RE: [Cz-L] Czernowitz watches

Mimi...the Russian fixation on watches resulted in lots of pe0ple hearing
the dreaded " Davai Chasy""!! cornel

-----Original Message-----
From: bounce-10208427-8441035_at_list.cornell.edu
[mailto:bounce-10208427-8441035_at_list.cornell.edu] On Behalf Of Miriam Taylor
Sent: 23 March 2011 14:20
To: Czernowitz-L_at_cornell.edu
Subject: Czernowitz watches

I did not know the watchmaker street in Czernowitz, but am fully aware of
the importance and value, Czernowitzers placed on watches. My maternal
grandfather's gold pocket watch survives in my family today. It is about
6cm. in diameter and has a double lid. I do not know how my parents smuggled
it into the ghetto and then out, but I clearly remember how this watch was
taken out of the USSR, when we left Czernowitz in 1944.

The art of hiding and smuggling was being perfected then.
Women baked gold coins or small jewels into cakes. Shoulder pads in coats
and jackets were taken apart, money or jewels sewn in to them and sewn back
into the garments. The heels of men's shoes were taken apart and small gold
bars hidden in them. I mean really small bars, about 10 gram in weight.

But the Russian soldiers were most keen to find gold watches. For some
reason the term "Tovanis-watch sticks in my mind, but we called them
"Tziballes" (onions) and because they were so big, they were hard to hide.

My parents blackened the cover of my grandfather's watch with coal and
shoe paste, but also arranged with a friend, that after this friend had gone
through the border search, my father would somehow sidle up to him and drop
the watch into his pocket. But the border control had one of their "Spitzel"
(spies), pretending to be a carter, stand on top of a cart, watching
everyone. I can picture him now. A very tall, dark and burly man, with a big
mustache and a loud voice. When my father tried to slip the watch into his
friend's pocket, it fell to the ground and of course the "Spitzel" noticed.
He came over, my father had to hand over the watch and I thought, that it
would be confiscated. But the border guard just looked at it with disgust
and handed it back to my father.

A more astonishing feat of smuggling was performed by another Czernowitzer;
I do not know whether he was an old or a young man, but he seemed to have
trouble walking, wore a long and very greasy looking coat, had long hair
stuck together in filthy locks and carried a tall pot, like the one's which
were used for boiling milk, filled with boiled prunes. From time to time,
with his dirty fingers, he would fish out a prune and convey it to his
mouth.
He looked disgusting. Everyone shied away from him, but the story was, that
under the layer of "Floimen-Yoich" ( boiled prunes), there was a layer of
gold coins.

Mimi

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