At the 47th Annual Conference of the Association for Jewish Studies
which ended yesterday in Boston, Natalya Lazar, a graduate student at
Clark University presented a paper "Between Life and Death: Czernowitz
Jews and Rescue during the Holocaust".
Here is the abstract of her presentation:
"This paper examines rescue in a borderland city of Czernowitz (aka
Cernăuţi/Chernivtsi) during the Holocaust. Drawing upon a range o=
f
primary sources and survivors testimonies, I focus on urban
multiethnic community under the Romanian rule. I pay close attention
to the particular local circumstances and analyze antisemitic policies
implemented by the Romanian government. How did non-Jews react to the
persecution and murder of their neighbors? What was the role of
Romanian institutions, such as local authorities, the police, the
gendarmerie, and church? Most important in light of the thousands of
Jews who survived in the city, what made rescue possible? What was the
role of the non-Jews, mostly Romanians and Ukrainians who lived in the
area? Who were the people who saved Jews? And, what were the rescue
motives? I scrutinize various rescue efforts ranged from the isolated
actions of individuals to organized actions.
Ghettoization was merely the beginning of the hardships Czernowitz
Jews endured. Deportation to Transnistria started with dragnet
operations in the overpopulated ghetto in October 1941. Local mayor
Traian Popovici stepped in, issuing so-called authorizations that
afforded the bearer the right to remain in the city. Rescued from
forced departure, approximately 17,000 Jews were saved. In 1967,
Popovici had been recognized as Righteous among the Nations by Yad
Vashem. I analyze deportation practices and the measures Jews and the
municipal authorities undertook to slip through the genocidal net.
>From Popovici’s memoirs we know he had some support from Romanian
military and public administration officials in the province. What was
his role, very specifically, in saving Czernowitz Jews? What was the
role, if any, of other officials? And what was the popular sentiment?
This paper seeks to provide an analytic frame for examining
interethnic relations in a multiethnic society during the Holocaust. I
argue that attitudes and behavior of non-Jews ranged from rescue and
assistance, to looting of Jewish property and active participation in
the violent anti-Jewish actions."
Natalya currently is also a fellow at the Harvard Ukrainian Research
Institute (
http://goo.gl/njlkhw). The topic of her dissertation is
"Czernowitz Jews and the Holocaust: Identity, Interethnic Relations,
Violence, and Survival in a Borderland city, 1941-44"
Iosif
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Received on 2015-12-16 12:56:55