Category Archives: Transnistria

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.”

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

Chernivtsi Jewish Survivors Organization Affidavits

This collection includes names from the 901 affidavits collected by the Chernivisti Jewish Survivors Organization. The organization collected the affidavits in order to press the Soviet government for stipendiary pensions in restitution for the atrocities the survivors suffered during World War II. The index includes name and information about experiences during World War II.

Courtesy: USHMM United States Holocaust Memorial Museum

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

The Initial Spark to Jägendorf’s Foundry

Yitzhak Arad, The Holocaust in the Soviet Union, University of Nebraska Press & Yad Vashem, Lincoln/Jerusalem, 2009, P. 301-3012: “Around 27,000 Jews – half of the deportees from Bukovina – were concentrated in the Mogilev-Podolsky region. The town was an economical center, and many of the deportees hoped to find accomodation and employment there. The initiative of a few Jews made it possible for thousands of deportees to remain in the town – contrary to the designs of the Romanian authorities, who felt that there was no room in the semi-ruined town for the Jews. A prominent figure among these was the engineer Ziegfried Jägendorf, who had held the rank of lieutenant in the Austrian army during World War I. Jägendorf managed to arrange a meeting with the town’s Romanian prefect, Colonel Ion Baleanu, with whom he had served in the Austrian army and who knew that he was an engineer. To Jägendorf’s request that conditions should be eased for the Jewish deportees and that they should be permitted to stay in the town, Baleanu replied:

You must realize that Jews cannot stay in Mogilev: we are establishing camps for them elsewhere in the district…We need your services here in Mogilev. The power station was put out of action during the battles and further damaged when the Dnestr overflowed its banks. I want you to select a few electricians and mechanics from your ranks, four or five, perhaps.

Jägendorf convinced the town’s Romanian authorities that the repair and reopening of the power station would require hundreds of Jewish workers, and so they were permitted to remain in the town with their families. After Jägendorf and his employees reinstated the town’s electricity supply, further manufacturing plants were established in which Jews were employed. One of Jägendorf’s enterprises was a metal foundry, to which he gave the name ‘Turnatoria’. It produced various commodities, including heaters for government officials and the local population, metal parts for repairing bridges over the Dnestr, and other objects; in the beginning of 1942 more than 1,000 Jews were employed in these plants. For the deportees these initiatives were salvation. Jägendorf was elected chairman of the thirteen-man Jewish council, and, except for the latter half of 1942, he served in this position for as long as the ghetto existed.”

Read aslo: https://hauster.blogspot.com/2010/02/das-wunder-von-moghilev.html

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.

“Jewish Life in Radautz Before, During and After the Holocaust” Cont’d!

ADDITIONAL LINKS

Book of the Month, 10/2017: Lost Childhood • Verlorene Kindheit • Copilărie pierdută
Ehpes Blog, 07/2017: Jewish Life in Radautz Before, During and After the Holocaust
Suceava News, 24-Jun-2018: Întâlnire cu o supraviețuitoare a Holocaustului

Ghetto List by ZRBG (German Social Security Ghetto Pension)

Holocaust survivors who voluntarily worked in a ghetto located in a territory occupied by or integrated into the German Reich may apply for two types of compensation payment: The Ghetto pension pursuant to ZRBG (German Social Security Ghetto Pension) and the Payment to victims of persecution in recognition of work in a ghetto. Please be aware that as of July 18, 2014, substantial changes to the Ghetto pension pursuant to ZRBG have been signed into law which are described below.

1. Ghetto pension pursuant to ZRBG (Law Regulating the Conditions for Pension Payments on the Basis of Employment in a Ghetto)

2. Payment to victims of persecution in recognition of work in a ghetto which did not constitute forced labor

The articles “Ghetto: Financial Compensation for voluntary Labor in a Ghetto” by the German Missions in the United States and “German Social Security Ghetto Pension – ZRBG” by the Claims Conference provide additional information.