I was going through some old papers (looking for my COVID vaccination record), when I came across my mother’s genealogy.
It turns out that my mother’s mother’s father, Solomon Kligfeld, came from the Ukraine.
I’d known that my mother’s family had emigrated from Russia. But of course, in the early 20th century the Ukraine was considered “Russia”.
My father’s family also came from Russia, from the area that is now Belarus.
A part of my father’s family (somewhere in my father’s mother’s line) came from Poland.
Basically, at one time or another, Russia has invaded the nations of all of my ancestors.
Imperialism is nothing new; certainly many people can say the same thing about the United States or the British Empire (or Spain, or Portugal, or Holland…). I just had no idea until now of the personal connection.