Re: [Cz-L] Resilience

Miriam,

As I've already apologised, I should've used the word "adaptation", not
"resilience". What I meant was that the adult German-speaking Jews and other
nationalities lacked the desire to adapt to the new reality.

Anyway, it seems that the subject of resilience sparked a lively discussion
among the List members.

Serah Kraft

----- Original Message -----
From: "Miriam Taylor" <mirtaylo_at_indiana.edu>
To: "Jacob Greenberg" <grs_software_at_bigpond.com>
Cc: "CZERNOWITZ-L" <Czernowitz-L_at_cornell.edu>; "Gerhard Schreiber"
<GERHARDRODICA_at_aol.com>
Sent: Sunday, February 03, 2013 3:57 AM
Subject: Re: [Cz-L] Resilience

> Serah,
>
> No one knows exactly how many of the old-time Jewish residents
> of Chernivtsi left in 1945-1946 and how many stayed,
> but there is no question that the majority left.
> Before WW2, half of the population of Czernowitz was Jewish,
> about 50 000 people.
> After the war, I estimate that this number was reduced to
> about 30 000. Of these, many left illegally in 1944 and 1945.
> 12 000 left in the summer of 1945 and a somewhat smaller number
> in 1946.
> Of the old-time Czernowitzers, I estimate that at the most 10 000
> remained there during the Soviet period. Jews from other areas
> of the Soviet empire moved to Czernowitz.
> The new Czernowitzer Jews had a different cultural background.
>
> Gerhard Schreiber, is right about the lack of freedom and security,
> Jews faced under Soviet rule and the reasons why most
> of the old-time Czernowitzers left the "Communist paradise".
> I imagine that those who stayed had good reasons for doing so.
> What I object to, are your assertions that life under the Soviets
> was not so bad and that the old Czernowitzers lacked resilience.
>
> I am sure, that growing up in Czernowitz during Soviet times,
> you still heard German, we old Czernowitzers very stubbornly
> keep on speaking German. Even though German stopped being
> the official language of Czernowitz 19 years before I was born,
> with old-time Czernowitzers, I still speak German.
> Not only do we speak German, but our frame of reference
> includes both German and Jewish-German poets, authors and publicists.
> It is safe to say that of the Jewish authors of the second half of the
> 19th century
> and the first half of the 20th, most wrote in German; Jakob Wasserman
> Franz Werfel, Lion Feuchtwanger, Stefan Zweig, Arnold Zweig, Franz Kafka,
> Wolfgang Hildesheimer, Walter Benjamin, Kurt Tucholski. Else Lasker-
> Schuler.
>
> Bruce Reisch, our long suffering moderator (to the immoderate),
> has already addressed the reason for the scarcity of materials
> about the soviet period on the EHPES site, no need for me to say more.
>
> Mimi
>
> On Feb 2, 2013, at 4:16 AM, Jacob Greenberg wrote:
>
>> Yosef,
>>
>> I am a Jewess from Bukowina. The Kraft family came to live in Bukowina
>> generations ago from somewhere in Austria. You said most of the Jews
>> from Bukovina left in 1945. Do you or anyone have the numbers, how many
>> left and how many stayed?
>>
>> I don;t know how many stayed but there was a lot of German spoken around
>> me in my childhood. The municipal cleaner, the plumber, my piano
>> teacher, our family doctor, my parents' relatives and friends- they all
>> were German-speaking Bukowiners. And, of cause, there were many others,
>> who spoke Russian, Ukrainian, Romanian, Polish, Yiddish-the languages I
>> heard at home, the languages of Cz. Chernovtsy did not become Siberia
>> during the Soviet rule. And no, you didn't need 'komandirovka" to travel
>> within USSR in the 60s and 70s, you needed money....
>>
>> One of the List members wrote "And lastly this here List (at least in my
>> understanding), is an exercise in nostalgia about a world, we all
>> irretrievably lost". Is this indeed the purpose of the List? Well, what
>> I described above was the world I lost. It was far from perfect, there
>> was no democracy and there was unspoken numerus clausus but that was my
>> world in my beloved Cz for 19 years.
>>
>> I have a question to the List moderators. Should Bukowiners who, G- d
>> forbid, lived in Cz under the Soviet regime, be excluded from the List?
>>
>> According to the Ephes website "The mission of the Ehpes website is
>> two-fold: First and foremost, it serves the needs of the list members by
>> providing a collection point for Jewish genealogical and historical
>> materials primarily focused on the Czernowitz/Sadagora areas of Bukovina
>> and surrounds; and Second, the Website makes its resources available to
>> all researchers on the web by not copyrighting any of its original
>> materials."
>>
>> The Soviet period of Cz is a historical fact. Yesterday my daughter, who
>> has never visited Cz, expressed her interest in the Ephes website. What
>> is she going to find there about her parents past? The only material
>> that relates to the Khrushchev times is Asya Vaisman' "Sidi Tal and
>> Yiddish Culture in Czernowitz in the1940s-1980s ( Number 23).
>>
>> Nevertheless, I am suggesting to the interested List members to read
>> this paper.
>>
>> Serah Kraft
>>
>> [Moderator's note: Bukoviners and their descendants, from any time
>> period at all, are most welcome to be a part of the Cz-L list. In fact,
>> ANYONE with an interest in Jewish Bukovina is most welcome. As to the
>> coverage you find on our Ehpes website - it is entirely dependent on
>> contributions of list members. Submit your material and suggestions to
>> webmaster Jerome, and it will find a home on our website. If a period
>> of time is poorly covered, it's due to a lack of submissions, not a lack
>> of interest. Moderator Bruce]
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Received on 2013-02-02 18:54:43