Re: [Cz-L] [Fwd: To Mr. Kylynych, Councillor to the Mayor of Czernivtsy]

I am writing to Ethel Tillinger, but sending copies also to Gabrielle
Weissman, Simon Kriendler and the List.

Yom Kippur is now over, and I can answer Ethel's very kind message.

I did not really pay much attention to my family history until my
mother passed away about 10 years ago, and my brother gave me a box
of photographs and letters. The photos were from my parents' time in
Czernowitz (one is a picture of my mother and her brother and sister
skiing in the Carpathians), and the letters began on September 4,1939
("So, war was declared here yesterday ..."). My parents immigrated to
Canada on a special government permit - an Order-in-Council - based
on my father's undertaking to set up a business in Canada and provide
employment - it was still the Depression. The permit was granted
sometime earlier, but still after the "None is too many" policy for
Jewish immigration was established. Only 700 Jews were allowed into
Canada during the war and the run-up years. They arrived in New York
on August 22 on the Staatendam (torpedoed on its return crossing),
and took the train to Canada (Montreal) on August 27. I have about
250 letters from them to their parents and my mother's sister (in
Budapest - she was newly married) and brother (in Orly, France -
where he had gone years before, become a doctor (at the Sorbonne) and
married a French (and Catholic) nurse). Some of these letters and the
passports, identity cards and other documents make me shiver even
now.

I organized them, and got a few translated. The most dramatic was my
mother's father's letter from December 1942 from Cyprus. In a page or
two he told their story - including how his wife's brother, as head
of the Judenrat, got six work permits. A work permit was immunity
 from transportation, and my grandparents were saved - despite a few
incidents of being instructed "to report". They sailed from Constanta
on the Vitorul to Constantinople, spent a couple of months there, and
then interned on Cyprus. Max (Kula) died on Cyprus in 1943, but his
wife, Regina/Rachel (nee Lehr) (when I don't know) and my father's
parents - Budabin - (by air via Beirut in 1943) got to Israel, from
where my parents brought them here to Toronto (later joined by my
mother's sister and family from Israel also, and my brother (now
Eduoard Kula) and his wife from France).

Using these materials , I compiled a family tree, and became
fascinated with the history. I found a list of "tolerated" Jews in
1808 on the Jewish Geneology website, and there were TWO Kulas. I
later found out that Kula is a common Turkish (Ottoman ?) name, and
that there is a famous rug-weaving city in Turkey called Kula
(possibly suggesting that the Kula branch came east on the
Mediterranean, or were always there). I am also told that Kula means
"wet" in Polish, but that does not make a lot of sense except as a
coincidence.

Later I was given an advertisement for soap from the Noa Lehr
soapworks. The soapmaking used rendered fat from cattle and there was
also a tannery on the Estates that processed the hides. I learned
that my father's father was a high government beaurocrat in the
Austro-Hungarian government for Bukovina Province. I knew I had Lehr
relatives in Australia (Martha Rubel, who married cousin Fredi
Gordey, now deceased) and Ilse Rubel (who married Herbert Beral, also
now deceased). As a result of going onto the websites, I was
contacted by another, Morry Silbers, who surprisingly had done part
of his medical studies in Toronto. I had lunch with them when they
were on a world tour with their children about two and a half years
ago (he was the person that suggested that Dvora Lerner was a direct
descendant of Rashi). I found that one of Ilse's daughters, Valerie,
is the foremost epidemiologist in England, and a professor at Oxford.
Strange - my daughter is a doctor too, who just completed her
sub-specialization in multiple sclerosis and is completing a Master's
degree in epidemiology.

I had a serious operation in 2005, and lost some of my enthusiasm for
research, but I have "kind of" stayed with it. Right now, as soon as
I finish selling the family business, I want to find an archive to
keep all these documents, and I hope that a valuation will give me
enough of a tax deduction to enable me to have the stuff translated
so it can be available TO ME as well as just about anyone, and not
remain the almost private property of only scholars who can read the
german, especially the old script.

I know that everyone has stories. For me, these stories almost give
me "property rights" over my family history and Czernowitz. Today,
soap making and weaving are the most prominent industries in
Chernivsty (National Georgraphics about 12years ago).

My best regards to everyone with wishes for a year sweeter than honey.


Bob

Robert Burton
Burton-Lesbury Holdings Limited/
  Cobob Holdings Limited
307 Sheppard Avenue East
TORONTO, Ontario M2N 3B3
416 226 6895, Ext 29, Fax 416 223 0321



----- Original Message -----
From: <mailto:ethelt_at_streetwise.com.au>Ethel Tillinger
To: <mailto:robert.burton_at_rogers.com>Robert Burton
Sent: Friday, September 21, 2007 7:46 AM
Subject: Re: [Cz-L] [Fwd: To Mr. Kylynych, Councillor to the Mayor of
Czernivtsy]

Dear Robert
I'm Ethel Tillinger from Australia, my parents Paula and Naftali
Tillinger lived in Czernovitz and spent time in a camp in Mogilev in
Transnistria. I wanted you to know how moved I was by your wonderful
letter. I feel so touched by the way you've personalised history and
emphasised the links and interdependence of Jews and nonJews and the
cruelty of the Nazi and Romanian severance and destruction of these
relationships. Let's hope others are as moved as I am by your words
which encourage reconciliation and that they will act on them.
Warm regards and many thanks for the gift of your letter
Ethel

On 21/09/2007, at 12:46 PM, Robert Burton wrote:

>Dear Mr. Kylynych

I am writing you by way of a message that will also reach other
people who have written to you about the omission of the Jewish
elements in your city's history. I have not read everything, and am
not fully informed, but their concerns seem to be worth adding to.

My mother's family owned the soapworks (Noa Lehr) - their ancestors
(Kula) go back to 1808 as 'tolerated" Jews under the Emperor's Decree
of Toleration in 1761 - probably further back to the Ottoman empire.
They made soap and tanned leather that probably washed and clothed
your ancestors. My great-grandfather built a hospital. My father's
grandparents owned the textile factory, and had extensive commercial
connections with English banks to arrange payment for the raw cotton
they wove for garments that your ancestors probably wore. My
grandfather's brother was a prominent druggist. My grandmother's
brother Jacob was the head of the Judenrat during the time of the
Naxis, when the Romanian authorities confiscated the soapworks. My
mother told me, although I do not know if it is true, that Otto
Preminger's family were peasants on their Estates. Until it stopped a
number of years ago, I regularly received calls from other people
looking for their Kula ancestor, and I had to explain that it was the
custom for the peasants to take the name of the family of the Estate.

Today, the Budabin, Kula and Lehr descentdants live in Australia, the
United States, Peru, Bolivia, Canada, England, France, Sweden and
Israel and many other corners of what is now a small world.

My families are a tiny illustration of the role that Jews played in
the august history of Chernivtsy, which I have read, was called "the
Paris of the east".

In my humble opinion, the citizens of your city deserve to learn of
ALL of its history. And the Jewish descendants of that amazing city
in those amazing four or more centuries deserve some recognition for
the contributions that last even to this day. My hope is that the
hearts of your councillors and you, yourself, are big enough to
understand how BIG your history is.

With my deepest respect

Robert Burton - changed from Budabin, grandson of Meir/Max Kula and
Rachel/Regina Kula (nee Lehr), great grandson of Noa Lehr,
great-great grandson of David Lerner, great-great-great grandson of
Shevach and Dvora Lerner (she being said to be a descendant of the
famous 12th century French Jewish sage, Rashi), all from Chernivsty.
Received on 2007-09-23 18:34:17