Re: [Cz-L] Re: dates in czernowitz history.

[Plain Text next time please --thanks]

Dear Hardy,

You asked for it - so don't complain. Here are two additional tales.

The sequel on the next morning. We just awoke and dressed - loud banging on the doors. Romanian soldiers with pointed rifles order us to leave at once our flat, and gather outside the entrance gate. After some 10-15 minutes all 7 families of our 3 story building, including the Hausmeister and wife living in the cellar flat, just below ours, on Hochparterre. A group of some twenty odd persons - our parents, us children, and a few elderlies - stand huddled together with a group of soldiers with drawn rifles and machine-guns on tripods pointing at us. On the opposite pavement - lots of our Christian neighbours amass to watch the new pastime.

A lieutenant announces (remember my tale of yesterday?) that yesterday shots were fired from our house on the in-marching troups on Rotkirchgasse' and we will be executed in retaliation. My parents are arguing and I am hearing them - father wants me to sneak away and escape to my aunt on Russischegasse and mother refuses - what will happen to us will happen to us all. More practical than my dad, she realised that if I dared to make a run for it I would be shot instantly.

Tension heightens when the lieutenant announces that he is going to search the house for weapons and is taking the elderly Hausmeister with him. Since he speaks only German, he pulls out the 8 year old, and asks if I can interpret. My parents dare not oppose, and I join them and a few soldiers.

First the tiny backyard is searched, and then we reenter the staircase. The lieutenant sees the cellar flat door, points at it, and asks who shot from there. Before I have a chance to translate, the eager-beaver frightened Hausmeister shouts joyfully - Ich, Ich, pointing at himself. He was sure that he was asked who lives in that flat.

I was sure that this was the end. But, to my utter amazement, the lieutenant burst into an uncontrollable fit of laughter, joined in a few seconds by his subordinates. It turned out that he was at heart a decent guy; with a healthy sense of humour, and knowing that the situation he was ordered to create was a sham charade, he could not contain himself anymore. This was our luck. He stopped the search at this point, took us outside, ordered his group to shoulder their weapons and let us reenter our flats.

Others were not so fortunate on that day. Many hundreds of the leaders of the Jewish community were taken from their flats, gathered at the Jewish community center opposite the National theater, and from there were taken to the Pruth and shot there. I believe I heard at the time that some were shot already at the center, in oder to get the remainder into the proper obedience mood.

Our incident ended positively. But we were not so lucky several days later. Again, in a morning, we hear outside some noises and treading of many people. We approached our windows behind drawn curtains, To our consternation we see hundreds and hundreds of our neighbours from Schillergasse and upper Althgasse and nearby streets being marched silently, surrounded by troups, down towards the Northern part of the Althgasse (on the way to the railway station). Everybody had some little rucksack. It was a frightening sight that I did not understand at the time, but my parents probably did - this was one of the first shipments to Transnistria.

Just a relevant personal tragic anecdote. I saw in that procession a very dear gril friend from Schillergasse. An 8 year old like myself. Many years later I learned that she survived the first period in Transnistria, was amongst the fortunate children who were extracted from the camps by the Romanian Jewish Community, to mount the "Struma", on her way to Palestine. The unfortunate end you all know. There was only one survivor.

More tales will follow in coming weeks.

Oh, memory, memory... Why do I recall all these and not what I had for breakfast yesterday?

Mordecai

----- Original Message -----
From: HARDY BREIER <HARDY3_at_BEZEQINT.NET>
Date: Monday, June 10, 2013 15:33
Subject: Re: RE: [Cz-L] Re: dates in czernowitz history.
To: lapidotm_at_inter.net.il, Irene Fishler <irenef_at_netvision.net.il>
Cc: 'iosif vaisman' <iosif.vaisman_at_gmail.com>, 'Miriam Taylor' <mirtaylo_at_indiana.edu>, 'CZERNOWITZ-L' <Czernowitz-L_at_cornell.edu>

> The precise dates are not very important.
> What happened is very much so.
> Remembering details - even more.
> As long as memory lasts...
> Do you remember ? Tell us , tell us...
> Hardy

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Received on 2013-06-10 11:25:15