Re: [Cz-L] German language

My late mother, Pearl Spiegel Fichman, born in 1920 in Czernowitz,
wrote in the first chapter of her memoirs, Before Memories Fade:
--------------------------------------------------------------
In our house and all around me people spoke German, read German books
and the daily local German newspapers. Once a month we would get
Scherl’s magazine, published in Berlin, the equivalent of Life
magazine, combined with articles similar to the New Yorker. The
pictures of glamorous movie stars like Marlene Dietrich; luminaries of
opera and stage like Max Reinhardt, Emil Jannings, Helene Weigel, Paula
Wessely and Gustav Frolich and many, many more filled its pages; also
the cartoons of Georg Grosz, an artist, who later fled to the USA.

In my Father’s store, a wholesale haberdashery, many customers would
come to shop from the outlying villages surrounding town. Many of them
were Ukrainians. Ukrainian village girls came to do housework in town.
The peasant women, who sold chickens, fruits and vegetables on the
market - they too were mostly Ukrainian. A small number of villages had
a German population, originally from Swabia, a province of South-East
Germany. They spoke a dialect called Schwabish.

The most colorful group of people lived in the mountains, which
separated the Carpatho-Ukraine from Bukovina. They were called Huctul
(Hootsool) and were a tribe, apart from the Ukrainians. They were
mountain people, a colorful lot, who were raising horses. Accomplished
riders, they kept very much to themselves. The men had long,
fierce-looking mustaches; they came to town on horseback, in order to
sell horses and to purchase some goods in the stores. They spoke a Slav
dialect, not real Ukrainian.

Yet, in my small universe, I knew my family, distant cousins --- since
my mother’s family lived in the USA and my father’s in Poland --- and
our neighbors --- all Jews who spoke German or Yiddish or both.

And yet I lived in Romania. Since kindergarten was not compulsory, I
did not go. Mother would have had to walk me back and forth as school
was far. Until first grade, at the age of six and a half, I had no
concept of anything Romanian, although I was born in Romania.
--------------------------------------------------------------

Eytan

Eytan Fichman, AIA
B.Arch., M.Arch., Ed.M.
 
42 / 11 Tran Binh Trong,
Hai Phong, Viet Nam

-----Original Message-----
From: Hedwig Brenner <hedbren_at_zahav.net.il>
To: Miriam Taylor <mirtaylo_at_indiana.edu>; Czernowitz-L
<Czernowitz-L_at_cornell.edu>
Sent: Sat, May 28, 2011 2:02 pm
Subject: Re: [Cz-L] German language

Hi Mimi, Yes I started school in 1924, but the Comenius-Schule was a
private
school, whatever we learned,arithmethic, history, geography, were in
german,
only twice a week roumanian language...
We had a teacher, named Ms.Brunau and for math Ms.Fedorowitch,The
direktor
was Ms.Schulz, his picture is also in"Die Geschichte der Bukowiner
Juden/
Gold..When I entered the LF2, my father, who knew roumanian(born in
Vatra-Dornei)teached me roumanian, my mother never learned the
roum.language, so she could not teach, she had a diploma from the
"Lehrerbildungsanstal", after 1920 the "Seminarul pedagogic". All
professors
had to relearn and many of them were moved to other tows in Roumania or
went
to retirement.
Regards
Hedwig

-snip-
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
This moderated discussion group is for information exchange on the subject of
 Czernowitz and Sadagora Jewish History and Genealogy. The opinions expressed
 in these posts are the opinions of the original poster only and not necessarily
 the opinions of the List Owner, the Webmaster or any other members
 or entities connected with this mailing list. The Czernowitz-L list has
 an associated web site at http://czernowitz.ehpes.com that includes a
 searchable archive of all messages posted to this list. Please post in "Plain
 Text" if possible (help available at:
<http://www.jewishgen.org/InfoFiles/PlainText.html>).

To remove your address from this e-list follow the directions at
http://www.cit.cornell.edu/computer/elist/lyris/leave.html

To receive assistance for this e-list send an e-mail message to:
owner-Czernowitz-L_at_list.cornell.edu
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Received on 2011-05-29 06:20:18