Re: [Cz-L] After we go

We know better:
  Here comes a man who lived his adult life in Soviet Czernowitz
and gives us his opinion.
  But we , the occasional visitors, know better.
    I do not know and do not care.
     This is a strange town to me , an Ukrainian town.
      Once I lived there.
    Without its Jews it doesnt mean a thing to me.
      No matter how many new restaurants they may have.
      An empty shell.
Hardy
----- Original Message -----
From: "Miriam Taylor" <mirtaylo_at_indiana.edu>
To: "Jacob Greenberg" <grs_software_at_bigpond.com>; "HARDY BREIER"
<HARDY3_at_bezeqint.net>
Cc: "CZERNOWITZ-L" <Czernowitz-L_at_cornell.edu>
Sent: Tuesday, October 16, 2012 5:55 PM
Subject: Re: [Cz-L] After we go

> Dear Ms. Kraft and members of the list.
>
> Czernowitz /Chernivtsi is NOW, NOT a paler image of what it was
> during the Soviet period, neither in looks nor in culture.
> Even though I did not visit the city during the Soviet period,
> I did visit it in 2002 and 2003 and there is no comparison between
> how it looked then and how it looks now. In 2008 extensive repairs,
> renovation and restoration work was carried out on many streets
> and buildings. This work did not always attempt to restore buildings
> and streets to their 1939 look, but often actually improved on this look.
> Cases in point are the former Herrengasse/Kobilianskoy, which is now
> a pedestrian mall, the Austria Platz, /Soborna Ploshcha, formerly
> the market, now a park, the Turkenbrunnen/Turetska, now well paved
> and beautiful with a splashing fountain and Elisabethplatz/Teatralna
> Ploshcha, no longer full of "Budkes" and horse manure.
>
> The city IS DEVELOPING and attracts many tourists, both foreigners
> and Ukrainians from other parts of the country.
> The autumn Poetry Festival attracts people from the whole world.
> There are new hotels, new and very good restaurants and coffee shops,
> Certainly much better than in Bloomington IN in the USA.
> The former Volksgarten is very well maintained, some of the synagogues
> have been beautifully restored.
> Certainly there is much more which could be restored or renovated.
> Ukraine is a poor country and it will take time to restore the whole city.
> Still, the desire to do so is there and
> WHERE THERE IS A WILL THERE IS A WAY
>
> I would not say that "the city is in the cul-de-sac of a 3rd world
> country",
> I would say instead, that: It is in the western Ukraine, with a tradition
> and reputation of culture and education, closer both geographically and
> in spirit to "Zentral Europa".
>
> Mimi
>
>
>
>
>
> On 10/16/12 6:16 AM, "Jacob Greenberg" <grs_software_at_bigpond.com> wrote:
>
>> Good question.
>>
>> I was brought up by my grandmother who was, at that time, speaking German
>> to
>> my father and to my aunt. She was speaking German to me as well but, when
>> I
>> was 3.5 my father has forbidden her to speak to me in German (the times
>> were tough) .
>> My grandmother's Russian was very poor so, when I started school, I was
>> very
>> embarrassed to discover that my Russian pronunciation was absolutely
>> wrong.
>> In the 70s I already spoke very good Russian.
>> My mother, Dr Ada Kraft, is Dr Emmanuel Flor's niece. She lived in
>> Chernovits for a short time before the WWII and was taken to Transnistria
>> from there but she was born in Bessarabia.
>> I can still understand German and Romanian but I don't speak these
>> languages any more. My mother tongue is Russian and I also speak Hebrew.
>> My generation grew up with the stories of the older generation telling
>> us
>> that Chernovits under the Soviet regime was a pale shadow of itself
>> comparing to the pre-war times.
>> Now it's even paler than before. The city stopped developing, the locals
>> moved away, and it is now in the cul-de-sac of a 3rd world country.
>> Yet, as I've already mentioned in my previous post, the old magic is
>> still
>> there, and they are trying very hard to revive it. G-d help them.....
>>
>> Serah Kraft
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Received on 2012-10-16 13:24:28