Where Once We Walked

Where Once We Walked is a comprehensive gazetteer documenting 37,000 towns across Central and Eastern Europe that had Jewish populations before the Holocaust. The book, compiled by genealogists Gary Mokotoff and Sallyann Amdur Sack with Alexander Sharon, serves as a vital reference guide for these lost communities. The work provides detailed information for each location, including contemporary spelling, country borders, distance from capital cities, and map coordinates. A phonetic index using the Daitch-Mokotoff Soundex system allows readers to locate towns despite variations in spelling or pronunciation. The second edition, published in 2002, expanded the original work with additional entries and updated place names to reflect modern geopolitical changes. This reference has become the standard print gazetteer for documenting the geography of Jewish settlements in pre-Holocaust Europe. Beyond its function as a reference work, Where Once We Walked stands as a memorial to the thousands of Jewish communities that were destroyed during the Holocaust, preserving their locations and names for future generations.

Readers consistently note this book's value as a reference guide for Jewish genealogical research. Many users cite the detailed gazetteer format and comprehensive listings of Eastern European towns where Jews lived before the Holocaust. Liked: - Cross-referencing between historical and modern place names - Inclusion of grid coordinates for locating places on maps - Coverage of small shtetls often missing from other sources Disliked: - Print is small and difficult to read - Some location entries lack detail - High price point - No maps included Ratings: Amazon: 4.6/5 (12 reviews) WorldCat: No ratings available Goodreads: No ratings available Notable reader comment: "An indispensable tool for finding ancestral towns in Eastern Europe, though I wish they had included at least some basic maps" - Amazon reviewer The book appears primarily in specialized Jewish genealogy forums and library collections rather than mainstream review sites.

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🌟 The Daitch-Mokotoff Soundex system used in the book was specifically designed to handle Slavic and Yiddish surnames, making it more accurate than traditional English soundex systems. 🌟 Over 85% of the Jewish communities documented in the book were completely destroyed during the Holocaust, making this work one of the few comprehensive records of their existence. 🌟 Author Gary Mokotoff is considered a pioneer in Jewish genealogy and received the Lifetime Achievement Award from the International Association of Jewish Genealogical Societies. 🌟 The book represents over 15 years of collaborative research, drawing from historical maps, archival documents, and survivor testimonies across multiple countries. 🌟 The gazetteer includes locations from 22 different countries, with entries written in multiple languages including German, Polish, Russian, and Yiddish.