[Cz-L] Old and new cemeteries in Wiznitz

This letter is prompted by several recent letters to Cz-L about the old
cemetery in Czernowitz and also by the movie about the pilgrimage of the
Sadagura Chassidim to the Jewish cemetery in Wiznitz (Vijnita, Vizhnetzia).
The cemetery shown was the "new" cemetery, about one mile from the town
center. It is the burial place for the founder and early Rebbes of the
Wizhnitzer Chassidic dynasty and their families (not the Sadagurer one, as
the subsequently offered translation in Cz-L erroneously stated). In 1997, I
visited this cemetery where my parents, Dr. Artur and Hedwig Schneider were
buried before the war. Their graves are close to those of the Rebbes. The
gravestones on my parents' graves, made by Bernard Reder (a sculptor who
gained world fame after WWII) had been damaged during the war, but we were
able to locate and restore part of them to their original locations.
Adjacent to the public elementary school that I attended in the
mid-thirties, was the "old" Jewish cemetery, going back at least to the
early nineteenth century. In my recollections this place looked very much
like the old cemetery in the Ghetto of Prague. It was used only rarely for
special occasions (veterans' memorials) but I remember one instance when a
Torah scrolls that had been destroyed by vandals was buried there in a
ceremony attended by most of the Jewish population. During my visit in 1997,
I learned that the cemetery had been leveled by the Soviets after the war
and no plaque or other sign revealed the past existence of the cemetery.

Alfred (Fred) Schneider

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Received on 2010-10-31 19:23:00