Who could have foreseen the horrors this day brought with it. At 14 this
was the end of my youth, the horror of being Capitalists and having nowhere
to find refuge, escaping deportation to Siberia through the eye of a
needle, and then the Germans / Ghetto end of a life we enjoyed, our home
everything!! Who of us can forget that fateful day?? Each one of us carries
that scar and as long as we "are" we remember!!
Thanks, anny
On Mon, Jun 29, 2015 at 4:36 PM, Maurice Linker <linkerm_at_gmail.com> wrote:
> Hi Fred and others
> This was as it happened.
> But the looting was extensive - I remember a stream of people in the
> street with looted goods.
> My father who owned a menswear shop told me "the constitution sounds that
> life should be good".
> In actual fact the shop was nationalised he was given a special passport
> and declared an enemy of the state etc etc.
>
>
>
>
> Sent from my iPad
> Preferred email address linkerm_at_ieee.org
> Maurice Linker
>
> > On 29 Jun 2015, at 7:01 am, Alfred Schneider <asfred_at_comcast.net> wrote:
> >
> > Three scores and fifteen years ago, on this date, the lives of the
> inhabitants of Czernowitz, my hometown, changed forever. The thirteen years
> old Jewish boy may not have fully grasped what was happening on that day,
> but the venerable senior of today, whose memory is still functioning, would
> like to reminisce with the few survivors of his generation now dispersed in
> many parts of the world.
> >
> > It came suddenly. Though only a short distance from the former border
> with Poland, a country that no longer existed, we lived with the unreal
> belief that Romania will maintain its neutrality and will not be drawn into
> the war. The radio news on the evening before informed us that the USSR
> had given Romania an ultimatum to immediately return Bessarabia, once part
> of Czarist Russia. As reparation for the Romanian exploitation of
> Bessarabia, Romania was requested to also turn over the Northern Bukovina,
> including the provincial capital of Czernowitz.
> >
> > Throughout the night, there was an endless movement of military and
> civilians on the streets, mostly in the direction of the railroad station.
> The Romanian presence disappeared almost instantaneously, and red flags
> appeared on many buildings. There was sporadic looting in the city, but the
> interregnum generally proceeded without violence. (I remember a humorous
> incident on the Waaggasse, where an inebriated individual, presumed to have
> been a member of the "Hausmeister" cast, was trying to push uphill a barrel
> with red wine. Since he made frequent stops to reduce the contents of the
> barrel, its integrity was compromised and the gutters were suddenly filled
> with red wine).
> >
> > As the day moved on, Red Army troops started to move into the city. A
> lonely Central Asian looking soldier was placed at the corner of Ringplatz
> and Herrengasse with a WWI version of a submachine gun on wheels. Trucks
> with Red Army soldiers with banners greeting the Liberated Bukovina were
> followed by infantry soldiers singing Moskva Moya and Try Tankisty. As
> the end of the day approached, communist propaganda units appeared,
> distributing printed material in several languages, including Yiddish, and
> movie projectors were set up on the Ringplatz. There was a euphoric
> atmosphere in the city and the concern about our future had not yet become
> our primary preoccupation. Today, seventy-five years later, "vom Winde
> verweht" in Atlanta, I cannot help but wonder at the innocence and
> confusion we experienced on that balmy June day in Czernowitz.
> >
> > Alfred (Fred) Schneider
> >
> > Professor Emeritus
> >
> > Georgia Tech and MIT
>
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Received on 2015-06-30 10:28:40