Category Archives: History

Antschel • Documentary by Susanne Ayoub • Paul Celan and Klaus Demus

The premiere of the film in Ukraine took place on November 27th, 2020, on the occasion of the festival “Paul Celan Literature Days 2020” in Czernowitz, organized by the Paul Celan Literature Centre, Meridian Czernowitz and sponsored by the Austrian Cultural Forum Kyiv. The film (45:29 min.) is German with Ukrainian subtitles.

The documentary “Antschel” was shot in 2020 by the Austrian director and poet Susanne Ayoub. The narrator of the film is Paul Celan’s childhood friend Klaus Demus. The two young poets met in Vienna in 1948.

An Atmosphere of Hope and Confidence

Eine Atmosphäre von Hoffnung und Zuversicht • An Atmosphere of Hope and Confidence
Hilfe für verfolgte Juden in Rumänien, Transnistrien und Nordsiebenbürgen 1940-1944 •
Aid for Persecuted Jews in Romania, Transnistria and Northern Transylvania 1940-1944
296 pages, 170 x 240 mm, with numerous illustrations, hardcover, numerous partly colored illustrations September 2020 ISBN 978-3-86732-348-2 Lukas Verlag

During the Second World War, Romania was an ally of the German Reich. The spectrum of persecution of Jews in the Romanian territory was broad. It ranged from legislative measures to deprivation of rights and expropriation to pogroms, deportations, and mass murder. 
However, individual courageous individuals from various social strata came to the aid of the oppressed people. This book presents these often anonymous helpers who put their lives at risk for the first time to German readers. At the end of June 1941, for example, the twenty-one year old factory worker Elisabeta Nicopoi from Jassy hid several Jewish neighbors who thus escaped the pogrom. Since early 1943, staff members of the Romanian Red Cross had been bringing medicines collected in Bucharest to the hard-to-reach ghettos in the Romanian occupied territory of Transnistria in southern Ukraine. In the same year, financial aid from foreign Jewish organizations also reached the helper networks. Even while the Romanian army was still fighting alongside the Wehrmacht, Jewish survivors from Romania were able to emigrate by ship via Turkey to Palestine from 1944, among them many orphans. Only later were helpers honored. Many of them were imprisoned in communist prisons; only a few survived.

Gottes Mühlen in Berlin • Mills of God in Berlin
Ausgewählte Gedichte • Selected Poems
Herausgegeben und kommentiert von Andrei Corbea-Hoisie •
Published and Commented by Andrei Corbea-Hoisie
156 pages, paperback, 2020 ISBN 978-3-89086-393-1 Rimbaud Verlag

The present edition intends to reconstruct the book project entitled “Gottes Mühlen in Berlin” by Immanuel Weissglas, whose publication was stopped in Bucharest in 1947 for unclear reasons – be they political or economic – and never appeared again in the planned design. In the course of time, only individual poems were selected for publication; Weissglas himself revised numerous texts into new versions and incorporated them into the volume of poetry “Der Nobiskrug” (1972).

Leben und Tod in der Epoche des Holocaust in der Ukraine •
Life and Death in the Era of the Holocaust in Ukraine
Zeugnisse von Überlebenden • Testimonies of Survivors
December 2019 ISBN: 978-3-86331-475-0 Pages: 1152 METROPOL

For decades, the Holocaust in Ukraine received little attention. It is only since the 1990s that German crimes have increasingly attracted the interest of historians and the public, both in Germany and in Ukraine itself. Nevertheless, there is still little knowledge of what happened in the former Soviet Socialist Republic. The historian Boris Zabarko, himself a survivor of the Shargorod ghetto, was one of the first to systematically research the fate of Jews under German occupation in Ukraine. For more than 20 years he has been collecting survivors’ reports and interviewing those who were once persecuted. In 1999, a first publication in Russian appeared, followed by a multi-volume work. The present edition contains more than 180 reports of survivors. They are assigned to the respective crime scenes, for which introductory contextual information is given, and follow the chronology of the occupation. The result is a “Geography of the Holocaust” in the Ukraine.

Unser Überlebenswill war stark • Our Will To Survive Was Strong
Gespräche mit M. Bartfeld-Feller über Czernowitz, die sibirische Verbannung und Israel •
Discussions with M. Bartfeld-Feller about Czernowitz, the Siberian Banishment and Israel
1st edition 2020, 68 pages, ISBN 978-3-86628-678-8 Hartung-Gorre Verlag

1. Erhard Roy Wiehn: From Czernowitz through Siberia to Israel – Tel Aviv 1996
2. Christel Wollmann-Fiedler: 50 Years of Siberian Exile – Tel Aviv 2012

Todefuge Gedichte und Prosa 1952-1967 • Deathfugue Poems and Prose 1952-1967
Audio Book CD, 2 CDs, running time: 1h 59min ISBN: 978-3-8445-3919-6
Published on September 14, 2020 Random House

Paul Celan: One of the most important German-language poets in original language. His poetry is world literature full of musicality and form, which puts the utmost of human experience into words. Paul Celan was famous for the very special way he recited his poems. Between his scandalous reading in 1952 in front of Gruppe 47 and his death as a celebrated poet, there are almost two decades in which Celan presented his poems in numerous radio and public readings and gradually changed his style. In this new compilation, these original recordings can be heard for the first time.

Spanish Flu or Influenza?

Czernowitzer Allgemeine Zeitung, 7-Jul-1918

Spanish flu or Influenza?
The mysterious disease with its many names is on everyone’s lips, or better, in everyone’s – noses, because it is probably only about influenza and sniffles, as is only too understandable in this strange summer. Admittedly, one can almost speak of an epidemic, if not in Czernowitz, where influenza is circulating too, but in many other cities: in Vienna it is on the rise, and there are also reports from Germany, namely Berlin, Munich, Dresden, Mannheim and Karlsruhe, of an increase in “Spanish flu”. The epidemic, whose name and origin has not been properly identified, seems to have originated in Spain and from there it has spread to the whole of Europe. No matter how the disease is called, whether it is flu or influenza or a “Spanish disease”, there is no reason for concern. You can call it annoying, but it is not dangerous. Probably the bacillus that causes so much turmoil all over the world is an old acquaintance, the influenza bacillus, and one may, without fear, if it applies, answer the question “Have you got it yet?” by a liberating Achoo!

[Spanische Grippe oder Influenza?
Die rätselhafte Krankheit mit den vielen Namen ist in aller Munde, oder bessergesagt, in aller – Nasen, denn es handelt sich wohl nur um Influenza und Schnupfen, wie dies bei dem merkwürdigen aller Sommer nur zu begreiflich ist. Freilich kann man beinahe von einer Epidemie sprechen, wenn auch nicht in Czernowitz, wo allerdings auch die Influenza umgeht, so doch in vielen anderen Städten: in Wien nimmt sie an Umfang zu und auch aus Deutschland, namentlich Berlin, München, Dresden, Mannheim, Karlsruhe wird von der Zunahme der „spanischen Grippe“ berichtet. Die Epidemie, deren Name und Ursprung nicht einwandfrei festgestellt ist, scheint ihren Ursprung in Spanien und von dort den Weg nach ganz Europa genommen zu haben. Wie die Krankheit nun heißt, ob es eine Grippe oder Influenza oder eine „spanische Krankheit“ ist, Grund zu Besorgnissen ist jedenfalls nicht vorhanden. Mann kann sie lästig nennen, aber gefährlich ist sie nicht. Wahrscheinlich ist der Bazillus, der die Welt in so viel Aufruhr versetzt, ein alter Bekannter, der Influenzabazillus, und man darf, ohne Angst, wenn’s zutrifft, die Frage „Haben Sie sie schon?“ mit einem befreienden Haptschüh! beantworten.]

Memorial at Mass Grave – Bershad Jewish Cemetery

From Ruth Levin:

This is the tombstone on the mass grave at the Bershad Jewish cemetery.
The names on the tablet are of my grandparents: Joseph the son of Shimshon and Feiga the daughter of Levy; and their daughters – Haika (Clara) and Dvora (Dora) Levin. They all were deported from Czernowitz and died of typhoid in 1942.
My father was informed of the fate of his family when he himself was in the gulag. He was released in 1956 and lived in Moscow. My brother traveled to Bershad in  1972 and put this tablet on the stone. In 2017 our friends visited the cemetery and did not find the tablet. The local guide said that it was apparently stolen, because it was made of metal. Our friends ordered a new tablet made of stone and put it instead of the old one.  Ruth Levin

And this from Edgar Hauster

Read more at: Bershad, Oy Vey Bershad from the year 2015

Stones to Czernowitz • A Documentary in Progress

This is the story of a woman, Ilana, who’s passion was to find out what happened to her Grandfather after WWII. His name was Gustav Gedaly. He and his wife and daughter (Ilana’s mother) were rescued from the Holocaust thanks to the actions of a righteous gentile. However, after the War, Gustav was deported to Siberia by Stalin, never to be seen by his family again. Ilana promised her mother that she would find out why…

Read more at: https://www.stonestoczernowitz.com

1941 Siberia Deportation List – Mayer Ebner

From Zlila Ebner- Helman:

I have send a copy of a part of  the archive of my Grandfather Dr. Mayer Ebner and my Father Dr. Josef Ebner to the museum of Czernowitz (attached example[s]). a lot of Documents & old Photos & Articles etc… between 1899 – 1940 – besides those of 1940-1955.

The  document [below] was an urgent  request  of M. Ebner  to Nahum Goldman and Stefan Whise  to save the deported people to SIBERIA

More examples from Archive of M.Ebner

8 June 1930 – Senator Ebner speech at Rumanian Parliament

1926-7 Ebner the Head of Jewish Community in Czernowitz.

For more on Mayer Ebner (photos and documents) see our website:

http://czernowitz.ehpes.com/czernowitz8/ebner/MEbner.html

Thank you!

Zlila Ebner-Helman

 

 

 

 

Jewish Refugees in Shanghai (1938 – 1947)

The Shanghai Jewish Refugees Museum unveiled a memorial wall in 2014 listing the names of 13,732 Jews who found a haven in the Chinese city during World War II.

Sinosphere, the Blog of The New York Times, wrote on the dedication ceremony: “In the 1930s and 40s, thousands of Jews escaping Nazi Germany arrived in Shanghai, a place they could enter without a visa. After the Évian Conference of 1938, when the major powers shut their doors to nearly all Jewish immigrants, the city remained one of the few available places of refuge. By the beginning of World War II, more European Jews had fled to Shanghai than any other city in the world. The memorial consists of a 111-foot-long copper wall etched with the names and featuring a sculpture of six allegorical figures representing faith, suffering, love, determination, light and hope, designed by the Chinese artist He Ning. Chen Jian, the museum’s director, said the names on the memorial were compiled with the help of former Jewish refugees in Shanghai, as well as Chinese and foreign scholars, according to China Daily. Many of the names were taken from a list found in the German book ‘Exil Shanghai: 1938-1947,’ co-authored by Sonja Mühlberger, 75, who was herself born in Shanghai to refugee parents in the 1930s and has been involved in the memorial project.

The list in her book was first compiled during the war by three teenage Jewish girls hired by Japanese military officers to undertake an informal census. Most of the Jewish population then was relegated by the Japanese to an overcrowded district called Hongkou, a ‘designated area for stateless refugees.’ In a museum press release, Ms. Mühlberger comments, ‘My parents’ experiences in Shanghai were certainly not the easiest, but if they had not been exiled there, I wouldn’t even be alive today, let alone have the chance to tell this history.'”

Among these refugees, immortalized on the “Wall of Names”, we discover Rosa Koppelmann from Czernowitz, the addressee of the “Cry of Desperation from Siberia via Shanghai to Czernowitz”. Seven further names, potentially all related to Rosa, were listed under the same address in Shanghai, i. e. Zang Yang Lu Rd., former Ward Rd.:

HERBERT KOPPELKOWSKI • RUTH KOPPELKOWSKI • JULIUSZ KOPPELMAN • RICHARD KOPPELMANN • MAX KOPPLOWITZ • SIMON KOPSKI • MAX KOPSTEIN