Lombrozo Family photo

Please see the Lombrozo Index for a listing of all pages dealing with the Lombrozo's
Please scroll down to see the full picture and the history of the photo.

Names 1-2 & 6-9 are either an educated guess or from Perl's memory.
Name and relations of 3 is an educated guess from Nathan Lombrozo.
Names 4 & 5 were originally Identified and confirmed by Perl Merzon and Mary  Kajia.
Names 10-11 have been identified and confirmed by David Lechno, Itshack Lechno and Isaac Guy.

1 - Nathan Lombrozo
2 - Yehuda Lombrozo - Nathan and Riva's Father
3-  Rachel  (Ra-heil) Cocos or Cocose- Nathan's Wife
4-  Perl Merzon (Lombrozo)
5- Mary Kajia (Lombrozo) 
6- Sam or Shmuel Lombrozo
7- Joe or Yosef Lombrozo
8- Morris or Moshe Lombrozo
9- Jacob 
10- Ralph Lechno
                                                                             11- Itshack Lechno

This picture was taken around 1917or 1918.

Yasha's (Jack Kajia)and Mary Lombrozo's eldest daughter, Rae Kajia, remembers that the eldest man in this photo was called 'Udon' the Spanish Sailor. The assumption is that his name was actually Y'huda and the Spanish nickname was either due to his Spanish name or dark complexion. If he were a foreigner from North Africa, then his accent would be unfamiliar to the Crimchaks. His Hebrew would be Sephardic which would be unusual. (The Crimchaks spoke Tatar and Turkish but knew Yiddish from other Eean sources.)

David Lombrozo was able to find out that there was a famous Lombrozo in North Africa (maybe Tunisia) who was the leader of the community. He thinks that this Rabbi went to Russia during the Crimean wars to minister to Jews on both sides of the conflict. The war was in the 1850s and Yehuda was born around 1830. If the Rabbi was Yehuda's father, then Yehuda could have conceivably traveled with his father to the conflict. He may have met his wife, in the Crimea and stayed. This is highly speculative, but not impossible.

From the memories of Perl:
To read more about Pearl Merzon (Lombrozo) click here.

"In those days, taking photos was an expensive event so only a single picture would be taken at only the most special of events. However, Nathan(the person in the casket) had a reputation of being very thrifty with his money and would never allow the family to pay for a photo.

During the flu epidemic of 1917/1918, Nathan became sick and as he was getting close to death, his wife Rachel (Ra-heil), sent word out to all the family members to get ready on a moment's notice for a family photo should Nathan not make it. Since the body would have to be buried within 24 hours, this had to have been set up in advance.

When Nathan passed away, word was sent and relatives gathered from all around and the picture was taken in the courtyard of the family home in Feodosia".

The photo was then reproduced for Nathan's 5 children and they took it with them to America where it keeps getting reproduced and handed down."

Rachel (Ra-heil) Cocos or Cocose died a few years later in 1919 or 1920.  We are not sure which person in the photo is Rachel is 
the woman standing next to Yehuda or is it the woman standing behind Mary?.  If you know please email me!!

David Lombrozo's family was from Feodosia but apparently the people on the right side of the photo represented a branch of the family that lived in Simferopol. He met a woman who said her father came from Simferopol but had an Uncle Jacob who came from Feodosia. She thinks this man is in the photo and her grandfather is Jacob's brother and is standing to his right.