Re: [Cz-L] Resilience

Greetings members of the List,

I usually stay silent in the background, while reading everything sent
to the List by other members. This time, though, I thought that I
would just share my thoughts and feelings on the subject.

First of all, I am not one of the "real" Czernowitzers - I was born
near Kiev, and moved to Chernovitsy, as the place was known then, in
1961 at the tender age of 1 y.o. So, I don't, and can't really
contribute to the discussions of the pre-WWII Czernowitz, or the
war-time experiences (by the way, I enjoy immensely reading your
reminiscences about that time period!) However, I most certainly know
something about the Czernowitz of the late 1960s, 70s and 80s., as
that is where/when I spent my childhood and young adult years. Judging
by what I know and heard from the members of this List, population of
Czernowitz of my time was drastically different from the time most
other List members remember. While most of you and your families left
in 1944-46, the place replenished its population by attracting large
numbers of displaced and dispossessed Bessarabian Jews who survived
the war, but also Ukrainians from surrounding villages, who heard
about the luxurious apartments left vacant by the Jews (and some
Gentiles as well) who escaped to the West. Granted, there were some
old-time German-speaking Jews, and also some Ukrainians and Romanians
who even could (sometimes) speak and understand Yiddish(!!!). These
people, however, were a small minority. While the oldtimer Gentiles,
used to living in the diverse and tolerant Czernowitz of the pre-WWII
period, were generally accepting of the Jews, many of the new
Ukrainian arrivals were strongly antisemitic, and remained so during
my childhood and teenage years in the city. Soviet anti-Israel and
thinly veiled antisemitic propaganda following the Six Day War in
1967, of course, did not help in that respect either...

Now about the Righteous Gentiles in the Ukraine. It must be
remembered that Ukrainians were also widely known for being drafted by
the Nazis in large numbers into the Hischu and other Schutzmannschaft
units, used by the Nazis to guard death camps, ghettos, and also
taking a major part in the Nazi Einsatzkommando extermination
operations of the Jewish population, such as at the Babiy Yar in Kiev
and many others. I believe that most of those Ukrainians came from
the Western Ukraine, but not only from the Galizien - from the
Bukowina as well. There also was a well-known Bukowina "kuren" of the
OUN-UPA ("banderovtsy") in the Czernowitz region. The sheer magnitude
of the Holocaust of the Ukrainian Jews ("Holocaiust by the Bullets")
resulted in a large number of the Righteous Gentiles; however, I am
not so sure that the numbers paint the right picture, particularly if
you look at the percentage of the general population...

Something tells me that living in London or in Amsterdam, a Jewish
person is far less likely to encounter direct and overt antisemitism
of the street variety than in Czernowitz. Also, in Czernowitz it
helps if you are perceived as a foreigner first and a Jew second
(foreigners were always envied and looked up to). A foreigner Jew -
absolutely not the same as a local, "domestic" Jew, and experiences
will vastly differ... Just my two cents...

One more note - my wife's family is Bessarabian, and they settled in
Czernowitz in 1945, I believe. In talking with my in-laws, I got the
impression that Czernowitzer Jews in Transnistrian camps were
perceived by their fellow Bessarabian campmates as very impractical,
ill-suited to the kind of street-smarts (making living arrangements,
trading with guards and local peasants etc.) needed to survive in
those harsh conditions... Of course, this is a generalization, and
obviously not true for all...

All the best to you all,

Greg Fedner
Columbus, Ohio

On Sun, Jan 27, 2013 at 10:16 AM, <mirtaylo_at_indiana.edu> wrote:
> Cornel is right about the number of Ukrainians listed as righteous among the
> nations by Yad Vashem.
> Their number is greater than the number of Poles, Latvians, Dutch, Belgians,
> or any other European nation.
>
> Mimi Quoting cornel fleming <cornel.fleming_at_virgin.net>:
>
>
>> 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

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Received on 2013-01-27 21:26:22