Dear All - I also think it would be a great idea to have a
Jewish/Holocaust museum in Cz but will vote with those who say, “no=
t
in that location.” I can picture the setting so well - have walked =
it
many times from the center of town, as one turns onto Zelena it’s a
very working class neighborhood, the market on the right, the big
trucks with produce, the people not unfriendly, bustling about their
business - I have stopped sometimes to chat in my sign language
Ukrainian or take pictures of them...one walks further and there is
that desolate bit and then one comes to the cemetery and the “buria=
l
chapel,” opposite the Ukrainian Cemetery.
As a former Executive Director of an international arts organization
and member of various arts alliances, I have often been party to
discussions about the need for compatibility between the function of a
site and the community that surrounds it. What kind of audience is
this museum going to seek to attract. And while it’s true that none=
of
the memorials in the center have been vandalized –they are located =
in
lit up streets, visible to passersby – however I think we’v=
e heard
from time to time of vandalism in the cemetery itself.
I too was born in Czernowitz and share in the history of those
deported to Transnistria – I’m also a photographer who has =
been going
back since 1996 to recapture something of my lost personal history. I
find the Leichenhalle very beautiful. Two years ago I used it as
backdrop for portraits I took of the multinational volunteers who came
to clear the cemetery that summer. I found that most brilliant
educational tool – a group of fourteen young people, who came from
Ukraine, Germany, Italy, France, Belgium, Bulgaria, Slovenia, Hungary,
Holland and Japan - to learn about Jewish History while helping to
clear segments of this overgrown cemetery in the summer heat. Many of
them have continued to stay in touch and attest that they’ve grown
immensely from the experience.
My humble recommendation would to restore the chapel structurally and
only minimally overlay a contemporary aesthetic to keep it from
crumbling – and dedicate it as a chapel, for meditation, for prayer=
s,
for peace.
Good wishes to all for 2016
Sylvia de Swaan
http://www.artphotoindex.com/SylviadeSwaan
www.sylviadeswaan.com
On Thu, Dec 31, 2015 at 12:47 PM, Marianne Hirsch <mh2349_at_columbia.edu> wro=
te:
> Dear Josef,
>
> Thank you for letting us know of the project to restore the ceremonial ha=
ll
> in the Chernivtsi Jewish cemetery. It's great to hear that there are
> already substantial financial commitments for this purpose. We would be
> happy to help with fundraising efforts and to contribute some money
> ourselves. But we would urge you to think carefully about future uses of =
the
> building.
>
> As persons with both a personal and professional commitment to the
> preservation of Jewish memory in Chernivtsi and to the importance of muse=
ums
> and memorials as public institutions of memory, we are deeply troubled b=
y
> the proposal to install a Holocaust museum there. Jewish museology is an
> active field of study, with annual conferences and publications. New Jewi=
sh
> and Holocaust museums are springing up all over Eastern Europe. It is
> difficult to tell this devastating story well, and to tell it for multipl=
e
> audiences -- for survivors and their descendants, for descendants of
> perpetrators and bystanders and for local populations who might not have
> been involved in past crimes. It is especially difficult to tell it in
> post-Communist regimes still dealing with censorship and political
> repression.
>
> For the latest scholarship on this matter, see the current issue of the
> journal East European Jewish Affairs, vol. 45, issue 2-3. A conference in
> New York focusing on East European Jewish museums is scheduled for next
> week.
>
> The city would benefit from such a museum, but not in that location. It
> belongs with the Bukovina Jewish History Museum in the center of the city=
.
> Placing a Holocaust museum in the Jewish cemetery on the outskirts of tow=
n
> makes the deportations, persecution and murder of the city's Jewish
> community a strictly Jewish problem, for Jewish visitors. It places the
> community under the sign of death, rather than life.
>
> We realize that to fund the renovation, you might have to show the donors
> that the building will be used. Perhaps a simple memorial will serve this
> purpose. It's the only tasteful ethical option, in our opinion. As Hedwi=
g
> Brenner, a survivor from Haifa wrote on the Czernowitz-L list, the site i=
s
> holy and placing such a museum there might well be experienced as offensi=
ve
> if not sacrilegious.
>
> We hope that you will consult some international experts before going
> forward with these plans. We would suggest, foremost, Barbara
> Kirshenblatt-Gimblett, chief curator of the permanent exhibition of the
> Polin Museum of the History of Polish Jews in Warsaw.
>
> Please let me know if we can be of any assistance,
>
> warm wishes for a healthy new year,
>
> Marianne Hirsch and Leo Spitzer
>
> Marianne Hirsch
> William Peterfield Trent Professor of English and Comparative Literature
> Director, Institute for Research on Women, Gender and Sexuality
>
[snip]
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Received on 2015-12-31 17:08:24