Re: [Cz-L] June 22, 1941

Dear Fred,

Can you remember whether people in Czernowitz had expected Germany to attack
the Soviet Union and to bomb the Czernowitz airport? I was too young at the
time to understand what was going on. In my mind I had connected the bombing
of the airport with the earthquake which had occurred just shortly before.
We were living on the Blumengasse at the time, relatively close to the
airport. My father and my uncle who lived with us, climbed on the roof to
better see what was happening at the airport and my mother was angry because
she thought that they took unnecessary risks in doing this.
That day was the beginning of the end.
Not only " A fost odata ca niciodata", but also "si daca nu s'a fi fost, nu
s'a povesti"
Please povestiti mai mult,

Mimi

On 6/22/10 5:04 PM, "ALFRED SCHNEIDER" <asfred_at_comcast.net> wrote:

> Dear Landsleute (senior grade),
> Today is June 22, 2010 and I felt an urge to share these reminiscences
> especially with those of you who sixty-nine years ago were in Czernowitz, as
> I was.
> Only one week had gone by from the night when thousands of Czernowitzers
> were awakened by the knock on the door, loaded onto NKVD trucks and taken
> to the Volksgarten railroad station to begin their exile to the frozen
> Siberian tundra.
> I had stayed the night of June 21st with an aunt in her house on the upper
> Bahnhofstrasse (the site of my uncles' former wholesale flour
> company-Fratii Schneider & Melzer) when in the early morning hours we were
> awakened by the explosions of bombs. From the balcony we could see fires at
> the airport, but a Russian neighbor assured us that these were only
> maneuvers. The announcements over the radio confirmed that Germany and
> Romania had attacked the Soviet Union and the war had now overtaken us.
> Within hours the mobilization became a reality, there were several bombing
> raids, I joined men and women in digging trenches, several of my cousins
> were conscripted to vanish forever, and the end of old Czernowitz,
> especially Jewish Czernowitz, had now started.
> Sixty-nine years later, those of us who are still around, in various parts
> of the world, may ponder the historic significance of that day in June in
> our home town. A fost odata ca niciodata.
>
> Fred Schneider

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Received on 2010-06-22 22:58:02