Sorry. I don't like the word "Judenrat" for describing what happened in
Czernowitz. It's true that one way to get a "Popovici Athorozation" was
through the "Kultusgemeinde" but there were other "ways" too, because
Popovici tried to save as many as he could. That didn't help when Calutescu
intervened and annulated many of the "Popovici", and some of the people from
the "Kultusgemeinde" themselves were deported with me and my family to
"Carera de Piatra" stone quarry.
Yosef Eshet
-----Original Message-----
From: bounce-121574660-14007051_at_list.cornell.edu
[mailto:bounce-121574660-14007051_at_list.cornell.edu] On Behalf Of Robert
Burton
Sent: Thursday, June 1, 2017 10:37 PM
To: Miriam Taylorț <mirtaylo_at_indiana.edu>; Maurice Linkerț
<linkerm_at_gmail.com>
Cc: Czernowitz Discussion Groupț <czernowitz-l_at_cornell.edu>;
kelwel_at_rogers.com
Subject: RE: [Cz-L] 1941 deportation selection method
Hello everyone.
I have a story to tell. In August 1939 my parents left Cz. and sailed to New
York on the Staatendam, which was either torpedoed or scuttled on its return
to Rotterdam. They had a transit visa to Canada, and were detained until
they travelled. They crossed into Canada on August 27, one week before
Canada declared war. They held an entrepreneur's visa - because they had
promised to start a business and provide jobs. Their parents remained in Cz.
My mother's father, Max/Meir, wrote from Pedoulas, Cyprus in December of
1942. He had come down with serious heart desease. He wrote of massacres and
a 10,000 death one in in Cz. He wrote that they were forced to move into
the ghetto, and slept on the floor "like herrings". They had passage on the
Struma (200,000 lei per person), but could not get exit visas in time. The
day after they moved into the ghetto, the transports to Transnistria
started. He wrote of the sweeps picking up Jews for transportation, which
came by street. My father, I remember, told me that they "escaped" because,
when he - my father - had worked in Cz, he travelled to Hungary as a
Baptist, and the sweeps started from the Hungarian side - presumably using
border crossing information. Once the transportations started to sort out,
everyone had to appear before a Judenrat commission, to either be listed or
exempted - industrialists, specialists, essential workers got the
exemptions. His wife's brother, Sigmund, was on the Judenrat, and got him a
work permit based on owning a business, an exemption from transportation.
The grounds for exemption were, interestingly, not only business owner, but
cultural councillor or living in mixed marriage (married to a Christian). In
October (1941 ?) the Rumanians began to seize businesses, and around October
20, he found out that his factory was now owned by a certain Dr. Balceanu -
"the one with the long beard". But luckily, he got a job working there - as
did some other family members - thanks to Sigmund, who had secretly
negotiated the terms of the seizure. Finally July (1942 ?) arrived and they
booked passage. A few days later he was rounded up and taken to Maccabiplatz
to assemble for transport, but was released in the evening - because he was
on the list of ones to be "scratched" (I have the German original that was
translated by Henry Wellisch, but I can't read the old writing to try to
pick the German word that was used.). I presume he meant he was exempted
from transportation.
My grandparents did sail - on the Vitorul - a coastal boat - that broke up
in Constantinople harbour, and Max went into the water. They got emergency
30-day visas, but could not get visas for Cyprus right away, and Turkey only
reluctantly extended the visas - two extensions. By December 1942 they were
in Cyprus. Max died there in 1943 - at the time the third Jewish grave. My
father's parents, who were with them, were able to fly to Beirut and then to
Palestine (I have the passports). I don't know how, but Max's widow,
Regina/Rachel also got to Palestine. My mother's sister who had married and
moved to Bucharest, made it overland to Palestine with her husband. By 1951
they were all in Toronto, together with my mother's brother, Edward
(frenchified to Edouard), who had gone to France to become a doctor, and who
married a French Catholic nurse - who had carried the seal of the Free
French Government in Exile in Occupied France. My father told me, though,
that it was only when Rommel was defeated at El Alamein in 1943, and the
tide of the war had turned, that he felt he had run far enough.
Rehards to All.
Bob
-snip-
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Received on 2017-06-03 03:58:33