Re: [Cz-L] Czernowitz of our dreams.

When I arrived in Czernovitz for the first time this past May, I tried to
imagine the reaction of my father and his three brothers when they arrived
there in 1915 to escape the battles of the First World War that were taking
place around their small rural town of Washckoutz 40 km to the West. My
grandfather (their mother had died the previous year) loaded the boys onto a
cart and brought them to the capital, where I believe they stayed with
relatives. Coming from the small shtetl in the countryside to this
provincial capital with its wide streets and tall Austrian Empire period
buildings and immersed in Yiddish culture must have had a major impact on
the five-year old boy and his two older brothers (the youngest was only
one). As they walked around this beautiful city I am certain it was
eye-opening and exhilarating, because even I was impressed by its beauty on
my own visits almost a century later, long after its heyday. These are
memories that stayed with them I am certain, including in their dreams,
because they spoke almost reverently whenever they mentioned their
Chernovitz. The experience must also have encouraged their future
exploration of other new and exotic cities around the globe -- like NY,
Shanghai, Tokyo, Hong Kong, Milan, Alicante, to name but a few -- after they
left the Bukovina twelve years later headed for the New World. Perhaps you
or your ancestors have passed the wide-eyed boys on the streets of
Czernovitz as you stroll there in your dreams.
Mark
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Received on 2011-01-05 11:34:27