[Cz-L] Soviet liberation of Czernowitz

I would like to join Hedwig and Hardy in saying that the best thing which
happened to us Czernowitzers, who were in Czernowitz or Transnistria
during WW2, was that the Soviets won the war, when they did.
We had experienced Soviet Communist rule before. Private property was
confiscated in 1940, property and business owners, Zionists and nationalists
of all sorts were deported to Siberia. Yet the Romanian rule under Antonescu
was far worse. I do not know the exact number of people killed,
incarcerated, or deported to Siberia by the Communists in 1940 or in
1944-45, but am sure it was far lower than the number of people killed by
the fascists in Czernowitz and vicinity and those who were murdered, or died
of starvation, exposure and disease in Transnistria.

Romanian rule had been oppressive, even before the war.
That is why in 1940, my parents, property owners , Zionists and
intellectuals, were happy when the Russians took over Czernowitz in 1940.
They soon became disillusioned, but when choosing between two evils,
people choose the lesser one.

And for me, almost seven years old at the time, it meant that I could
finally go to school and a Yiddish school at that!
No longer did I have to wear the hated yellow star.

Our parents' generation endured incredible hardships, most of them never
completely recovered from their suffering. Like both Hedwig and Hardy wrote;
had it not been for the Soviets, they would not have had the joy to see
their children grow up and their grandchildren be born.

"Baruch she-higyanu",

Mimi
 

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Received on 2011-10-14 11:35:14