Author Archives: reischnewyork

Bukovina History Conference – at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem

Thank you Irene Fishler for supplying a Hebrew language brochure (below) describing the conference coming up on March 15, 2016. The organizer’s contact information may be found a the bottom of this page:

Dr. Ronit Fischer
Center for Jewish History

 

Bukowina_Mar2016 Bukowina_Mart2016_HUJ

 

We are honored to invite you to a convention entitled:

Society and History of Bukovina
The “Multi-Kulti” district of Rumania
on
March 15, 2016
Room 15, Meyersdorf building
Mount Scopus
Jerusalem

9:00-9:30 coming together and refreshments
9:30-10:00 greetings

  • Professor Uzi Rebhun, Director of the Center for Research on Romanian Jewry
  • Mrs. Andreea PăstârnacAmbasador of Rumania in Israel
  • Professor Dror Wahrman, Dean of Humanities at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem
  • Mr. Micha Harish, Chairman of the AMIR organization.
  • Dr. Sa’ar Pauker, representative of the Pauker family.

10:00-11:15 First Session
Bukovina as a Symbol for Multi-Culturalism
Chairman: Professor Daniel Blattman Hebrew University

  • The Jews of Bukovina as a symbol for Romanian heterogeneity in the inter-war period
    Dr. Ronit Fischer, Hebrew and Haifa Universities.
  • To describe and imagine Czernowitz – Professor Ya’avetz and his town.
    Dr. Rafael Vago, Tel Aviv University
  • Back to Czernowitz, a paradox of memory and nostalgia – a historic-anthropologic approach.
    Dr. Florence Heyman, The French Research Center in Jerusalem. (CNRS-NAE).

11:45 – 13:30 Second Session
A Small District – Many Worlds of Multi-Cultural Creativity
Chairman: Dr. Amos Goldberg Hebrew University

  • What happens to the multicultural character of Bukovina after the holocaust? Paul Celan Dan Pagis, and Aharon Appelfeld. Sidra de Koven-Ezrahi, The Hebrew University.
  • The Jewish theater of Czernowitz during the transition between Romania and the Soviet Union.
    Ms. Dafne Dolinko The Hebrew University and Yad Va’Shem.
  • “My Bukowiner”. The writer Nava Semel returns to the lives of her grand parents and to the place where her family originated.

Organizer: Dr. Ronit Fischer

Radautz Bukowinaer Young Men and Young Ladies Benevolent Association

From Marilyn Gelber comes this message and a gem of a photo:

I am attaching a group photo of the Radautz Landsmanschaft, meeting with the Jablonower Landsmanschaft, in March, 1909.
There seems to be some kind of presentation being made by the Jablonower L. to the Radautz L. – you can read it on the banner that they are holding in the center of the photo.  You have to magnify the photo, of course.
My grandfather, Emil Goldenberg (who listed his birthplace as Czernowitz) is just to the right of the banner, in the first row above the banner.  He must have been about 21 years old at the time.
If you have any other information about the Radautz Bukowinaer Young Men and Young Ladies Benevolent Association, I’d be interested to know where I can find it.  Thank you –
With kind regards,
Marilyn G. Gelber

Click on the photo to see an enlarged version:
Radautz Landsmanschaft, 1909_0001sm

1909 Photo from Marilyn Gelber – Radautz Bukowinaer Young Men and Young Ladies Benevolent Association

Searching for information: Regina Kiesler and Nathan Byk

Hi Everyone –  Greetings from Chicago.   I’ve been reading all of your emails,  and this is the first time I’ve posted.
My Great, great Grandfather and GGGM were from Czernowitz.   I cannot locate any birth certificates or birth info on either of them.   They moved to Vienna at some point where they both are buried in the Zentralfriedhof Cemetery.
From the obituaries below I’m hoping one of you may recognize them,  their children etc.   One of Nathan’s sons is Alexander Byk,  my  GGGrandfather.  He was born in Bojan,  Bukovina, in June, 1869 and was married in Brody.   He also moved to Vienna with his wife Friedericke Debora Byk (b.  1870).   Not sure if Nathan and Regina moved to Czernowitz after that but I’m stuck as far as genealogy goes.   Thanks for your help
Hetty Schimmel-Lima <halrph@sbcglobal.net>
Obituary of Nathan Byk (d. Vienna, 1916)

Obituary of Nathan Byk (d. Vienna, 1916)

Obituary of Regina Byk (born Kiesler)

Obituary of Regina Byk (born Kiesler)

Re: Ghostlike appearances; portraits on gravestones

Christian’s recent post about portraits seen on gravestones in the Czernowitz Jewish cemetery <https://vanishedworld.wordpress.com/2015/04/25/ghostlike-appearences/> reminded me that these portraits occur in New York City cemeteries as well.  Several years back I went searching for the tombstone of Sarah Silver at the Mt. Hebron Cemetery, Queens, New York.  Sarah was born in Radautz, and was a sister of my great grandmother, Hinde Schachter nee Brucker.  She lived in Montreal, then Cleveland, and died unexpectedly during a visit with another sister in New York City.  Her tombstone bears the only photo I’ve ever found of her.  See below.

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Czernowitz Cemetery Transcription Project

After too many years, the Cemetery database project is nearing completion. There are just about 3000 burials remaining to index. (For those who aren’t familiar with it, results are posted to The JewishGen Online Burial Registry at <http://www.jewishgen.org/databases/Cemetery/>.) Transcriber Noam Silberberg recently spotted an unusual monument in Area 102, recording the passing of Dr. Karl Nussenbaum, who died in a plane crash in 1938.  Does anyone remember or know anything about this event?214-1486_IMG

 

I’d be interested to know more!

Bruce Reisch

 

April 25, 2015: 21:00 ET:

Noam Silberberg send the following related information:

The plane was a Lockheed 14H Super Electra of the Polish LOT airline
flying on the Warsaw-Lwow-Czernowitz-Bucharest-Thessaloniki route. On
July 22nd, 1938 at around 17:40, it crashed after being struck by
lightning near Stulpicani, Suceava county. There were 14 people on
board, all killed.
 
Crew members were pilot Wladyslaw Kotarba, radio operator Zygmunt
Zarzycki and flight engineer Franciszek Panek.
On board were also two military pilots – Capt. Gnys and Capt
Waliszewski; aviator Olimpiusz Nartowski; Polish diplomat Edward
Gozdowski and Japanese military attache Col. Masakatsu Waka.
Other passengers were Dr. Lemuel Caro (Goldstein) from New York and
Bulgarian diplomat Radi Radev.
In Czernowitz boarded Dr. Isidor Bodea, director of the children’s
hospital in Czernowitz; Dr. Karl Nussenbaum; Capt. Gheorghe Ionescu
and Romanian composer and aviator Ionel Fernic.
Noam.
 
April 25, 2015 21:00 ET:
Irene Fishler shared additional information:
From Noam Silberberg’s very interesting comment I learned that on this
flight was also Dr. Isidor Bodea.
 
By chance, I have a photo I took at the Children’s Hospital main building
with a commemoration plaque on its wall. ( see below).
 
It reads , in Romanian: “Dr. Isidor Bodea ( 1866-1938) the first
chief-physician of the Children’s Hospital in Cernauti”
As far as I know Dr. Bodea was not Jewish.
 
If you think it’s worth, please post it on the Ehpes-Blog.
Thanks for everything you do,
 
Best regards,
Irene
Cz_Children'sHospital_MAy2011_658
Cz_Children'sHospital_May2011
April 25, 2015 21:30:
Ignacio Sternberg contributed the following:
Hello Bruce and Noam & Hardy

I am answering you from Caracas, Venezuela, regarding Bruce’s interest in Dr. Karl Nussenbaum. He was a cousin of mine.My mother’s mother (my GM ) was a NUSSENBAUM. The source of the information came from Claudia, daughter of Karl N. He studied medicine in Vienna. Anything else you need just write me. I think I have the best tree of the Nussenbaum’s !!!!! as told by them. (example below)
 
Individual Report for Kalman ( Karl ) Bubie Nussenbaum.jpg
April 27, 2015, New contribution from Mordecai Lapidot:
All I can contribute is just an account of a 5y+4 months year old ear-and-eye witness.
My parents and I usually spent a week or two in the summers before 1940 in Gurahumora, where my father’s cousins (the Apter family) lived.
I recall vividly that evening, in the summer of 1938, and that disaster. It was a typical summertime thunder-and-lightning strom night, and my parents and I stood at the window of our room, fascinated by the lightnings that lit the darkblue sky.
Suddenly we heard and saw a little plane in the sky, and after a few seconds there was another lightning, followed this time by a thunderous explosion. We saw suddenly people running in the streets and a few carriages passing quickly in a particular direction.
The next morning we learned from the neighbours that the plane had been struck by lightning and had crashed in some “nearby” wood. The site of the catastrophe had become a “celebrity” with many peasants from the villages around gathering to visit it.
I have no good explaination, but this is my only crystal-clear and vivid memory of the summers in Gurahumora (which is not too far from Stulpicani). The scene of the room we were in, as well as of the short period we stood at the window and the events that we saw and heard, was many years – and still is – clear and vividly imprinted as a frame before my eyes. I suppose the tragic catastrophic crash that I witnessed made an indelible impression on my mind, and the intact disquette is still there, the resolution not reduced by the nearly 77 years that have passed.
Shavua Tov
Mordecai
April 27, 2015, Additional information from Irene Fishler:
Hardy and Mordecai , congratulations to your fine memory !
Here is another victim of the crash: Fernic Ionel ( 1901-1938)
He was first an actor ,then a popular composer of light music ( over 400
tangoes, etc).
His great love was aviation and …parachute jumping.
After a bad accident, in 1936 he took the job of director of the Pilots
School ARPA in Czernowitz.
In June 1938 he wished very much to go to Bucharest to the funerals of Queen
Maria.
But, the Lot airplane crashed into the dark forests of Negrileasa , near
Stulpicani…
The story is here:
Regards,
Irene
Thank you everyone for filling in the details of this tragedy – all surfacing because of an inscription on a stone in the Czernowitz Jewish Cemetery.
Bruce Reisch
Geneva, New York

From Anne-Mette Prent of Norway – Her Czernowitz Connection


Just received today from Anne-Mette Prent of Norway, and I hope she will write soon to the list telling us more about the following documents.  Here is an abbreviated version of what she just wrote to me:

Hello Bruce,
A friend has helped me to scan some of the documents from my grandmother. Here are “ Heiratsurkunde”( 2 pages) “Trauungs-Matriken-Schein”( 2 pages), Lehrbefahigungs-Zeugnis”, and two pictures from Weissensee graveyard in Berlin. The poem on Karl Ernst`s stone, I am very anxious to know if anyone in the group knows anything about. I have asked Germanists here in Oslo, but it seems to be quite unknown to all. The inscription on my great-grandparents` stone is in Hebrew, and I have already sent you the German translation. All these documents are in German, my German is worse than my English, consequently, it`s been a job translating everything into Norwegian. But it has been rewarding! I got around 100 documents from The Archive, most of them in Norwegian. I also got papers from the German SS in connection with my uncle Karl Ernst, he commited suicide while being tortured in Berlin, since he was Jewish and a communist. It was in these papers I found that he was born in Czernowitz. The story of my grandmother is in Norwegian, to translate it into English, do you think that is worth it? It will take me weeks! But if you think the group is intterested I will do it. I think I owe her that.

Heiratsurkunde 50 Heiratsurkunde 51 Karl Ernst Matriken-Schein 1 Matriken-Schein 2 Olderforeldre Zeugnis

Book by Hedwig Brener – Just published!

From: Hartung-Gorre
Sent: Friday, March 06, 2015 3:09 PM
To: Brener, Hedwig
Subject: “Begegnungen mit Menschen und Städten” sind fertig
Liebe Frau Brenner,
gerade sind die fertig gedruckten Bücher aus der Druckerei eingetroffen.
Das Buch ist sehr, sehr schön geworden.
Mit herzlichen Grüßen und Wünschen zum Wochenende
[Google Translation:
The final printed books have just arrived from the printers.
The book is very, very nice.
With warm regards and wishes for the weekend,]
Ihre
Renate Gorre und Woflgang Hartung-Gorre
Hartung-Gorre Verlag
Inh.: Dr. Renate Gorre
Saentisblick 26
D-78465 Konstanz
Fon: +49 (0)7533 97227
Fax: +49 (0)7533 97228
www.hartung-gorre.de3866285248
Zum neuen Buch von Hedwig Brenner
„Begegnungen mit Menschen und Städten“
von Christel Wollmann-Fiedler, BerlinAuf  Menschen zugehen zu können ist eine Gabe, mit ihnen zu sprechen, von ihnen zu erfahren, eine Bereicherung des Lebens. Sich Jahrzehnte später an diese Begegnungen zu erinnern, eine Gnade!
Hedwig Brenner, die Erfinderin dieses neuen Buches, durchstreifte Städte vor unendlich vielen Jahren, begegnete zufällig in Parks und auf Plätzen alten Bekannten oder Unbekannten, die zu Freunden wurden. Die Schilderungen in diesem Buch sind nicht erfunden, erlebt und aufgeschrieben wurden sie von einer kommunikativen weltoffenen sechsundneunzigjährigen alten Dame, einer Czernowitzerin, eben Hedwig Brenner, wie bereits erwähnt. Geboren wurde die Schriftstellerin 1918 in der Bukowina, im deutschsprachigen Buchenland, das einst bis zum Ende des 1. Weltkrieges zur Donaumonarchie gehörte, dann zum Königreich Rumänien kam, 1945 gar zur Sowjetunion und seit 1990 zur Ukraine gehört. In einer liberalen jüdischen Familie wuchs Hedwig Brenner auf, ließ sich von der Vielfalt der Kulturen in ihrer Heimatstadt inspirieren. Auch sie erlebte die Diskriminierung und Verfolgung der jüdischen Bevölkerung in der Nazizeit, kam ins Getto in Czernowitz, überlebte die Gräuel, verließ die Heimat und nahm die Erinnerungen mit. Erst vor dreißig Jahren ist sie in der 3. Heimat, im Heiligen Land Israel, angekommen.
Neugierig und wissbegierig ist Hedwig Brenner seit der Kindheit, wie sie selbst zugibt, beobachtet mit Verve. Diese Beobachtungen und Begegnungen erzählt sie uns in ihrem neunten Buch. Reisen war, nein, ist ihre Leidenschaft. Erst vor einigen Monaten besuchte sie Berlin, hatte Lesungen, traf auch hier wiederum Menschen, die irgendwann ihren Weg kreuzten  und neue kamen hinzu.
Seinerzeit in Ploiesti im rumänischen Petrolgebiet in den Jahren 1945 bis 1982  erlebte Hedwig Brenner so manches während der Ceaucescuadministration. Reisen ins westliche Ausland, in „kapitalistische“ Länder, waren untersagt und somit eine Seltenheit. Hedwig Brenner eroberte das Herz des einen oder anderen, bekam einen Paß mit Stempel und reiste mit vier Dollar Taschengeld ins „feindliche“ Ausland zu Freunden und Verwandten nach London, Brüssel, Düsseldorf und anderswohin. Nur alleine durfte sie reisen, Ehemann und Söhne blieben als Pfand zuhause. Die kommunistische Regierung kontrollierte und reglementierte das Leben seiner Bürger. Erst später, von Israel aus, besuchte das Ehepaar Brenner gemeinsam Land und Leute in Europa und Nordamerika.
Bis ins Detail sind Hedwig Brenner diese Städte mit ihren Sehenswürdigkeiten und Schönheiten  gedanklich geblieben, die Namen der Menschen, der alten und neuen Freunde kramte sie aus der Gedankenschublade und schrieb sie in Haifa in Neve Sha’nan nieder.
Nehmen sie teil an den vergangenen Erlebnissen und Begegnungen dieser alten Dame, lassen Sie sich verführen an Orte und durchstreifen sie mit ihr Städte, die heute anders aussehen als damals, seien sie zu Gast bei Menschen, die Hedwig Brenner in ihren Erinnerungen schildert. Fantasie ist auch eine Gnade und eine Gabe!

Israel..3-4-14 1663

Hedwig Brenner and her son Michael from the USA

Pre WWI photos from Czernowitz Staatsgymnasium (via Ann Perry)

Dear Czernowitzers,

Ann Perry, a new list member from Ireland, would like to share these photos with you.  Below is a note she wrote with more details.

Bruce Reisch

“Back in March of this year I  was clearing out a room in my parents’ house in Gloucestershire, England. This room had long been used as a storage room/oubliette and was crammed with old stuff accumulated over decades. Here I found an old suitcase which my father must have brought from my grandparents house after they died in the ’70s. The case was full of family photographs and curiously, two large photos from pre WW1 Czernovitz. One photograph is a ‘graduation ‘ montage  made up of individual, miniature photos of the students and teachers from a class at the Czernovitz Staatsgymnasium in 1911, with names under each miniature. The other photograph is of most of the same bunch of students and teachers takenCzernowitzGymnasiumclassphoto002 CzernowitzGymnasiumclassphoto004
a few years earlier. I have no idea how these photographs came to be in my grand-parents possession.  Research into my family background has not yet revealed any  Czernovitz conection.
I’ve joined the list because I want to share these photographs from pre-1st World War Czernowitz. My knowledge of european history isn’t great so I hadn’t heard of Czernowitz before finding these pictures. As I might have said already, as far as I know, my father’s family were from generations of modest, rural, english, (mostly) working class people centred around Staffordshire and Gloucestershire in England. I have no reason to suppose that any of my ancestors were educated at the Czernowitz Staatgymnasium!  A mystery then. Nevertheless, on seeing these images for the 1st time, I felt compelled to find out more about Czernowitz, the history of the time and the appalling horror of what came later. There is a name (and address in Vienna) stamped on the back of the group photograph, of a man who graduated from the Czernowitz Gymnasim in 1912. From this and various database sites I have managed to trace this man’s daughter who came to England as a refugee with the ‘Kindertransport’ programme sometime in the late 1930s and who is now living in North West London. With the help of the Association of Jewish Refugees, the original photographs will be returned to her shortly. Meanwhile, I think that these photographs could be of interest to Czernovitzers everywhere. So, here they are………………………Best wishes to all, Ann Perry,  Ireland.”
1911-1912_531911-1912_541911-1912_551911-1912_56

Czernowitz Imperial-Royal I. State Gymnasium Graduates 1911/1912 as per
http://czernowitz.blogspot.de/2009/03/the-imperial-and-royal-state-gymnasium.html

1.Staatsgymnasium_1910-11_8.A_KlasseAdditional list of students for class pictured above, generously supplied by Irene Fishler!

1.Staatsgymnasium_1910-11_8.A_Klasse1.Staatsgymnasium_1910-11_8.A_Klasse