Category Archives: Memoirs

Dora Katz – A Research by Ellen Trencher

I know this is a long shot but worth a try. 

I recently discovered that my grandmother Celia Katz (1895-1981) and her sister Pauline (1892-1972) had a sister Dora which I discovered through correspondence from 1936.  Celia and Pauline, who are mentioned in the letter below, emigrated to the USA. Dora, their parents, as well as people mentioned in the letter below, did not. 
They were born to Solomon/Zalman Katz and Rose Fuchs in Chudey, about 10 miles from Czernowitz. 
For years I have been trying to obtain info about the family that remained behind. In addition I have been unable to locate any birth records for Celia and Pauline. 
Any guidance, help would be greatly appreciated.  
Thanks so much. 

A Story of Clara Kamil-Rosner, Jew of Bukovina: From Wiznitz to Lyon, 1908-1987

 

Editions Le Manuscrit: Based on interviews conducted with his mother over a period of eight years, the author recounts the life of his two parents, Jews from Bukovina who emigrated to Paris in 1937. Sjoma, integrated into a company of foreign workers, was deported to Auschwitz in 1943. Clara managed to raise her child and hide in the village of La Pérrière, in the Orne region. In 1945, she leaves to live with her son in Boulogne.

Hedwig Brenner • Homage to a Pioneer

Erhard Roy Wiehn: Homage to a Pioneer
Christel Wollmann-Fiedler: Dearest Hedy
Artists of Jewish Origin with Hedwig Brenner

I. Christel Wollmann-Fiedler in Conversation with Hedy Brenner

II. Prefaces and Epilogues in the Sequence of the Six Brenner Volumes
Jewish Women in Visual Arts I (1998)
Jewish Women in Visual Arts II (2004)
Jewish Women in Visual Arts III (2007)
Jewish Women in Visual Arts IV (2011)
Jewish Women in Visual Arts V (2013)
Jewish Women in Music and Dance VI (2017)

III. Hedwig Brenner with Christel Wollmann-Fiedler

“Against All Odds” by Jillian Rothwell

Back cover: “This dramatic story of hope and devotion is based entirely on the cache of letters and documents found in an old 1930s suitcase. They bear an extraordinary witness to these epic events. Intrigued by these family letters, Jillian Rothwell travelled half way across the world to trace generations of her family’s journey from the Hapsburg Empire’s Eastern provinces to occupied Vienna and beyond. Out of the carnage that was engulfing Europe, she uncovered the astonishing story of two courageous and remarkable Viennese who steered the family’s miraculous survival, astonishing luck, dramatic departures and last minute getaways, all the way to the safe haven of New Zealand. At first it was not all plain sailing, but eventually their new home provided hope, purpose and abundant opportunities for the family to finally ‘make it’.”

Review by George Heagney: Author recounts family’s escape from Nazi-occupied Vienna to New Zealand

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.

Forgotten Holocaust – A Journey to Transnistria

The Chernivtsi Museum of the History and Culture of Bukovinian Jews: „The official trailer of a documentary ‘Forgotten Holocaust – a journey to Transnistria’ (film director: Resa Asarschahab, Idea: Markus Winkler und Kristina Forbat) has been aired. The film was shot in the autumn of 2019 in the framework of a Ukrainian-German educational project. The project was initiated by the Institute for the German Culture and History of Southeast Europe at the Ludwig-Maximilian University, Munich (https://www.ikgs.de) and implemented in cooperation with the Chernivtsi Museum of the History and Culture of Bukovinian Jews, Yurii Fedkovych Chernivtsi National University and the State University of the Republic of Moldova (Chisinau).

The film describes the life of a Chernivtsi citizen Rosa Zuckermann, who was deported to Transnistria in the autumn of 1941 together with her parents, a husband and a small child. Rosa was the only one of the whole family who survived. The story of this family resembles the fate of many Jewish families from Chernivtsi. That is why it is so meaningful and important to get to know it.

Film crew from Germany made the journey from Chernivtsi through Măşrculeşti, Soroca, Mohyliv-Podilskyi to a small town in Podillia – Bershad. It was accompanied by Dr. Markus Winkler (Berlin), the head of the project; Mykola Kushnir, the director of the Museum of the History and Culture of Bukovinian Jews (Chernivtsi) as well as by students from Ukraine (Chernivtsi, Mohyliv-Podilskyi) and the Republic of Moldova (Chisinau, Bălți).

Felix Zuckermann, the son of Rosa Zuckermann, also took part in the project. For him it was a moving trip into the terrible past, searching for traces and answers to questions he hadn’t dare to ask his mom when she was still alive.

Students, who participated in the project, were able to learn more about the Holocaust in Transnistria. During the seminar ‘Memory Workshop’ they discussed issues related to the culture of remembrance in their countries as well as presented their projects in this field.

Official presentation of the film was to be held at the end of February in Berlin. However due to the coronavirus pandemic it has been postponed.”

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

 

 

 

 

Sally Rosenberg Rendall Interview

Henry Rendall: I’m the son of two Czernowitz parents, Carol (Carl) Rendall (Rendel) and Sally (Rosenberg) Rendall. I am also a silent follower of the site since my dad passed away in September 2009. My dear sweet mother Sally, a survivor of 3 years in Transnistria, sadly passed away in Montreal, Quebec on Monday [10-Jun-2019] at the age of 97 1/2. She had many amazing stories about growing up in Romania in the 1920’s, 30’s and 40’s. I luckily interviewed her about 8 years ago and I don’t think she would have minded me sharing it with you. She was a special woman and wonderful mother, with 8 grandchildren and 13 great grandchildren, all who she absolutely adored and vice versa. She will be greatly missed.

Glimpses of Youth Activities in Pre-War Bucovina

The Orchestra and Choir of the Aron Pumnul Liceum, conducted by Prof. Sava Arbore, in April 1940, prior to departure to Bucharest for a live performance at Radio Bucuresti. Prof. Alfred Schneider: “I am the second accordion player from the left; The cello player in the front was known to us as Burschi Schwefel, you met him as Radu Armsa, a retired high official and diplomat in post WWII Romania; the student in the right corner of the last row was the son of the Mayor of Czernowitz Marmeliuc; there were several Jewish students in this picture, notably the first violinist at the left in the first row.”

The Marching Band of the Aron Pumnul Liceum. Prof. Alfred Schneider: “The date of the parade on the Siebenbuergerstrasse was June 8,1940, on the birthday of King Carol II. I am the first accordion player on the right. Three weeks later, soldiers of the Red Army were marching there and singing ‘Moskwa moya…’. Later in October I marched there with my school carrying banners hailing the great Stalin before a reviewing stand on which stood an honorary group of German SS soldiers, in Czernowitz to supervise the ‘repatriation’ of the Volksdeutschen.”

Four Jewish strajeri (successor organization to the Boy Scouts) at the public school in Wiznitz. Prof. Alfred Schneider: “The photo was taken in 1936, we were in third grade of Public Elementary School in Wiznitz. I am standing, the three other boys who survived Transnistria were Bertl Koller (left) and Baruch Winter (right), both later lived in Israel, Erwin Rosner (front) lived in Chile (?). The photo caused an international incident*: when my uncle in New York received it he was very upset, promptly returned it noting that his nephew giving the Hitler salute is an insult! He must have forgiven me, because in 1948 he sponsored my immigration to the U.S.”
[*The raised right hand (Roman) salute was certainly not a traditional Romanian Boy Scout salute. The Romanian Scouts (cercetasi), abolished in 1935, used the international three-finger salute. King Carol II, trying to counteract the growing fascist movement, started to change from a constitutional to an authoritarian rule. In 1938, all political parties were abolished and replaced by the Front of National Renaissance (Frontul Renasterii Nationala) and the Straja Tarii youth organization became an integral part of the Front. The spoken salute accompanying the raised right hand was “sanatate”, which translates to Gesundheit or Heil in German.The similarity with the Hitler salute was not accidental.]

Courtesy: Prof. Alfred Schneider, Professor Emeritus of Nuclear Engineering Georgia Tech and MIT