I was browsing through anything related to Salit on the Internet when I found several references to Salomon Salit who had written the only account of a Jewish agricultural settlement called Kolonja Izaaka (in what is now Belarus). At first I didn’t recognise the name, and anyway he was based in Warsaw. However during a break in the research I went back to reading (word by word translating the Yiddish through gritted teeth and with the help of Google translate) a letter that Uncle Tuvye had written to Grandma in March 1935 in which he says he got a lot of ‘nachas’ from his children, and he goes on to describe them (sadly he doesn’t mention their names). He writes:
1/ one daughter is a doctor of chemistry working in the university as an assistant. She is married to a Master of Chemistry.
2/ the second daughter is a doctor of medicine working in the university, also as an assistant . She justly deserves to be in Vilna as one of the best doctors
3/ one son – xxx working now as a xxx (I couldn’t decipher this)
4/ one son – an agricultural engineer is working in his profession in the ORT society.
I realised that this last has to be the Salomon Salit who wrote the book. If you want to see the book (in Polish) it can be downloaded. Check out the Wikipedia page for the ‘Kolonja Izaaka’. There is also a link there to the Kolonja Izaaka website where I found the following tribute:
Salomon Salit was a young Jewish student of agrarian economics at the University of Warsaw. Salit set about to study the economics of the Jewish colonies, and chose Kolonja Izaaka as his case study. Although he was primarily interested in agriculture, training and economic matters, Salit also detailed the passing of each Jewish-owned land parcel from generation to generation, naming many of the family members (alas, only the men), and he wrote a sketch of life on Kolonja Izaaka as he observed it. It is unknown whether Salit had personal or family ties in Kolonja Izaaka, and we don't know what fate he met during the Shoah. However, his contribution is inestimable. By studying the place and publishing his dissertation, he inadvertently created what is, in effect, the Yizkor Book of Kolonja Izaaka.
Over the New Year (2015-6) I contacted the website and gave the following information
Hi,
I came across your site whilst researching my family background.
Salomon Salit, who researched Kolonja Izaaka was the son of my Great Uncle, Tuvye Salit who lived in Vilna. In 1935 he wrote briefly about his son in a letter to my grandmother (in yiddish) saying 'he is an agricultural-engineer working in his profession for the ORT society'.
I believe that other than Salomon's sister, Dr Emila Salit-Alexandrovitch, the whole family died in the holocaust. Salomon (recorded as Salit, ?) is listed in the Litvaksig database as 'Agronomist-Engineer, Author of scientific articles, who died in the Vilna Ghetto. So it is wonderful to discover after so long that this young man (he was born in 1909) left such a valuable document.
And in reply on New year's Day 2016 I received the following email:
Dear Roger,
Thank you so much for posting today! I don't know how you stumbled upon me or the site, but I'm so glad you did. Honestly, the information in your cousin's book was so valuable to me and others who had ancestors or relations on Kolonja Izaaka. It is how I know the names of a number of ancestors of mine, and how I was able to stitch together a family story that had never been told.
For years now I've wondered what happened to Solomon Salit, and feared the worst - justifiably. A terrible loss among countless terrible losses.
If you learn anything more about him, please let me know. And please make sure your family knows about his book and its significance. I'll add this information to the website.
Best wishes for a happy new year.
Irwin Keller