New subscriber from David Glynn on 2003-04-24 (The Czernowitz-L Archive)

From: David Glynn <glynn_at_beresford-cheam.freeserve.co.uk>
Date: Fri, 25 Apr 2003 02:30:38 +0100
To: "Czernowitz list" <Czernowitz-L_at_cornell.edu>
Reply-To: glynn_at_beresford-cheam.freeserve.co.uk

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Dear fellow subscribers,

I have subscribed to the List for a few weeks now, and
have been most interested to observe Jerome Schatten's efforts with the
Czernowitz-L web site. I thought I should say a few words to introduce
myself - and also I have a few thoughts on the site.

My mother Erica (nee Grunberg) was born in Czernowitz in
1923 - she spent her childhood there, and came to England with the family in
1938. Since her retirement she has become increasingly interested in the
Czernowitz of her youth, in particular the strong literary culture (Paul Celan
was one of her childhood friends) and how German-Austrian culture survived the
Romanians in Jewish Czernowitz until it was destroyed
(ironically!) by the Germans.We hope that with the advent of the
list we can broaden our knowledge further.

A few words re genealogy: Our wider family has the
name Peretz. My mother's maternal grandmother was Chana Peretz. The
Peretz's came to Czernowitz from Itzkany (there are several to be found in the
list of "Bukovina small businesses 1914"). We are reasonably knowledgeable
regarding the genealogy of the Peretz's. My mother's maternal grandfather
was Schulem Landau, who was head of our immediate family when my mother was a
child. He in earlier days had run the village store in Eisenau (in the
Southern Bukovina mountains) - his name is also to be found in the list of small
businesses. His father was Aaron David Landau, and his brother was
Moshe. Beyond that we know nothing about the Landaus! I would be
most interested to learn more if by chance anyone has any information.
(Landau is of course quite a common name, so Landaus in general may not be
related to us.)There is a similar situation regarding mother's
father Rafael Grunberg. He was separated from my grandmother, so my mother
hardly knew him. We therefore know absolutely nothing about his
family. Again if perchance anyone has any information, it would be greatly
appreciated.

The origin of the Peretz's may be of interest. My
great-grandmother Chana's grandfather was Hersch Rosenberg, who was
"Kreisrabbiner" in Ludomir. His son (i.e. her father) came to Itzkany to
avoid military service in Russia, and married a girl from Odessa, adopting her
family name Peretz.

But my interest in Czernowitz is not so much genealogy as
learning more about the town in which my mother grew up. Therefore
postcards, photographs, family reminiscences are of very great interest to
me.

Now a few words regarding the site, which I hope will be
constructive! These are mainly for Jerome's benefit, but I thought I would
mention them here as other people may wish to comment.

It seems a good plan to have both personal pages, and
pages organised around subject (e.g. photographs, maps etc). However where
any of the latter are personal in their main interest (e.g. photos of
iniduals), it is important to indicate the source, and to give names of
people shown. Mimi Taylor's interesting photographs prompt some thoughts
in this direction. Ideally they should be separated from the topographical
postcards, and should have as much information as possible by way of
description.

I would imagine that in general considerable use could be
made of links, so that the same material could be accessible both on personal
pages and on subject pages, where appropriate.

Concerning photographs, it is most interesting to see
photos such as Mimi's which show aspects of prewar life in Czernowitz. If
more such photos are collected on the site, itmight be helpful to organise
them into categories, e.g. 
* photos of people where there is not
much else of significance in the photo,
* photos which (possibly in addition to
the people) illustrate some aspect of the town or or life there (e.g. the
market, the Herrengasse).
But also, each contributor's photos would probably benefit
from being collected together rather than dispersed.

One more thought. I really appreciate it when
looking at postcards / photographs on the site when they are scanned at a high
resolution. For example, the postcard showing the Rathaus in the First
World War (czern1915.jpg) has a significantly higher resolution (984x714 pixels)
than many of the others, and really benefits from it. My mother was
particularly thrilled to see this picture, as it shows in great detail a most
interesting event in the town's history, with lots of interesting detail in
terms of people - soldiers, Jewish types, etc - (which in fact would benefit
from an even higher resolution!), just a few years before she was
born.

I would strongly support the highest resolution for
pictures that Jerome thinks is feasible.

Best regards to all,

David Glynn
(London)


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Received on 2003-04-25 07:53:52