Re: [Cz-L] To all list members and Re: [Cz-L] I don't agree (Zev Ciohen)

Charles,

I would prefer not to touch this subject again as this subject is a very
sensitive one, both for me personally and for the List members.

I did not expressed horror, I just posted my opinion. Unlike most of the
List contributors, I lived and studied in Chernovtsy with the local
Ukrainians for 19 years of my life. My opportunities were limited but I
felt safe there because, at that time, the Russians were ruling Bukovina
with an iron fist.

Secondly, the locals who butchered the members of my family were not Nazi
collaborators and it's a sad but historical fact. They never joined any
party or expressed any ideological motives. Some of them were good
neighbours who did it because of a long stored hatred and greed, and because
the unstable political situation allowed them to do so. It can happen
anywhere anytime and it is very scary.

I am also sceptical about the restitution. As I already mentioned, most of
the properties were privatised during the Soviet times and that takes the
responsibility out of the Ukrainian hands. My cousin and aunt (who never
left Cz) told me that renting out to private people is not safe there. I
have an additional information on the subject which I prefer to keep to
myself. Maybe, it will happen in the future, when Ukraine reaches the level
of a relative prosperity the Czech Republic is enjoying.

There is no need for anyone to blame themselves or others for our little
cyberspace drama. I am a group facilitator and a researcher and I was amazed
to find out that even a cyber group closely follows a model of group
development.

The List moderators have passed the test with flying colours. The
discussions have reached a new level of maturity and controversy.
I hope that we all learned to be more sensitive and tolerant to each other.

Serah Kraft

----- Original Message -----
From: "Charles Polak" <charles.polak_at_bbc.co.uk>
To: <Czernowitz-L_at_cornell.edu>
Sent: Tuesday, February 19, 2013 4:33 AM
Subject: RE: [Cz-L] To all list members and Re: [Cz-L] I don't agree (Zev
Ciohen)

As a non-Czernowitzer - as I've written, Praguer (Pruger?) and Olmitzer - I
"don't have a dog in this fight". However, I have a slight fear of having
unwittingly set off threads related to Restitution which may have increased
controversy to Hardy's and our Moderators' breaking point.

What I wrote about was the Czech state's restitution of property in Olomouc
that had belonged to my father's family, which my late mother achieved
nearly 20 years ago, working with helpful local lawyers. It succeeded so
well that rent (controlled to much the level originally charged by the
municipality) from the apartments into which the Nazis or Communists had
divided it now reaches my bank account, and our family uses one recently
vacated apartment for ourselves.

My possibly fatal query was whether such restitution may be possible for
property in Czernowitz. I think that the crux of the matter was established
by someone else's clarifying that the Czech Republic has a well-defined law
of restitution, but Ukraine as yet does not - this may come in the future,
perhaps with Ukrainian attempts to meet early conditions for EU application.

Serah in Australia was horrified at the very suggestion of "coming back to
live with murderers". While I've certainly heard of the massacres and other
atrocities committed by Ukrainian Nazi-collaborationist militias, and the
usefulness to the Nazis of some of their members as death-camp goons (not to
speak of incidents recounted on our List!) my recent experience of
Ukrainians has been quite good, both in Kiev and in the UK diaspora; so I
didn't share Serah's horror, especially as the Czechs in a somewhat parallel
situation couldn't have behaved better. Yet I felt that I didn't know enough
to contribute any further to the controversy.

Others I think did continue with it, and seemed to me to have merged this
thread with the "Resilience" one. The controversy seems to have escalated.

Please, Moderators, don't be too severe on a veteran and colourfully
excellent contributor like Hardy, or narrow the subject-matter too strictly
to such an issue as Genealogy only. On the other hand, let's all stay
moderate in the emotions we express, and in generalizations made about
ethnic or historical allegiances.

Charles Polak

-----Original Message-----
From: bounce-74349035-3499287_at_list.cornell.edu
[mailto:bounce-74349035-3499287_at_list.cornell.edu] On Behalf Of Bruce Reisch
Sent: 18 February 2013 16:43
To: CZERNOWITZ-L
Subject: Re: [Cz-L] To all list members and Re: [Cz-L] I don't agree (Zev
Ciohen)

Dear List Members and Dear Gary,

To Gary:
While I do appreciate your concern and interest in the list, posting a
rejected post is counter-intuitive. I found the post at the center of
this storm to be off-topic and probably offensive; posting it now would
defeat the purpose of a moderated list, and at the same time, I don't wish
to offend. There are two individuals who received the same email
privately, and one agreed with my decision, while the other didn't
express an opinion.

To all list members:
I join everyone in asking Hardy to post again. I can't express this any
better than you have done already. I completely agree that he is a valued
member of the list, and is most welcome to continue to post. In fact, he
is still a member of the list. He has not unsubscribed so we can
assume that he continues to read list emails.

As moderators, we have simple rules - stay reasonably on-topic and be
respectful and civil to each other. (Post in Plain Text too! - but we
don't reject non-Plain Text posts.) Very few posts are ever rejected. If
a message is ever rejected for being off topic, it can always be
posted to our Off-Topic Blog, <http://ehpes.com/blog1/>, thanks to the
skills of Edgar Hauster and Jerome Schatten.

Some of the worst times we've had on the list have been the result of a
perceived insult not intercepted by the moderators. Once posted, the
messages that follow fly fast and furious and everyone wants to respond
tit for tat on the list. Meanwhile, most readers just want to go back to
on-topic posts, and not listen in on the argument.

 If I've made some mistakes as a moderator, I apologize for that. I do
admit to being human; I'm not perfect, but I do my best. Let's return now,
I hope, to our regularly scheduled program. ;-)

Warmest wishes,

Bruce
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
This moderated discussion group is for information exchange on the subject of
 Czernowitz and Sadagora Jewish History and Genealogy. The opinions expressed
 in these posts are the opinions of the original poster only and not necessarily
 the opinions of the List Owner, the Webmaster or any other members
 or entities connected with this mailing list. The Czernowitz-L list has
 an associated web site at http://czernowitz.ehpes.com that includes a
 searchable archive of all messages posted to this list. As a result,
 Messages sent to the list are available to the general public within days
 of posting.

Please post in "Plain Text" if possible (help available at:
<http://www.jewishgen.org/InfoFiles/PlainText.html>).

To remove your address from this e-list follow the directions at:

<http://www.it.cornell.edu/services/elist/howto/user/leave.cfm>

To receive assistance for this e-list send an e-mail message to:
<owner-Czernowitz-L_at_list.cornell.edu>
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Received on 2013-02-19 04:58:14