[Cz-L] Jewish Museum in Chernivtsi

Dear Dr. Zissels,

Several years ago, a Chernivtsi gymnasium student won an international
prize on the holocaust with an essay about our cousin, Selma
Meerbaum-Eisinberg. In that essay, Oksana wrote about her shock at
realizing that Selma Meerbaum-Eisinger, whose poetry moved her to tears,
was abused and ultimately murdered because she was a Jew. Oksana had no
idea that people living in her beloved city could have been accomplices in
these horrors.

Jews from Czernowitz and their relatives have petitioned you to include the
holocaust in the museum about Jewish life to be created as part of the
celebration of Chernivtsi's 600th year anniversary. We recognize the
constraints you are working under; but we hope you will consider adding
information about the fate of Jews after 1940 because of its importance to
ALL citizens. We ask you to think about the effect of hiding this truth
 from youth like Oksana. How can Oksana hope to achieve her dreams of a just
world without taking measure of the terrors that some human beings,
including men and women from Czernowitz, were capable of perpetrating or
that others, including men and women from Czernowitz -- Chernivtsi's heroes
-- risked their lives to fight. How can we allow Selma Meerbaum-Eisinger,
whose haunting poems about Czernowitz so deeply affect today's Chernivtsi
youth, to die twice. Oksana, in her essay, refused to do so.

We thank you deeply for your efforts and vision.

Irene Silverblatt and Helene Silverblatt

Irene Silverblatt
Professor,
Cultural Anthropology and History
Duke University

Helene Silverblatt, MD
UNM Health Sciences Center
Department of Psychiatry
University of New Mexico
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Received on 2008-04-03 15:03:32