Tag Archives: Old photo (before 1945)

Happy Days of Youth

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Czernowitz – In a garden.

Happy days of youth. Unusual “arrangement” and setting – Edy Wagner, head of the Balalaika orchestra, who died too young, top left, my husband’s mother Alma Wagner in the middle, on the right her sister Ruzia Wagner with her famous pigtails, the rest are friends. Both Alma and Ruzia, were very gifted, played the guitar and the balalaika, accompanying themselves to a multitude of Yddish songs. Alma had a beautiful voice and had had some lessons with Joseph Schmidt when he was still a cantor. Alma had a great repertoire and sang and played often for her friends. She passed on her singing gift to our daughter Nadine.

Gabriele

Maximilian Hauster, born on 26.11.1909 in Czernowitz, Deported to and Perished in Auschwitz in 1943

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This is my uncle Maximilian Hauster, born in Czernowitz on 26.11.1909, deported to and perished in Auschwitz in 1943. Does anybody out there recognize the (students) beret Maximilian wore on that photo, which he presented to the authorities at the time of immigration to Belgium in 1929?

More details on Maximilian’s fate are available at

http://hauster.blogspot.de/2013/10/auschwitz-seventy-kilometers-east-of.html

as well as for in total 104 Bukovinians, who were deported – as my uncle – via Mecheln in Belgium to Auschwitz:

http://czernowitz.blogspot.de/2013/12/mecheln-auschwitz-1942-1944-destruction.html

Only two women and two men out of 104 deportees survived after 8 May 1945: Sara Adler and Theresia Breitner from Czernowitz, Wilhelm Berler from Nepolokoutz and Juda Meier Fleischer from Siret. 96,2% of the people originated from Bukovina deported on in total 28 transports were wiped out.

Czernowitz Cemetery Transcription Project

After too many years, the Cemetery database project is nearing completion. There are just about 3000 burials remaining to index. (For those who aren’t familiar with it, results are posted to The JewishGen Online Burial Registry at <http://www.jewishgen.org/databases/Cemetery/>.) Transcriber Noam Silberberg recently spotted an unusual monument in Area 102, recording the passing of Dr. Karl Nussenbaum, who died in a plane crash in 1938.  Does anyone remember or know anything about this event?214-1486_IMG

 

I’d be interested to know more!

Bruce Reisch

 

April 25, 2015: 21:00 ET:

Noam Silberberg send the following related information:

The plane was a Lockheed 14H Super Electra of the Polish LOT airline
flying on the Warsaw-Lwow-Czernowitz-Bucharest-Thessaloniki route. On
July 22nd, 1938 at around 17:40, it crashed after being struck by
lightning near Stulpicani, Suceava county. There were 14 people on
board, all killed.
 
Crew members were pilot Wladyslaw Kotarba, radio operator Zygmunt
Zarzycki and flight engineer Franciszek Panek.
On board were also two military pilots – Capt. Gnys and Capt
Waliszewski; aviator Olimpiusz Nartowski; Polish diplomat Edward
Gozdowski and Japanese military attache Col. Masakatsu Waka.
Other passengers were Dr. Lemuel Caro (Goldstein) from New York and
Bulgarian diplomat Radi Radev.
In Czernowitz boarded Dr. Isidor Bodea, director of the children’s
hospital in Czernowitz; Dr. Karl Nussenbaum; Capt. Gheorghe Ionescu
and Romanian composer and aviator Ionel Fernic.
Noam.
 
April 25, 2015 21:00 ET:
Irene Fishler shared additional information:
From Noam Silberberg’s very interesting comment I learned that on this
flight was also Dr. Isidor Bodea.
 
By chance, I have a photo I took at the Children’s Hospital main building
with a commemoration plaque on its wall. ( see below).
 
It reads , in Romanian: “Dr. Isidor Bodea ( 1866-1938) the first
chief-physician of the Children’s Hospital in Cernauti”
As far as I know Dr. Bodea was not Jewish.
 
If you think it’s worth, please post it on the Ehpes-Blog.
Thanks for everything you do,
 
Best regards,
Irene
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Cz_Children'sHospital_May2011
April 25, 2015 21:30:
Ignacio Sternberg contributed the following:
Hello Bruce and Noam & Hardy

I am answering you from Caracas, Venezuela, regarding Bruce’s interest in Dr. Karl Nussenbaum. He was a cousin of mine.My mother’s mother (my GM ) was a NUSSENBAUM. The source of the information came from Claudia, daughter of Karl N. He studied medicine in Vienna. Anything else you need just write me. I think I have the best tree of the Nussenbaum’s !!!!! as told by them. (example below)
 
Individual Report for Kalman ( Karl ) Bubie Nussenbaum.jpg
April 27, 2015, New contribution from Mordecai Lapidot:
All I can contribute is just an account of a 5y+4 months year old ear-and-eye witness.
My parents and I usually spent a week or two in the summers before 1940 in Gurahumora, where my father’s cousins (the Apter family) lived.
I recall vividly that evening, in the summer of 1938, and that disaster. It was a typical summertime thunder-and-lightning strom night, and my parents and I stood at the window of our room, fascinated by the lightnings that lit the darkblue sky.
Suddenly we heard and saw a little plane in the sky, and after a few seconds there was another lightning, followed this time by a thunderous explosion. We saw suddenly people running in the streets and a few carriages passing quickly in a particular direction.
The next morning we learned from the neighbours that the plane had been struck by lightning and had crashed in some “nearby” wood. The site of the catastrophe had become a “celebrity” with many peasants from the villages around gathering to visit it.
I have no good explaination, but this is my only crystal-clear and vivid memory of the summers in Gurahumora (which is not too far from Stulpicani). The scene of the room we were in, as well as of the short period we stood at the window and the events that we saw and heard, was many years – and still is – clear and vividly imprinted as a frame before my eyes. I suppose the tragic catastrophic crash that I witnessed made an indelible impression on my mind, and the intact disquette is still there, the resolution not reduced by the nearly 77 years that have passed.
Shavua Tov
Mordecai
April 27, 2015, Additional information from Irene Fishler:
Hardy and Mordecai , congratulations to your fine memory !
Here is another victim of the crash: Fernic Ionel ( 1901-1938)
He was first an actor ,then a popular composer of light music ( over 400
tangoes, etc).
His great love was aviation and …parachute jumping.
After a bad accident, in 1936 he took the job of director of the Pilots
School ARPA in Czernowitz.
In June 1938 he wished very much to go to Bucharest to the funerals of Queen
Maria.
But, the Lot airplane crashed into the dark forests of Negrileasa , near
Stulpicani…
The story is here:
Regards,
Irene
Thank you everyone for filling in the details of this tragedy – all surfacing because of an inscription on a stone in the Czernowitz Jewish Cemetery.
Bruce Reisch
Geneva, New York

Coach Ride in Czernowitz

Edwin Richard Gold and Ria Meerbaum in Czernowitz in 1939

Edwin Richard Gold and Ria Meerbaum in Czernowitz in 1939

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Dow Friedman: “Photo in the Horetchawald – Isiu Engler, husband of Mania (Maria) (neé Kuperman) eldest sister, my mother, Genia , Dow and my father, Itzik.”

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Mimi Taylor: “‘Shopping’ from either 1935 or 1936. In the front is Frieda Jagendorf, in the back are my maternal grandparents Saul-Leib and Scheindel Steinmetz.”

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Ermin Kurt Jery Mishu 1

Yosef Eshet: “Coachman Mishu, myself near him, Kurt Marcus (perished on the “Struma”) behind me, Ermin Reichmann (passed away in Vienna some years ago) behind Mishu. Not seen, are Bobbi and Liza the pair harnessed to the coach, in 1940, just before the Soviets occupied Czernowitz.”

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Gaby Rinzler: “Here is an additional coach: me at 2 and my brother at 9.”

First Autobus Lines in Czernowitz

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Autobus in Brașov in 1933 before delivery to Czernowitz

Putting into operation of 10 autobuses, bearing the car numbers 310-319 by I.E.C.M. [Electromechanical Corporation of the Municipality of Czernowitz] on August 26, 1933, servicing three permanent and two seasonal bus routes. The autobuses, Type Fiat 622, assembled in Brașov, were dark red, had a 45 HP engine, 19 seats on luxury leather benches, ventilation systems and double doors, manually or automatically operated by the driver. The bus garage has been erected next to the tramway depot.
Source: http://www.transira.ro/bb3/viewtopic.php?t=4706

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Autobuses in Czernowitz in front of the bus garage

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Short-range transit in Czernowitz during the pre-WW2 period

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“Der Tag”, Czernowitz, September 6, 1933 edition

Der Omnibus

Durch einige Hauptstraßen der Stadt eilt seit einigen Tagen der städtische Omnibus. Der Anfang ist gemacht: Das Verkehrsnetz der Straßenbahn ist um wenige Linien erweitert worden. Daß es nicht Straßenbahnlinien sind, die, die mit der elektrischen Tramway befahren werden, sondern Omnibusse, tut weiter nichts zur Sache, denn nach den äußeren Erfahrungen des Straßenbahnverkehrs ist die Ersetzung von Straßenbahnlinien durch Omnibusse praktisch, rentabel, dem Verkehr zuträglicher und für das Publikum geeigneter. Was seit Jahren angestrebt wurde, nämlich die Erweiterung des Straßenbahnnetzes, ist also endlich durchgeführt, man muß sich über diese Errungenschaft freuen und die Tat soll anerkannt werden.

Aber was wir mit Bedauern sehen, ist, daß das Publikum den Omnibus meidet, jedenfalls zaghaft den Straßenbahnwagen betritt und im großen und ganzen eine abwartende Haltung einnimmt. Seit mehr als dreißig Jahren ruft die Stadt nach der Erweiterung des Straßenbahnnetzes, endlich ist die Ausdehnung erfolgt, aber für den Czernowitzer gilt hier das Wort: Omnibus ist Omnibus und Tramway ist Tramway. Oder im weiteren Sinne: der Omnibus ersetzt nicht die Tramway. Es ist eine Auffassung, die dieser Stadt paßt und es wäre ein Wunder, wenn es anders wäre. Aber man darf nicht verzagen, hier muß Erziehungsarbeit geleistet werden, es muß dem Czernowitzer beigebracht werden, daß er endlich das hat, wonach er seit Tag und Jahr schreit, das moderne und billige Verkehrsmittel, das alle Verbindungen kreuz und quer schafft und das berufen ist, den Verkehr und damit auch das wirtschaftliche Leben zu fördern. Es muß auch hier der Grundsatz gelten, daß nicht der Verkehr die Tramway geschaffen hat, sondern die Tramway den Verkehr schaffen muß, und daß das, was heute leider noch nicht zu hören ist, nämlich die Zunahme des Verkehrs mit dem Omnibus, in paar Wochen oder in paar Monaten eintreten wird. Diese Erziehungsarbeit muß die Tramwaydirektion vornehmen. Dazu ist notwendig, daß der Omnibus sich auch an bestimmte Abfahrtzeiten gewöhnt, nicht an einer Station stehen bleibt und eine Ewigkeit wartet, bis genug Gäste kommen, ferner daß die Station genau bezeichnet wird, also richtige Haltestellen etabliert werden, kurz, daß der Verkehr in ein System gebracht wird. Es darf nicht geschehen, daß die Konkurrenz heute und morgen auf den neuen und schönen Omnibus, eine Zier des Stadtbildes, höhnisch und verächtlich weise, als ob Czernowitz in einem Anfalle von Größenwahn sich einen modernen Omnibus angemaßt hat, der ihm nicht gebührt – nein, das darf nicht sein. Der Omnibus ist eine Notwendigkeit, kein Luxusstück, sondern so notwendig wie das Wasser. Es darf die Gemüsefrau von Rosch sich nicht vom Verkehr fernhalten. Der Omnibus ist nicht für die reichen und eleganten Menschen, sondern für das Volk da. Und weil es so ist, muß auch die Tarifbestimmung sich diesen Erfordernissen anpassen. Wir sehen, daß auch die Organe sich mit dem Omnibus nicht richtig befreundet haben. Der Schaffner sitzt im Wagen, wenn die Station kommt, er muß bei der Station aussteigen, beim Aus- und Einsteigen behilflich sein. Es muß also der richtige Dienst am Kunden versehen werden. Es sei das Geständnis abgelegt, daß wir für den Omnibus die größte Propaganda führen wollen, gerade deshalb, weil er noch heute gemieden wird. Der konservative Czernowitzer soll sich zuerst an das neue Verkehrsmittel gewöhnen und bald wird der Omnibus zu dieser Stadt so gehören, wie Czernowitz ohne den alten Rathausturm nicht zu denken ist.

Ego.

Three Schools in Czernowitz – Three Class Photos

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Aron Pumnul Gymnasium in Czernowitz, Class VI B, Academic Year 1937-1938

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Comenius Private School in Czernowitz, Class IV, Academic Year 1936-1937
All students were Jewish; at the left director Eusebiu Jemna, at the right form-master Isidor Mehler.

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Gheorghe Tofan Elementary School in Czernowitz; in the middle director Eusebiu Jemna and a young student teacher.

Source: Mircea Jemna Collection at Memoria.ro