[Cz-L] recent visit to Czernowitz

x-mac-creator="4D4F5353"
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
X-edited-by: bir1_at_nysaes.cornell.edu
Date: Fri, 2 Jul 2004 16:34:08 EDT
Sender: owner-CZERNOWITZ-L_at_cornell.edu
X-Listprocessor-Version: 8.2.09.cu.03/021023/11:56 -- ListProc(tm) by CREN

Dear friends,

As some of you know, I recently spent a few days in Czernowitz.
It was an enjoyable and interesting visit, which I'll now try to describe.
Since this was my second visit, I was less emotional and I hope more
objective.

The city looks considerably better than it did last year, more buildings
have been renovated and painted, there are some nice stores, the hotel
Cheremosh has renovated the fifth floor, so the rooms now have double
beds and reasonably nice furniture. There is a new excellent restaurant
named "Slava" on Shevchenko Str. and the Cafe Wien or Vienna on the
former Herrengasse has a very pleasant outdoor terrace, very good
salads and beautiful, but not quite Vienna or Czernowitz quality cakes.
All in all, Czernowitz has some very beautiful and interesting buildings,
and much of the recent renovations are in good taste.

I went to Czernowitz a second time, mainly because last year I could not
find the grave of one of my grandfathers and because I wanted to speak
again to the woman in the village of Klivodyn who had helped my great
uncle when he returned to the village from Transnistria. I was going to
be in Romania on vacation, so it seemed reasonable to include a few days
in Czernowitz.

This time I did find the grave of my grandfather Schaul Leib Steinmetz,
Bruce had provided me with the old section and plot number and one of
the people working at the cemetery administration was able to find the
grave for me. I did not previously have a photograph of the gravestone,
so did not know what to expect. What I found was a very beautiful and
unusual stone, one I think my grandfather would have very much
approved of. The cemetery was even more overgrown with weeds, bushes
and trees. So much so, that even though I had taken very careful notes of
the location of the graves of two of my other grandparents, now I could
not locate them. Actually I gave up looking for them after burning my legs
on the knee high stinging nettles.

This matter of the neglect of the cemetery, is sufficiently important to
me that I'll write another separate letter about it later.

In Klivodyn, the first person we asked, directed us to the house of the
woman I was looking for. I had brought the photograph I had taken of her
last year with me, so this was easy. Getting to her house was very much
more difficult. It had rained that morning and the village streets are not
paved, so I learned first hand about Ukrainian mud, in Yiddish "bloteh".
The car might have got stuck in the mud, so Zoya and I waded some
distance through "mud as soft and silky as butter" (the description of a
young Canadian of Ukrainian origin, whom we met in Chernivtsy).
Maria Dzmenykay was overjoyed to see me and we talked some more
about my grandmother's younger brother and how deeply affected he was
by the loss of his wife and children in Transnistria.

I went again to my family's house and factory, this time intending to see
the inside as well. Last year it was a trade school, now it is part of the
faculty of medicine of the university. According to family lore, my
grandmother had the building built around 1924 and spent more money
on it than the family could afford. She had a saying: "cheap is expensive",
and only wanted the very best. It seems she was right, the building looks
as solid today, as it did when it was new. Because it was already summer
vacation, I could go no further than the staircase, but at least I was able
to verify the correctness of my memory about the window between the
second and third floor. The house in which I lived during the war is on
the same street, so I went to look at it again. There was a man in the
court yard and Zoya told him that I had lived as a child on the third floor
to which he replied that he now lives there and he invited us to come up
and look at the apartment. It has been enlarged and what used to be the
very large kitchen (Wohn Kuche) is now the living room, the large cast
iron stove is gone, but I still recognized the room in which I had spent
all my waking hours for about three years.

Last year I was unable to decide which of the stores on the former
Ringplatz had been my family's store, this time I had no trouble
recognizing it. It is on the left side of the "Schwarze Adler" as one faces
it and the facade has not been changed at all. It now houses a travel
agency and has been renovated and repainted to look very elegant
and luxurious, much more than it ever did before. The sales counter is
still in the same place as it used to be and I was glad to see the very
positive changes.

Probably the best thing about this visit, was that I met with a number of
"old Czernowitzers"; Zoya asked me whether I would like to meet with
Josef Burg and in a "why not" mood I agreed. I found him a sprightly,
witty and very interesting person. We talked about his life and books,
common friends and old Czernowitz acquaintances. Mostly we conversed
in German, his faultless, mine - Czernowitz like, but occasionally we
lapsed into Yiddish and when we spoke about Israel he switched to
excellent Hebrew and when he realized that my husband does not speak
German, he even spoke English. He is frail, but seems healthy and cheerful,
has a wide range of knowledge, a great sense of humor and an exceptional
zest for life.

When visiting the cemetery, I noticed a couple who apparently were
also visiting some graves, when I inquired, I found out that the woman
was an old time Czernowitzer, born in 1935, who never left the city.
Her last name is Katz, I forgot her first name, and to my great surprise
I found that she was born and still lives on the same street as my father,
on the Verlangerte Pullmangasse in Manasteriska.

On our last morning in Chernivtsy, while we were eating breakfast, I
noticed a man who had just come in and who did not speak Ukrainian.
I decided he must be an old Czernowitzer. Milton, my husband,
approached him and after a while he joined us at our table. He is an
"old Czernowitzer", Salo Epstein, who now lives in Brazil. Despite
being 80 years old, he had traveled on his own and was very enthusiastic
and "unternehmunglustig". This was his first time back, he was very
emotional, but also very glad he had come. He intends to come back
next year with his wife.

Later the same morning, we met a couple who had come from Germany,
to see the birthplace of the parents and grandparents of the husband.
They had lived in Rosch, near Manasteriska and were of Schwabian
origin, like most of the people in that suburb.

With all the Jewish Czernowitzers, one of the questions asked was: how
did you survive the war? It is a long time since I thought in those terms,
but I suppose it is still a valid question, especially for those who were not
as lucky as I, who remained in Czernowitz the whole time. What
impressed me most is the resilience, wide ranging interest and general
level of broad knowledge of the Czernowitzers I met. Realizing full well,
that I might be patting myself and all Czernowitzers, actually all
Bukowinians, on the back, I can now say, we are OK, and possibly even
special. Last year I questioned the general assumption that the Bukowina
and the city of Czernowitz had been more cultured and cosmopolitan than
surrounding areas and a place in which the various ethnic groups lived in
relative peaceful coexistence. Now I am ready to accept these general
assumptions. Certainly the fact that people of various ethnic origin want
to visit the place of their grand- and great grandparents origins, indicates
that these ancestors spoke with love and longing of the place of their birth.

In conclusion: I liked Czernowitz and I like Czernivtsy and I may yet go
back a third time.

All the best, have a pleasant summer,
                                                           Mimi
Received on 2004-07-03 17:30:48