[Cz-L] wonderful!

Hello everyone,

As a list member whose great grandparents are buried in the cemetery, and
also a member of last year's volunteer group, I am also gratified, as many
of you have expressed, by all the hard work that Mimi, Christian, Julia, and
so many others have contributed to making this happen and continue.

I have participated in six different volunteer projects around the world,
all of which have been amazing experiences. But I have never seen the
continued degree of commitment and work that I have seen in this one. You
may already know that two of the volunteers from last year, Shannon from the
U.S. and Katia from Germany, have participated again. Katia has decided to
do her thesis on the cemetery. Also, Marina, a student from Cz. who joined
us last year after hearing about the project on local TV, participated this
year, along with another local student. Aside from maintaining the cemetery
itself, I feel it is an important goal to have participation from
Ukrainians. The fact that there were two this year is wonderful.

I also wanted to emphasize, for whatever it is worth, that at least year,
none of the volunteers beside myself was Jewish. I don't know if this was
also true this year. They felt interested and committed not because
maintaining the cemetery was a Jewish issue, but because it was a human
issue.

One question - last year we were shown a mass grave in the cemetery, and
told that 900 Jews were murdered and buried there. The wife of the man who
chain sawed trees last year told one of the volunteers in our group, about
it. This woman also conveyed the terrible story relayed to her by another
woman, of seeing the earth above the grave move for several days, because
people had been buried alive.

When I mentioned this story in this forum months ago, I was told that this
story was not true. I realize that stories can change, and be embroidered,
and that something that occurred somewhere can be attributed to a different
place. But now that I am seeing mentions of a Holocaust mass grave again on
this list, I am wondering if there is additional information on this mass
grave that has been discussed in the last couple of months. I have been
away, on another volunteer project, have not had easy access to computers,
and have not been following this list's communications as much as usual.

One last thing, just a comment on all the bonds that participating in a
project like this can foster: This summer, upon my arrival in Europe, I was
met in Paris by a list member, Anny Chemla. She later invited me to her
home, along with another member of the list, Sylvie G'Sell. I felt like I
had already known them although our only contact had been through this list.
Later, I met up with a member of the cemetery group from last year, Sophie
Aloe. And later still, I went to Germany and stayed at the home of
Christian Hermann, who had come to Cz. when our group was there last year,
cooked us wonderful meals, took us to Sadagura, and read us poetry by Paul
Celan. It was great to see him again and get to know him better, and I felt
an additional link because just after my visit he went back to Czernowitz.
Thanks for all the hospitality and friendship, Christian Anny, Sylvie,
Sophie!

Regards, Joanna Liss
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
This moderated discussion group is for information exchange on the subject of
 Czernowitz and Sadagora Jewish History and Genealogy. The opinions expressed
 in these posts are the opinions of the original poster only and not necessarily
 the opinions of the List Owner, the Webmaster or any other members
 or entities connected with this mailing list. The Czernowitz-L list has
 an associated web site at http://czernowitz.ehpes.com that includes a
 searchable archive of all messages posted to this list. Please post in "Plain
 Text" if possible (help available at:
<http://www.jewishgen.org/InfoFiles/PlainText.html>).

To remove your address from this e-list follow the directions at
http://www.cit.cornell.edu/computer/elist/lyris/leave.html

To receive assistance for this e-list send an e-mail message to:
owner-Czernowitz-L_at_list.cornell.edu
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Received on 2009-08-28 16:56:32