RE: [Cz-L] Resilience

Serah...I hear what you say. But..and it is a big "but". Go to Yad v'Shem
and see how many Righteous Among the Nations are Ukrainian.And we all know
that there were and are Ukrainian anti-Semites...yet I suggest going into
Google and looking at "Dnepropetrovsk Jewish Centre",the world's largest
Jewish Community Centre opened October last year. I live in London...and
one of the current local scandals is a Liberal-Democrat MP who made
statements equating the Jews to the Nazis...maybe he should join Svoboda??
Yet neither in the UK nor in the Ukraine can you condemn a whole
nation,particularly not for atrocities committed in the past. In Czernowitz
I have been invited to several Jewish events,and the locals whom I met were
of the opinion that the community is growing,so your deathbed prediction
seems to me not valid. I agree,a huge number of Soviet Jews left...but the
vast majority of those were not from the Ukraine,so I do not see the point.
Cornel

-----Original Message-----
From: bounce-72623172-8441035_at_list.cornell.edu
[mailto:bounce-72623172-8441035_at_list.cornell.edu] On Behalf Of Jacob
Greenberg
Sent: 27 January 2013 03:41
To: mirtaylo_at_indiana.edu
Cc: Czernowitz-L_at_cornell.edu
Subject: Re: [Cz-L] Resilience

Dear Mimi,

I apologise again for using the word "resilience" instead of "adaptation to
life under the Soviet regime". You had to be there to witness and to observe

that phenomena. It is very hard to explain....so let's drop the subject.
Funny, but "resilience" is the topic of my dissertation and my current
research.

Secondly, only a small percentage of full-blooded Jews remain in the
territory of the former Soviet Union as about 2 million Soviet Jews left
over the period of 1960-1990. So it was a very slim chance for our children
and grandchildren to live there.

I know that the list wants to discuss CZ before WWII and I have benefited a
lot from learning about the past. But the Jewish life in Cz didn't stop
during the period of 1945-1990. The way I see it, the Jewish presence on
it's death bed now (1500-2000 Jews in Ch altogether), even if the
Lubavichers Chassidim lighting the menora.

Mimi, you did very well leaving in time. But not every one was able or
wanted to leave. I wish my parents had left after the war but I would've
never been born in 1954.

As I already stated, not everybody was in a position to leave. My fathers'
Bukoviner side of the family (the survivors) were allowed to return from
Siberia only in 1948.

The Bessarabian-born side of the family were too happy to have a big and
supportive family that finally gathered in Chernovtsi and they decided to
stay. Only one sister who was married to a wealthy Cz man (who perished in
Russia) bravely left with a small child and have endured terrible hardship
in Israel in the 50s and 60s, finely saved from her misery by the German
restitution payments.

 I have never suffered in Chernovtsy either financially or socially and I
was living in a beautiful place and I had a big family around me. The old
Czernowitz was forever gone and I didn't know any better. People who stayed

received good university education and a decent standard of life. My mother
and most of her family studied medicine, my father became an accountant. In
public you had to comply with the ideology but you could do what you wanted
in the privacy of your homes. The problem is that Ukrainians are
anti-Semites and murderers given an opportunity.
That's why going back or even investing is out of question. It could've
never happened while they were part of a strong USSR empire but now, when
people are poor, anything can happen there.

Some personal details: The Bessarabia-born family I was telling about was
kept together and supported by Frima Flohr (my mother's aunt) who was
married to a prominent Cz surgeon Dr Flohr (may their souls rest in peace).

And a couple of questions:
.
Did anyone meet with or heard about the Dr Flohr's family?

Do you think the List would be interested in materials that involve
Chernowitzers who stayed into the Soviet times?

Who, do you think, is a real Czernowitzer or a real Bukoviner? (this was a
frequent theme of discussion in my family)

Serah Greenberg (Kraft)
Sydney, Australia

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Received on 2013-01-27 15:39:42