RE: [Cz-L] Re: czernowitz-l digest: October 04, 2014

Dear Helene,

Thank you so much for sharing your thoughts with all of us. Your mail is touching and encouraging at the same time. It provides a deep insight into the suspicious approach of our parents to their/our Jewishness, still in enemy surroundings after WW2.

I was about four years old at that time, I do remember exactly the street corner in Bucharest until today, when I was referred to - for the very first time - as "jidan" [kike] by a Romanian playmate; none of us knew the meaning of this term, however I realized that it was used in a derogatory sense. Well, my father, whether he wanted to or not, had to build up my immune system against anti-Semitism as early as that in the early 1960ies in Romania; I do know about similar epsiodes from our relatives in France still in the 1980ies!?

Be confident, dear Helene, apart from such personal short stories, there are at least ten major genealogical and historical projects, staying patiently in line for publication, if I had the time to do it, but who knows, sooner or later...? On the other hand I comprehend and generally share Hardy's impatience.

Warmest wishes from the Netherlands!

Edgar Hauster
Lent - The Netherlands

----------------------------------------
> From: hryding_at_yahoo.co.uk
> Subject: [Cz-L] Re: czernowitz-l digest: October 04, 2014
> Date: Sun, 5 Oct 2014 14:52:46 +0300
> To: czernowitz-l_at_list.cornell.edu
>
> Dear Hardy
>
> Some of us are still here, and reading like before, everyday, appreciating the supply of memories, photographs, stories and history. But we do not have as many personal experiences of Czernowitz to relate, as those who lived there, or whose parents had stories to tell. So it is harder to take part in the debates or contribute to the memories. I think that is inevitable as time goes by.
>
> I have no grandchildren yet, so as yet there are few questions about the Grandad born in Czernowitz in 1905. That might promote more internet searches to supplement our meagre understanding of my father's life before he met my mother immediately after the war in Brussels and came to the UK.
>
> In my small family, we had no Jewish upbringing and that ancestry was hidden, while my father was alive. So I feel a bit outside some of the discussions and memories, whilst others bring back fond memories of my father's values, quirks and customs, and make sense of his stories. They tended to be terribly inconsistent, as well as incomprehensible to someone growing up in an insular northern English village, with little understanding of life across the Channel, let alone Eastern Europe. Only after 1989, and working in Eastern Europe did I begin to understand what sort of an upbringing my sisters and I had had, and why two out three of us now live in Eastern Europe. Later reading the stories in the Czernowitz List, we began to recognise more of his customs and values, and why if he was Jewish, his native tongue could be German, and why he was interested in Paul Celan.
>
> So please keep reviving the past while it still lives in people's memories. We certainly recognise that life in Czernowitz is part of our personal inheritance.
>
> I have been to Czernowitz only once, but regularly work in Ukraine. Speaking for myself only, I am concerned these days about the general situation in Ukraine.
>
> Sent from my iPad
>
> Helene Ryding

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Received on 2014-10-05 10:10:06