Czernowitz - the Toronto update

<x-flowed>Those of us lucky enough to attend the Jewish Genealogy meeting in
Toronto got much more than our money's worth. First of all, it was
terrific to see and meet each other face-to-face. We're a terrific
bunch, and a good time was had by all (modestly speaking).

Second of all, there was a great deal on Bukowina on the program.
Dr. Fred Stambrook of Winnipeg, Manitoba, gave an excellent lecture
on the history of Bukowina. (Madelon - you should contact him
regarding some of your Czernowitz questions. He spoke directly on
topic in regards to the questions you recently asked of me.)

Alti Rodal described in her lecture the project to digitize and
catalog all tombstones in the Czernowitz cemetery. This will be a
gold mine of information for Czernowitz descendants! It will
eventually be available for free on the internet, very likely on
JewishGen. Alti lead the team that photographed about 20,000
tombstones last summer. This summer, the team that is there now is
nearly done photographing the other 36,000 matzevah. By the way,
they have also digitized images of the matzevah at the cemeteries in
Chotin and Sadagora, too! In the next phase, names from the
tombstones will be entered into Excel to create a searchable
database. Of great help will be the complete set of burial registers
from the 1866 to 1936 - 22 registers, in German, and later years in
Russian. The registers will be used to double check data from stones
and both data sets will be reconciled. Alti was able to obtain a
complete set of these registers from the cemetery caretaker.

In the course of the project, the entire cemetery was cleared of
vegetation so that each stone could be photographed properly.
Ukrainian workers (up to 11 at a time) were paid 10-15 dollars per
week each for this task.

Alti showed an excellent video of her visit to the cemetery in Boyan,
not far from Czernowitz. She was accompanied by Rabbi Kofmansky of
Czernowitz.

All our thanks should go to the J.G.S. of Ottawa, lead by Hymie
Reichstein, Lawrence Tapper, and Dona Dinberg. Kudos for a heartfelt
mitzvah on their part. They will be looking now for volunteers to
transcribe information from 40-50 CD-Roms, where information is found
in German, Russian, and Hebrew.

Alti's talk was followed by a terrific Bukowina group dinner hosted
by Simon and Ruby Kreindler at their home on Toronto. Simon is "one
of us" and it was wonderful of Simon and Ruby to open their home to
this bunch of strangers - no longer strangers now, but a great group
of friends.

Cliff Rees and I will stay through Thursday morning for one last
talk, then head back to my home for a short Finger Lakes (New York)
vacation before he heads home on Saturday.

Best wishes from Toronto,
--
Bruce Reisch
Geneva, New York

RADAUTZ: http://www.shtetlinks.jewishgen.org/radauti/radautz.html
SADGURA: http://www.shtetlinks.jewishgen.org/sadgura/sadgura.html
Researching: REISCH, SCHECHTER, FEUERSTEIN - Sadgura, Bukowina, Ukraine
SCHACHTER, BRUCKER/BRUKER, HALPERN, HELLMANN, KURTZ - Radauti and
Solca, Bukowina, Romania
WEISSMAN - Brody, Galicia, Ukraine SCHACHTER, HELLMANN - Okup, Ukraine


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Received on 2002-08-08 08:03:11