Category Archives: Books

The Theodor Kramer Prize 2013 Awarded to Margit Bartfeld-Feller

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The Theodor Kramer Prize of the Theodor Kramer Society is awarded to authors writing in a context of resistance or exile. The Holocaust memoirs of Margit Bartfeld-Feller, born on March 31, 1923 in Czernowitz, deported in 1941 to Siberia and emigrated to Israel in 1990 became known to a broad public. Margit Bartfeld-Feller gets in line with other famous prize winners, some of them from Czernowitz, such as

2001: Stella Rotenberg
2002: Alfredo Bauer und Fritz Kalmar
2003: Fred Wander
2004: Michael Guttenbrunner
2005: Georg Stefan Troller
2006: Milo Dor (postum) und Robert Sommer
2007: Jakov Lind
2008: Tuvia Rübner
2009: Ilana Shmueli und Josef Burg
2010: Elazar Benyoëtz
2011: Ruth Klüger
2012: Eva Kollisch
2013: Manfred Wieninger

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Article on the prize award ceremony, published in the Decemer 2013 edition of Zwischenwelt

selmal Kopie
„Ich möchte leben“
Selma Meerbaum-Eisinger, 1924 – 1942

Laudatio für Selma Meerbaum-Eisinger
und Margit Bartfeld-Feller
und Rezension
von Christel Wollmann-Fiedler, Berlin

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Lecture by Prof. Peter Rychlo

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Dear friends,
On Tuesday we went to a lecture held by Professor Rychlo from the
University of Czernowitz, from the beginnings of the city, its history,
its culture, with special emphasis to the Jewish literary scene,
starting with Margul-Sperber, Kittner, Rose Ausländer, and continuing
until the younger generation, i.e. Weissglas, Celan, the Yiddish poets
Itzhik Manger and Eliezer Steinbarg.
The lecture took place in a beautiful book-store, with a huge variety of
classical and modern literature. Two days later, Peter Rychlo continued
his tour with a similar lecture at the Jewish Community Center, which he
held in Russian, probably to a public of many ex-Czernowitzers who
emigrated in the past 20 years to Berlin.
Gabriele

Where has Schiller gone?

From Marion Tauschwitz

Visiting Czernowitz in September 2013 our guide took us the granite base of the former Schiller-monument that had used to stand in front of the theatre before young romanian nationalists carried it away in 1920. Schiller has not been found again – but the base was taken to the small park in (former) Maria-Theresiengasse (behind “Deutsches Haus”) – where it still is. Nobody seems to care.

Schillercanvas Kopie

Unveiling of the Schiller Monument and its reception in the contemporary press:

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“Die Gartenlaube”, Nr. 27, 1907: “Das Schiller-Denkmal in Czernowitz. (Zu der untenstehenden Abbildung.) Es ist ein erfreuliches Zeichen für die noch heute unverminderte Wertschätzung des Deutschesten unserer Dichter, daß in der gemischtsprachigen Stadt Czernowitz in der Bukowina der 150. Geburtstag Schillers am 10. November v. J. durch die Enthüllung eines Schillerdenkmals gefeiert worden ist. Der Schöpfer des Denkmals, dessen Ausführung auf den Antrag Dr. Anton Norsts hin vom Gemeinderat einstimmig beschlossen wurde, ist der Bildhauer Georg Leisek, der auch den schönen, figurenreichen Fries des Wiener Zentralfriedhofs ‘Eingang in die Ewigkeit’ geschaffen hat. Das Denkmal selbst, aus karrarischem Marmor gehauen, steht in einer Brunnenanlage vor dem Stadttheater und zeigt den Dichterfürsten auf hohem Sockel stehend, schlicht und hoheitsvoll zugleich.

Die Enthüllung des Schillerdenkmals by Bukowinaer Post, November 12, 1907.

Die Enthüllung des Schillerdenkmals by Czernowitzer Allgemeine Zeitung, November 12, 1907.

The Schiller Monument had been standing in front of the city theater since 1907, but later it did not fit into the Romanian national policy on Bukovina, and due to the decree of the 8th Infantry Division commander – general Zadik, the monument was displaced in 1922 into a closed courtyard of the German house, and after the Second World War the figure of the poet was  destroyed and only the pedestal remains.

From Bukovina via Mechelen/Belgium to Auschwitz • 1942-1944

As a result of the meticulous and thorough research of the Kazerne Dossin Memorial, Museum and Documentation Centre on Holocaust and Human Rights, Mecheln-Auschwitz 1942-1944 is a trilingual series (Dutch, French and English) of four books dealing with the persecution and deportation of Jews and gypsies from the SS-Sammellager in the Dossin Barracks in Mechelen to Auschwitz. Only a few miles away fom the SS Camp Fort Breendonk, the Dossin Barracks were used from 1942 until 1944 as a transit camp for Jews and gypsies from Belgium and the North of France, assembled here to set out on their journey of no return to Auschwitz. The first part of the series presents the reader with a historical overview of the racist and anti-Semitic persecutions in Belgium and the North of France. It focuses on the complex and poignant story of the action, reaction and interaction between occupier, occupied and persecuted, confronted with the final solution. It also relates the history of each individual transport.


Parts two and three show us the portraits of 18,522 out of 25,259 deportees, wagon by wagon and transport by transport. These pictures literally give the genocide a face. Among these portraits we succeeded to identify 97 out of 104 deportees, who had their roots in Bukovina. Leon Messing, born on 12 June 1927 in Czernowitz, was 15 years old and the youngest deportee from Bukovina on the date of departure of Transport 10 on 15 December 1942. The oldest deportee from Bukovina was Abraham Moses Reder, born on 17 August 1866 in Czernowitz, i. e. he was 76 years old on the date of deportation on Transport 11 of 26 September 1942. Just like my uncle Maximilian Hauster, born on 26 November 1909 in Czernowitz, deported with Transport 19 of 14 January 1943, neither would return in 1945.

Part four contains the revised and corrected alphabetical list of names of the victims, together with biographical information about their personal fate. We have excerpted from this database those 104 deportees, who originated from Bukovina and compiled a listing in alphabetical order, which is available for download as PDF file by clicking just here or on the picture below.

http://hauster.de/data/Mecheln.pdf

Only two women and two men out of 104 deportees survived after 8 May 1945: Sara Adler and Theresia Breitner from Czernowitz, Wilhelm Berler from Nepolokoutz and Juda Meier Fleischer from Siret. 96,2% of the people originated from Bukovina deported on these in total 28 Transports were wiped out.

The documentary Transport XX to Auschwitz by Karen Lynne, Richard Bloom and Michel van der Burg is illustrating the inhuman and unimaginable suffering of the Jews and gypsies from Belgium during the Holocaust.

The Suffering of the Deportees in Transnistria

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Click on the front cover above to download the booklet!

I succeeded to acquire a very rare book: The Suffering of the Deportees in Transnistria by Fabius Ornstein, edited by the Association of the Former Deportees to Transnistria immediately after WW2 still in 1945. On Fabius Ornstein’s life-saving activity in Transnistria we learn from the Jewish Telegraphic Agency report dated July 26, 1943 as follows:

“Thousands of Jews in Transnistria Have Not Seen Bread for Months, Hundreds Starving
Thousands of Jewish deportees confined in the various ghettos which the Rumanian occupation authorities have established in Transnistria, the Rumanian-administered section of the Russian Ukraine, have not seen any bread for months and the vast majority of them are threatened with starvation unless some assistance is forthcoming soon, according to private advices received here today. In the township of Copaigorod about 2,220 Jews are confined at present, the report discloses. Under the leadership of one of the deportees, Fabius Ornstein, the Jewish community has organized a free kitchen which has so far managed to distribute about 500 meals twice daily. These ‘meals,’ however, almost always consist of potatoes and nothing else. […]“

Emperor Franz Joseph Jubilee Orphanage for Israelites in Czernowitz

IMG_0354Click on the front cover to download a PDF version of the booklet!

Hugo Gold, History of the Jews in the Bukowina, The Oldest Societies, Institutions and Organizations of Bukovina by Prof. Dr. Erich Neuborn, Tel Aviv, p. 153: “The opening of the Jewish Orphanage, took place in 1904/1905. Already in 1898 on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the reign of Emperor Franz Joseph I, the idea of building an orphanage in Czernowitz was discussed and an executive committee was formed to raise the necessary funds. Members of this committee were among others, Markus and Rachel Schlaefer, Benjamin, David and Jetti Tittinger, Loebel and Cecilie Salter , Josef Steiner, Jakob and Toni Gold, and Dr. Benno and Fanni Straucher It wasn’t until 1904, that the orphanage on Franzosgasse was completed when the Heinrich and Josefine Wagner endowment of 662,928 crowns was activated and used for the construction of the orphanage. The festive opening of the orphanage was attended by the Austrian Minister President, Dr. Ernest von Koerber, the Bukovina State President, Prinz Konrad Hohenlohe and the Greek Orthodox Archbishop and Metropolitan, Dr. Vladimir von Repta. In 1913 the orphanage was legalized for the second time as the Emperor Franz Josef Jubilee Orphanage Foundation for Israelites in Czernowitz and latter was administered by the Community. The mission of the orphanage was to raise Jewish orphans of both sexes and to train them for future employment.”
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