Author Archives: Edgar Hauster

The ESJF European Jewish Cemeteries Initiative

The ESJF European Jewish Cemeteries Initiative was set up as a German-based non-profit organization in early 2015 with the core objective of protecting and preserving Jewish cemetery sites across the European continent through delineation of cemetery boundaries and the construction of cemetery walls and locking gates.

Funded in 2015 through a pilot grant of 1,000,000 euros from the government of the Federal Republic of Germany, the ESJF is now working on some 30 individual protection projects in four European countries. 33 cemeteries were completed in 2015, i. e. 9,888 meters of fencing; over 60 sites were completed by the end of 2016, that is 11,876 meters of fencing.

Read more at: http://esjf-cemeteries.org/

The Radautz Vital Records Index Database 1857 – 1929

During the summer of 2016, I traveled to Rădăuţi, Romania, and visited the Archives in the Town Hall. After some negotiations and with a little bit of luck, I was given permission to photograph Jewish vital records for the Rădăuţi, Solca, and Vicov communities of Bukovina; see my blog posting “Books of Seven Seals in Rădăuți and Suceava”. The first database resulting from these efforts is The Radautz Marriage Index Database.

http://www.reisch-family.net/SevenSealsLukePHP/SevenSealsMarriages.html

Every society enlarges itself through marriages. When you are tracing your family history, this information can offer one of the most common missing links – a maiden name. All marriage records include the full names of the bride and groom as well as the marriage date and other additional information, such as the names and birthplaces of each individual’s parents. As part ONE of an ongoing project – birth & death records will come soon – The Radautz Marriage Index Database is a rich web resource for Jewish heritage in Bukovina. It contains over 3,000 properly indexed marriage records for the period 1870-1929. Copies of family marriage records are freely available upon request.

http://www.reisch-family.net/SevenSealsRadautzDeathIndex/SearchForm.html

NEW: Even if final, but not trivial at all, death records are among the most important of all vital records. Death Indices typically contain the birth date of a person, date of death, cause of death and other details that are helpful in genealogical and historical research. As part TWO of our ongoing project, The Radautz Death Index Database is a rich web resource for Jewish heritage in Bukovina. It contains over 7,500 properly indexed death records for the period 1857-1929; some data refer back to births as early as the middle of the 18th century. Copies of family death records are freely available upon request.

Whether you are looking for an ancestor or trying to find a lost classmate, these records can provide a link to vital information and point you toward important clues. The free search provided by The Radautz Vital Records Index Database 1857-1929 can jumpstart your research project. Please check it out and let us have your comments…!

bukovina.records@gmail.com

Our thanks go to Martina Lelgemann, who took care of the transcription, and to Bruce Reisch, who developed The Radautz Marriages search engine and website. Lucas Reisch provided php search engine expertise.

Czernowitz Puzzle

Kateryna Barylo: «Die Wächter der Vergangenheit»

Wjatscheslaw Oblotschynskyi: «Hinauf oder hinunter, halt ein mitunter»

Anar Alijew: «Mann und Frau»

Switlana Bezwerchnja: «Tritt ein in die Häuser aus blühenden Wänden»

Laura Frank, Matteo Ricci: «Auf dem Markt»

Illja Sturko: Vergänglichkeit «Der Tempel des heiligsten Herbstherzens»

Sebastian Hofmüller: «Inside of Czernowitz»

Pawlo Rychliwskyj: «Zufälligkeiten»

Steve Naumann: «Die besten Stehplätze»

Alina Mitran: «Stufen im Glockenturm aufwärts und abwärts»

Anya Styopina: «Czernowitzer Katzen»

Jan Piontkowskyj: «Blick in zwei Richtungen»

Maksym Lungu: «Gewöhnliche Dinge wahrnehmen»

Wolodymyr Hryziw: «Laternen in der nachtdunklen Stadt»

Courtesy: http://gedankendach.org/

The Enigmatic Lady on a Photographic Plate from Bukovina

Discover “Adrian’s Magnificent Chaos En Route to Suceava”!

2016 Hilde Domin Prize for Literature in Exile awarded to Edgar Hilsenrath

Edgar Hilsenrath: “The city of Heidelberg’s 2016 Hilde Domin Prize for Literature in Exile has been awarded to German-Jewish writer Edgar Hilsenrath (born 1926). The accolade is awarded every three years to writers who live in exile in Germany, or who have been affected by the issue as descendants of exiles, who tackle the theme of exile in their literary work and who publish in German. In granting the award, the jury stated, ‘In Edgar Hilsenrath, we are honouring a writer whose life’s work has been to communicate the experience of exile through original and daring literature. His novels, which are driven by bleak, dark powers of imagination, are attempts to find ways to speak of the horrific acts humans commit against each other through various forms of the grotesque. His stories are best symbolised as laughter that gets caught in your throat – somewhere between cynicism, sorrow and assertiveness.’”

Marion Tauschwitz: I had the chance and pleasure to talk to him and to give him my biography on Selma Merbaum, he was very interested in. He and Selma could have met at Moghilew-Podolks where Selma stayed for a short while before being deported to cariera de piatra.

The Boyanner Rabbi

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Ian Beitel / ianbeitel@sympatico.ca: “I believe that this building was the home of the Boyanner Rabbi. The rabbi arrived in Czernowitz from Vienna. He was the son of the first Boyanner rabbi who fled to Vienna after the Russians invaded Boyan at the beginning of WW1. Does this building still exist? His shul was adjacent to his home. Would anyone have photographs of the synagogue and of the street that it is/was on? What was the name of the street? Your help is greatly appreciated.

Eat In Good Health! Czernowitzer Challah

It Is Time

Today the curtain falls at the 40th edition of the Duisburg Documentary Film Festival. It is one of the important festivals for German-language documentary film, rich in tradition and valued by visitors for its laid-back atmosphere. This year the festival took place under the motto “Es ist Zeit” [It is time] between 7 – 13 November 2016. Selected knowingly or not by the festival organizers, “It is time” is at the same time the concluding line for Paul Celan’s poem “Corona” as translated by John Felstiner in Paul Celan: Poet Survivor Jew. Beyond the festival’s motto, two films are directly or indirectly related to Czernowitz.

The Dreamed Ones by Ruth Beckermann, whose father was born in Czernowitz.

Festival Director Werner Ružička, Ruth Beckermann

Landstück by Volker Koepp, the author/director of “Mr. Zwilling and Mr. Zuckermann”, “This Year in Czernowitz” and “In Sarmatien”.

Festival Director Werner Ružička, Volker Koepp

Literary Supplement: Corona by Paul Celan, translated by John Felstiner in Paul Celan: Poet Survivor Jew.

Autumn nibbles its leaf right from my hand: we’re friends.
We shell time from the nuts and teach it to walk:
time turns back into its shell.

In the mirror is Sunday,
in dream goes sleeping,
the mouth speaks true.

My eye goes down to my lover’s loins:
we gaze at each other,
we say dark things,
we love one another like poppy and memory,
we slumber like wine in the seashells,
like the sea in the moon’s blood-beam.

We stand at the window embracing, they watch from the street:
It’s time people knew!
It’s time the stone consented to bloom,
a heart beat for unrest.
It’s time it came time.

It is time.

Personally, I do have a high affinity for Paul Celan’s poem Corona. Read more at: “John Cage, Paul Celan, John Felstiner and Edgar Hauster in Halberstadt”.