[Cz-L] Fw: 1st November 2010

This is copy of my weeky blog to the Jerusalem Post.
On the way to you, upon Hardy's recommendation.
Lucca

----- Original Message -----
From: <mailto:HARDY3_at_BEZEQINT.NET>HARDY BREIER
To: <mailto:lucca99_at_netvision.net.il>Lucca
Sent: Monday, November 01, 2010 8:08 AM
Subject: Re: 1st November 2010

Lucca,
   Why dont you send this to the list ?
     Best promoting material ever !
Hardy

----- Original Message -----

The other day I heard on the radio the long-forgotten hymn of
communist Russia and I suddenly remembered the time when, as a
ten-year old, I sang this hymn along with the other pupils in my
class, standing at attention and knowing all the words. There were
other hymns before that, my parents, incidentally, knew only the
Austrian "May God save the emperor".

I, starting first grade, sang the Rumanian hymn "Long live the King"
under the Rumanian flag. Then the Russian communists invaded our city
and ruled for about a full year after which the Rumanians returned
with full Nazi support.. Unfortunate jews were sent to the camps,
the luckier ones stayedg behind in our graceful, beautiful city,
under the worst possible circumstances; we lived and walked on egg
shells, frightened of what the next day, or night, may bring. Until
the day when our town went up in flames and the Russians came back.
This time, who ever could, left Czernowitz, first to the South of
the Bucovina and then to places all over the world, somewhere else in
Europe, the U.S., Australia and finally to Israel..

At the present time I am a member of the so-called Czernowitz List.
We are a group of people connected by e-mail, exchanging childhood
memories, opinions, ideas and arguments..

The site started out as a genealogy research project. Former
Czernowitzers, their children and even grandchildren, people with
only the faintest connection to the city and making their home
thousands of miles away were and still are looking for relatives,
friends, neighbors former school mates. Once I wrote something, I
don't remember exactly what, which had nothing to do with genealogy
.upon which one man protested and wrote::

"She shouldn't write about anything else! We have a project which is
the search for family and friends. Why should she want to discuss
other topics?"

I was deeply offended and decided to resign from the group. But one
of the founders wrote back and said "it was not meant that way,
please disregard this, stay with us, just write about whatever you
wish!"

In the meantime the group branched out and everything is being
discussed from childhood memories, events from long ago, the songs we
sang and listened to at that time, politics so voluble during our
troubled childhood and youth. Also the oddities of the Czernowitzer
German language., There is also great concern about the decay of the
jewish cemetery in Czernowitz and what is done about it. We receive
reports on how the city has changed submitted by people who returned
to our hometown after many decades in order to close a still open
circle, or to give in to nostalgia, and see if the house of their
birth is still standing. Mails go back and forth describing facts,
feelings and everything that comes to mind. All subjects are being
discussed meticulously and an argument or two is always welcome.

It seems that, while I was away on vacation, I have missed a gripping
discussion on,, strawberries, big and small, healthy or not, and what
one can do with them in case one is not allergic. I hoped that
someone would put me up to date, but in the meantime other topics
became just as interesting. Genealogy has evolved into diverse other
directions. Last subject discussed was , strangely enough - stuffed
cabbage. Members came up with various recipes received from mothers
and grandmothers and the correspondence went back and forth for
quite a while until one member put his foot down and wrote:

"We are out of stuffed cabbage! So what is next?"

It really doesn't matter what's next, because as soon as I enter this
site, and I suppose others feel the same way, I feel that I am back
home in Czernowitz, the very first home I knew;. there were many
other places which I called home later, but none of them shaped me
into the person I became as the city of my birth did.. On this site I
am part of the people who understand me, understand my language, my
feelings and my very zany sense of humor..

It's so good to belong.

Lucca

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Received on 2010-11-01 05:16:51