RE: [Cz-L] Resilience

Dear Greg,

Oy wey, really sorry for confusion, caused by my still very limited English language skills. To make it very clear: None of the generalizations, which I criticized - and still do - was yours. Quite to the contrary, your analysis is brilliant and most enlightening, but it has been instrumentalized for several unsophisticated statements, which, frankly speaking, I didn't expect within our group.

By "European consolidation and understanding" I meant as follows: Perhaps not yet the majority, but there are people and NGO's in Ukraine, who take a stand for freedom and democracy and who firmly oppose anti-Semitism. I met some of them during my journeys to Ukraine and I know, that those people would be very discouraged and affected by some of the generalizations, which I criticized earlier. Now I'm 55 years old and I'd like to live to see Ukraine's adhesion to the European Union, so we'll be able to cross the border from Poland to Ukraine as you do it from Ohio to Indiana or I do it from Germany to the Netherlands, whithout bribing corrupt customs officers.

Once again, dear Greg, sorry for confusion and please accept my apologies as - post-final - "final statement" to this thread!

Edgar Hauster
Lent - The Netherlands

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> Date: Tue, 29 Jan 2013 22:13:47 -0500
> Subject: Re: [Cz-L] Resilience
> From: gfedner_at_gmail.com
> To: bconcept_at_hotmail.com
> CC: czernowitz-l_at_cornell.edu; hardy3_at_bezeqint.net; romers_at_shaw.ca
>
> Dear Edgar,
>
> Thanks a lot for your warm welcome and kind words. Just want to set
> the record straight - some of the statements seemingly attributed to
> me in your message are not mine at all. What I said about
> antisemitism in Ukraine, or, more accurately, in Czernowitz of the
> 1960s-80s is not assumptions, generalizations, hearsay or insinuations
> - it is strictly based on my personal experience. I am not putting
> blame for WWII crimes on the present Ukrainian population of
> Czernowitz; I am also not saying that all Ukrainians are antisemites.
> However, antisemitism in Czernowitz of my time was not a rare
> phenomenon to say the least, and was noticeably more widespread and
> more virulent than, say, in Moscow (another place where I spent
> considerable time during my college years).
>
> Not sure what you mean by "European consolidation and understanding"
> and the priority they get... Can definitely tell you, though, that
> antisemitism in Columbus, Ohio, while probably lurking somewhere
> underground, cannot be compared to that of Czernowitz of my youth, or
> even Moscow.
>
> Again, did not mean to offend anyone, or step on anyone's toes. Just
> thought to share my personal experiences and feelings.
>
> Looking forward to reading more of your great posts, enjoy them thoroughly.
>
> Greetings from Ohio, Greg Fedner.
>
> On Tue, Jan 29, 2013 at 9:55 AM, Edgar Hauster <bconcept_at_hotmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > Greg...
> >
> > First of all welcome to the - active fraction of the - group and congratulations on your brilliant analysis, but it doesn't justify nor even explain several verbal faux pas, which I criticized and still firmly do.
> >
> > Beyond any reasonable doubt, Ukrainians committed horrible atrocities before and during WW2 and I don't spot any disagreement on this subject among the memebers of our group. Perhaps you will remember the report on the "Massacre in Kyseliv and Borivtsy"
> >
> > http://czernowitz.ehpes.com/czernowitz11/kyseliv/keseliv-borivtsy.html
> >
> > brought to us by Alti Rodal and empathetic visualized by Jerome Schatten. Incredible barbarism committed by Ukrainians, on which I'm gooing to give a lecture at the Jewish Community Düsseldorf in a near future. After WW2 the offenders exculpated themselves as inimitably put in a nutshell by Hardy:
> >
> > "These Jews who fled are no Czernowitzer. They never were. As long as the business was good and they could rob the naive Ruthenian peasants all was fine. As this was gone, the Jews were looking for new prey. Nothing attached them to our city but profiteering. They were foreigners, aliens, didnt speak our language and thought they were superior beings. Now they want their houses back? We have stayed behind, kept and rebuilt their Temple. Placed memorial plates on all the streets in their honor. And their singer Scnmidt never sang one Ukrainean song!"
> >
> > But, once again, that's still no justification for a cross-generational sweeping judgement of Ukrainia in general and Ukrainians in particular. Talking about Czernowitz as "a dead and a struggling place without the Jews" is far, very far away from reality. Wether we like it or not, Czernowitz is simply another city in another Ukraine, part of a consolidating Europe, but everything but dead and a struggling place.
> >
> > I'm not prepared for a competition in anti-Semitic sufferance between Columbus and Sydney vs. London and Amsterdam, but something tells me, that living in Columbus or Sydney the European consolidation and underständing get a different priority... Just my two (and a half) cents...
> >
> > This was my second and at the same time final contribution to this sprawling thread.
> >
> >
> > Edgar Hauster
> > Lent - The Netherlands
> >
> >
> >
>
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Received on 2013-01-29 22:56:25