Dear Lesli...many thanks for your report. It may encourage others to do the same. Cornel.
-----Original Message-----
From: bounce-123133897-8441035_at_list.cornell.edu [mailto:bounce-123133897-8441035_at_list.cornell.edu] On Behalf Of Lesli Ross
Sent: 26 November 2018 19:03
To: czernowitz-l_at_cornell.edu
Subject: [Cz-L] RECENT VISIT TO CZERNOWITZ
Dear Czernowitzers,
Thanks once again to all of you who provided information and advice prior to my recent wonderful (if brief) visit to Czernowitz/Chernivtsi. For anyone to whom it might be useful, I thought I’d return the favor and share some of my experiences.
I can’t say how grateful I am to everyone involved in mapping and restoring the cemetery—my first stop after dropping my bags at Allure Inn (comfortable, well-located, inexpensive, and featuring a good restaurant). Without the map and photographs of the headstones I sought (of my great-grandfather and his youngest son, my grandfather’s brother) I doubt I would have found their graves. Even with them I had to search. Naively, I had expected some kind of markings on the ground to match the plot numbers on the map (no such luck). Also, despite what must be tremendous effort on the part of the volunteers who periodically do maintenance work, much of the site is still overtaken by tangled vegetation; in places it’s difficult to find the paths between the rows and sections, or where to place your feet to find firm ground and avoid stepping on obscured graves. (Foliage clippers would have been helpful. I was picking weed debris out of my shoes and bag for days). Fortunately we encountered glorious weather.
That great-uncle buried in the cemetery was a well-known artist now prominently featured in the Chernivtsi Regional Art Museum (Leon Kopelmann). The museum director (Inna Kitsul), with whom I had been in touch before my trip, seemed genuinely excited to host, for the first time, a member of his family. She shared with me information about him I had not previously known, and about the great appeal he has for visitors from all over the world—altogether affirming and gratifying to hear. (She also served as private guide through the exhibitions—an impressive collection cleverly assembled without an acquisition budget.)
In addition to a full, most informative and pleasant morning with Zoya Danylovych touring historic, Jewish and cultural Czernowitz, I was able to locate the site (if not the exact apartment house) of the home built by my great-grandparents around 1930 on Shchepkin (the first street just outside the magnificent University), visit the apartment house where my great-grandparents lived with their son (the artist) and his family after the Soviets confiscated their Shchepkin Street house in 1940, and travel to the small village south of Chernivtsi where my grandfather and his brothers were born (Volchinets then, Stary Vovchinyets now). Unfortunately, I was not able to obtain any records—birth, marriage, property. . .—for the time the family lived there.
Which brings me to the archives. Prior to receiving emails from group members regarding the staff change and resulting standstill in fulfillment of requests for information, I had asked for certain records. Because Zoya has a friend who works at the archives, she was able to help shepherd my letter, even after the staff change. (All around I was quite happy to have hired Zoya.) So far the only (quite disappointing) information I have received — is that is no information of any kind exists anywhere for Volchinets; it was lost or destroyed. I am still waiting for any marriage, census, school and property records that might be found for Czernowitz proper. (Last week Zoya promised to follow up with her friend, who had been on vacation.)
Though I accomplished pretty much everything I set out to do, I’m now thinking about more I could have—and still could—do there, and hope to have the opportunity to return, and to travel further south, over the border into Romania (Radowitz/Radauti), from where I think the family might have moved.
All the best for a joyous Chanukah and happy 2019.
Lesli Koppelman Ross
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Received on 2018-11-26 21:42:04