________________________________________________
Dear Stanislav,
Thank you again, especially for your quick response.
Fred
_____________________________________________________________________________
Subject:
Date: Mon,, 24 Jul 2000.18:46:41 +0400
From: shokhor@potolok.com
Organization:
To: fschock@home.com
Hi, Fred
l . Yes, I don’t see the prhase “This passport is valid only for travel to Jewish settlements” in original document. But it doesn’t mean that there’s no such phrase. Maybe just I don’t see it on the photocopy.
2. About illiteracy. Your argument came to my mind also. But the passport is signed by him. If he was illiterate he would just put not his name but some symbol there. There is also an argument against it. The letters in signature look similar to those in other part of the passport as though they were written by the same person and that person put a signature for your father.
3. I understood what Kovnya is. Thank you.
Sincerely, Stanislav.
_____________________________________________________________________________
Subject: Followup re The name Shokhor
Date: Wed, 10 Jan 2001 19:34:42 -0500
From: Fred Schock <fschock@home.com>
To: Stanislav Shokhor <shokhor@inbox.ru>
Dear Stanislaw,
Recently I began an e-mail correspondence with my cousin Paul who lives in Easton, PA. He’s 89, some 22 years older than I but in excellent health and mental capacity. As part of my desire to find out more about our name, I asked if he had ever heard his parents comment on his last name, Schocker, and where it came from. The email (see between horizontal lines) I sent him and his wife seems to confirm what you questioned in your July 22 note to me.
The text within brackets [ ] below is from my cousin Paul’s wife; otherwise, the comments are mine and include quoted material from your July 22 e-mail:
[“Paul is having somewhat of a problem with the information contained in the Shokor letter. He has always thought his real name was Sucher (according to his father it meant sugar).”]
This might be the result of translating the Russian to English as well as determining exactly how the Russian (or Lithuanian) name might have been pronounced or interpreted and the degree of accent which his father possessed. I can imagine that Sucher and Shokor could have easily come from the same source.
In fact, I just checked a letter I have at: http://members.home.net/fschock/Bio/Shokhor.html. In part, it reads:
“The name, probably, has a jewish origin. But nobody of my relative doesn’t practice it and nobody knows the exact origin. For some time I try to figure out where it came from but I didn’t have an answer yet. As I remember some time ago I found a guess in jewish name database that it could originate not from hebrew language but from Yidish language and could be some form of Zucker which could be derived from the word sugar. But I doubt in it. I would like to find out by myself. “
So that seems to confirm what Paul remembers his father saying. Whatever else he remembers could easily contribute to the puzzle of answering the many questions raised.
When you say, “he is unable to believe that in the past no one was Jewish!” I am reminded that when I first saw these documents and started to investigate, more and more questions came to the surface than did answers. And, in part, that is what has raised my curiosity and moved me along the path towards finding out more information.
In thinking that you “might try to get a duplicate birth certificate, since it would have his real name” and asking, [“but How would I do it?”], you have given me another bit of information in that, although I know that Paul was born “in Europe” (according – to my parents), I didn’t know that it was in Kebart (Kebart/Kibartai), Lithuania, as you say. A while back I found out that it is possible to have vital records researched in various Lithuanian cities. Although I will have to retrace that information, what I remember is that a request is made to have local Lithuanian scholars search for records and tell you if anything has been located; that takes about 9 months. If there’s an affirmative response, then they require a $72 fee for duplicating and sending the document. All in all, it would like take more than a year.
I have also discovered that ship manifestos are being placed online. For instance, my father left from Hamburg. In searching, I found that only those lists up to 1910 had been placed on line so far. So I’ll have to wait a while to see if more appear. . .
Recently, I read “A History of Jewish Life from Eastern Europe to America” by Milton Meltzer and found it to be so helpful in understanding the times immediately preceding and following when our grandparents were born. If interested, it’s published by Jason Aronson, Inc., Northvale, NJ and London; The ISBN number is: 1-56821-433-2.
Stanislaw, I think the above provides further thought that the name Shokhor might be “some form of Zucker”. Sincerely,
Fred
_____________________________________________________________________________
Subject: Re: Followup re The name Shokhor
Date: Thu, 11 Jan 200109:34:13 +0500
From: “Stanislav Shohor” <sshohor@lukoilperm.ru>
To: “Fred Schock” <fschock@home.com>
Hi, Fred!
It is good to hear from you.
As of this moment I have a different thought about origin. I did some additional research and now, I guess, I have a final answer. First, I thought it cought origin from Zucker. Now I know it didn’t. Most probable origin is the word shahor ( with a stress put on o). It means black in hebrew. I don’t speak hebrew, otherwise I would understand it earlier. The next step was the word shohor (I usually put stress on the first o). And this is exactly how it was written in russian in you father’s passport. But when I write the name in english I replace h with kh as everyone usually does transliterating russian sound h into english. So we come to the name shokhor. All my relatives use this transription including my cousin who lives in Stony Brooke, NY.
And your father wrote the sound sh like in german sch, replaced k with ck and cut the last letters so the name became Schock. When we consider this name it is not obvious now where it came from. I couldn’t guess what the orging was unless 1 saw the russian passport where the name was exactly like mine.
I tries to find my roots in Kovno but I couldn’t. As I was said all my reltives came from Ukraine and Belorussia, from Kiev, Mogilev etc and nobody was from Kaunas (Kovno),Lithuania. So if you have any additional data I would appreciate this.
Sincerely, Stanislav.