Chudei Jewish Memorial and Cemetery – provided by Philip Moses of Vancouver, Canada – 6/2018

This post documents the site at Chudei, (also known as Ciudin by the Jews in 1940) Ukraine (formerly Romania) based on a visit by me, Philip Moses of Vancouver, Canada and my brother Richard Moses of Ottawa, Canada on May 10, 2018.

There is a memorial on the site of the mass murder, located about a block or two from the town centre, next to a Primary School.

We were transported by 2 guides, originating In Suceava Roumania and driving to the border where we walked into Ukraine and met a Ukrainian driver. The border has long waits and therefore the idea to walk across the border both ways.

The road from Storozhynets direction is in much better shape, and although Google shows the more direct route as shorter time-wise, it is in very bad condition and actually takes longer. So, we recommend the longer route.

Not far from the centre of the village is a school for young children. Just behind the school there is a playground and next to it is a large memorial with a base in the shape of a Magen David.

The Memorial

The school. In 1941 – courthouse and jail

In that school site, in 1941 there was a courthouse and jail. Sometime between July 3-5, 1941, the 650 Jews of the town were locked into the main jail. Then our grandfather, aunts and uncles and cousins were shot and thrown into a mass grave behind the building.

My father Asiu Moses was hiding in the woods and escaped. His full story can be found at https://www.jewishgen.org/yizkor/Chudyn/chu001.html

The original Jewish cemetery of Chudei is out of the village along the road, in the same direction from town as the memorial, a kilometre or two opposite to the Christian cemetery. It is very overgrown and many of the tombstones would require a large cutting tool to chop down the overgrowth. The writing on many of the stones is difficult or impossible to discern. Many are in better shape and identifiable.

Banila Czernowitz Ropcha and Storozhinetz [Eng] – 9/2017 – by Naftali Zloczower

Roots trip to Bukovina

My name is Naftali Zloczower, and both my parents, Dvora (Dora) Schneider Zloczower and Menachem (Maniu) Zloczower, were born, raised, and lived in Storojinets (Storozhynets), Bukovina (today in Ukraine), until the second world war, as did many members of my family and relatives.

In September of this year, 2017, my wife, Nava and I took a roots trip to Bukovina, visiting Czernowits (Chernivtsi), Storojinets, Banila (Banyliv-Pidhirni) and Rupcze (Ropche). We visited Lvov (Lviv) and Zloczow (Zolochiv – probably the source of my family name), but they are in Galicia, and not in Bukovina.

In Chernivtsi, we visited the archive and were presented with 3 files of Romanian records listing Jews who lived in the Storojinets Ghetto in August 1941, before they were herded away to the Transnistria camps. When time ran out, just before closing time, a file with records from Banila was brought to us, but, even though we were allowed to stay after the normal closing time, we did not have enough time to go over the Banila file. In the Storojinets files we found listings of all the members of my mother’s family, including my mother, her sisters and brother, and her parents, as well as listings of many other family members, relatives, and acquaintances. I photographed pages that included names of relatives and familiar last names.

In Storojinets, we found the house of my mother’s family and, we are pretty sure, the house of my father’s family. We also found and photographed the Great Temple on what was Temple Gasse, and the school were my mother and aunts learned.

We visited the Jewish cemeteries in Stotojinets and in Banila, In Banila, we found my great-grandfather, Yossel Zloczower’s grave and the grave of his brother (most probably), Peretz Zloczower, whom I did not know before. In the Storojinets Cemetery we found graves of my maternal great-grandparents, Abraham and Scheindel Schneider, and graves of quite a few family members and relatives. I photographed tombstones with familiar last names.

I wrote a report of our roots trip in Hebrew, and I will write one in English, as well.

See below the link to the trip report.

Roots – 9-2017

See below pictures from Banila Cemetery:
The house nearby and the trail to the cemetery.

The tombstones peeping from the bushes

Tombstones and Zloczower family members tombstones

Pictures from Storozhynetz Cemetery

Pictures from Banila

Pictures from Storozhynets

The old synagogue… serves now as a gym… better than previously being a gypsy market…

Banila Czernowitz Ropcha and Storozhinetz [Heb] – 9/2017 – by Naftali Zloczower

שמי נפתלי זלוצ’ובר ושני הוריי, מנחם זלוצ’ובר ודבורה (דורה) שניידר זלוצ’ובר נולדו וגדלו בסטרוז’ינץ עד מלחמת העולם השנייה. משפחת סבי, אביו של אבי מבנילה ומשפחת סבתי, אם אמי, רוזה הולינגר מרופצ’ה. כך שכל משפחתי, בדורות האחרונים, ממחוז סטרוז’ינץ בבוקובינה.

בספטמבר האחרון (2017) אשתי, נאוה, ואני ערכנו טיול שורשים בצ’רנוביץ, בסטרוז’ינץ, בבנילה וברופצ’ה. בארכיון בצ’רנוביץ גילינו שנמצאים שם תיקים בהם רשימות של יהודי בוקובינה, כל ישוב בנפרד, אשר הוכנו על ידי הרומנים הפשיסטים אחרי כיבוש מחדש של בוקובינה מהרוסים, אחרי הקמת הגטאות, ולקראת הובלת יהודי בוקובינה למחנות טרנסניסטריה. בשלושה תיקים של רשימות יהודי סטרוז’ינץ מצאנו רשומים של אמי ומשפחתה ורבים מבני משפחתי וקרובי משפחה שנלקחו לטרנסניסטריה. צילמתי את הדפים בתיקים שהכילו שמות של בני משפחה ומכרים וגם כאלו של בעלי שמות משפחה זהים לשמות בני משפחתנו הרחבה ומכרים.

ביקרנו גם בבתי העלמין היהודים בבנילה ובסטרוז’ינץ. בבנילה מצאנו את קברו של סבא-רבא שלי יוסף זלוצ’ובר ושל אחיו, שלא ידעתי על קיומו, פרץ זלוצ’ובר.

בבית העלמין בסטרוז’ינץ מצאתי את קבריהם של סבא –רבא וסבתא-רבתא שלי, אברהם שניידר ורוזה שניידר לבית הולינגר, כמו גם קברים של בני משפחה אחרים ומכרים.

הכנתי את הדו”ח המצורף ושלחתי אותו לבני משפחתי ומכרים שנמצאים בארץ, כולל דודתי, אחות אמי, ציפורה שניידר שטרן, ובן דודה של אמי, ישראל דורון שניידר, אשר שמותיהם מופיעים בתיקי ארכיון צ’רנוביץ והם עדיין נמצאים אתנו ופעילים.

יש לי צילומים רבים של דפי רשימות היהודים מארכיון צ’רנוביץ, תמונות מבתי הקברות, כולל תמונות של מצבות שניתן לקרוא את החרוט עליהן, ותמונות כלליות מצ’רנוביץ, סטרוז’ינץ, בנילה ורופצ’ה.

הקישור שלהלן מכיל את סיכום הביקור ותמונות.

Roots – 9-2017

תמונות מבית העלמין בבנילה

הבית והשביל המוליך לבית העלמין

מצבות מציצות מבין השיחים

מצבות של בני משפחת זלוצ’ובר

בית העלמין בסטורוזינץ

תמונות מבנילה

תמונות מסטרוז’נץ

בית הכנסת הישן. כעת אולם ספורט, טוב יותר משוק צועני שהיה קודם

Shargorod Memorial – 8/2017 – by Josef (Julku) Klein

This memorial was erected at the Shargorod Cemetery. It was the initiative of and funding by the engineer Mr. Rubin (Bubby) Laufman, a native of Kimpolung, in memory of his father Zeev (Wilhelm) Laufman and his grandmother Sarah and his grandfather Joseph, and not less important, to the Jewish victims of the Holocaust from the communities of Kimpolung-Bukovina and the surrounding area, who were deported to Transnistria, to the Shargorod ghetto, during World War II, where they perished from illnesses, cold, hunger and endless marches in Ukranian roads. Some of them were buried on the site as individuals, but most of them were buried in a mass grave in the Shargorod cemetery.

Here is an article (in German) written by Mr. Klein and 3 pictures taken during the dedication ceremony.

Shargorod monument

Dr. M. A. Becker – Urkivcy (Yurkivka) Mass grave and murder site – July 2017

Dr. Becker visited Yurkivka in 7/2017 in search of the murder site of his father Hermann Zwi Hersch Becker and 12 other Jews who fled from the working camp Tulcin (about 24 km from Yurkivka).
One person with the name Mr. Ritter survived the shooting and told this story.
The murder took place on the 11th of July 1943.
Further he searched for the mass-grave monument of the Jews murdered in 1941 and 1942.
He was able to locate both: the monument and the place assumed to be the murder site.

Here is the sign to Yurkivcy (Yurkivka).

In the picture below are Yana (right) – the Mayor of Yurkivka – and Natalia (left) accompanied us finding the places in the forest. (in the middle is Ofer Becker).

The following map depicts where the murder site is:

The following picture show the mass grave monument of the Yurkivka Jews murdered in 1941 and 1942.

The following document (in Romanian) is the proof of the murder on 11 July 1943. It is taken from the book Matatias Carp (1946-1948). „Cartea neagră – Suferințele evreilor din România 1940-1944” (3 volume cu ilustratii . Page 299).

http://www.survivors-romania.org/pdf_doc/cartea_neagra_3.pdf

Washkoutz/Vashkivtsi Cemetery – by Mark Wiznitzer – May 2017 – NEW

VASHKIVTSI III: Wiznitzer Family Cemetery Project Report – May 2017

The cemetery entrance is located about 3000 feet west of the town center, on the road to Banyliv and Vyzhnytsya (Wiznitz), at Google maps coordinates
48.390653. 25.506047, on the right (north) side of the road. It is surrounded by a grey wooden fence. There is no street sign or gate. The cemetery can be accessed from an unfenced opening off a dirt road on the east side of the cemetery. See the last paragraph of this report regarding a mass grave at a separate location. The present population of Vashkivtsi is 5,430, and there are no known Jewish residents.

Officials/Persons Associated with the Jewish Cemetery:

Mayor of Vashkivtsi: Mykola Perch (050) 560 2513, municipal office in town.

Jewish Representative, Vyzhnytsya Raion: Alexandr Tauscher (097) 729 1119, Wiznitz.

Caretaker: Ivan Kniazkiy (097) 704 5492, lives in house adjacent to cemetery.

Wiznitzer Family Project Coordinator: Mark Wiznitzer 1-571-277-7248 (lives in USA)

Local Rabbi: Menachem Mendel Glitzenstein, Chabad Jewish Community of Chernovtsi, (037) 585 192.

The descendants and family members of four Wiznitzer brothers born in Vashkivtsi (formerly called Waschkoutz am Cheremosh) travelled to Ukraine in October 2010 to clear the Jewish cemetery where their grandmother was buried in 1914. With the encouragement of then-mayor Mikhailo Sidor and help of local laborers recruited by Alexander Tauscher, the Wiznitzer family cleared the Jewish cemetery of decades of dense vegetation that had made access to most graves inaccessible, and left some trees to convey a park-like setting. The team photographed and catalogued the graves uncovered, ordered the repair of the perimeter fence, installed a commemorative plaque in English and Ukranian on a boulder provided by the town. The family also made arrangements for and finances the ongoing semi-annual clearing of vegetation. The current mayor, Mykola Perch, has been supportive of the project’s continued care for the property.

The Jewish cemetery of Vashkivtsi contains over 845 stones in varying condition, with considerable erosion due to the soft stone, weather and growth of moss. Many stones are totally or largely illegible. Most markers have traditional inscriptions and Hebrew names, although many stones include German, Romanian and more recently Cyrillic names and text. There is widespread use in the older sections of traditional Jewish symbols. Several stones identify the deceased from other nearby towns. A couple of stones from the late 20th Century included a crucifix, but at least one of these has been replaced since 2010. While there may have been some vandalism in the past, most of fallen or tilting stones appear to have been the victim of soft soil conditions and/or tree roots.

The project created a catalogue of graves using alphabetized rows from west to east, and numbered graves from north to south. The clearing operation uncovered a path in the older section on the Western side, now cut off by the fence and trees, that entered from the main road and originally separated males from females. Since its clearing, the cemetery has been included in at least one organized Jewish heritage tour. Most visitors are tourists from Israel and other countries. During the clearing operation, a Christian woman from a nearby town came to the cemetery. She did not know anyone buried there, but regularly visited because the souls there did not have relatives locally to come and pray for them; she considered the cemetery project an answer to her prayers. We also learned that some local townspeople have come to the cemetery over the years to find solace in difficult times.

Visitors are encouraged to come to the cemetery in the early morning, when the lighting and shadows highlight the serene beauty of the place. The Wiznitzers found the grave of their grandmother Rachel Wiznitzer on the second day of the project’s clearing operation, coinciding with the birthday of their matriarch’s youngest granddaughter.

Vashkivtsi Mass Grave: A mass grave for some two dozen Jews murdered in 1941 is located to the eastern outskirts of Vashkivtsi, in a dense grove of trees at the intersection of the road leading to the Carpathian foothills and in sight of the Holy Anino Monastery. There is a stone marker with Hebrew inscription, but the route to the site is unmarked and difficult to find. It is not maintained and surrounded by trash.

The information about the Vashkivtsi Cemetery was submitted to JOWBR. The 2 files in the links below have the information.

Vashkivtsi jowbrsubmission
UKR-07484

Pictures of the headstones (847 pictures) were taken and are provided hereafter. The pictures are numbered (starting from 847 all the way to 1) and correspond to the headstone numbers in the above jowbrsubmission XLS file.

Note: People interested in documentation, the only known record of births and deaths for Vashkivtsi covers 1918-1928 and is located in the federal archives in Chernivtsi.
847 846

845 844

843 842

841 840

8 7 6

5 4

3 2

Murafa Ghetto – by Sara Rosen, Phd. – April 2017

Mrs. Sara Rosen has researched processes in Ghettos in Transnistria.
Her articles provided hereafter (One in English and one in Hebrew) deal with the Murafa Ghetto and are provided here with her permission. Sara, thank you!

SURVIVING IN MURAFA GHETTO: A CASE STUDY OF LIFE IN THE GHETTOS IN TRANSNISTRIA

The paper presents the life of Jewish families in the ghetto of Murafa in northern Transnistria. The main research question is: How can one evaluate the importance of the interrelationship between the communal organization and the family unit to the efforts of Jews to endure ghetto life? The hypothesis of the paper is that the family unit was central to the ability to survive and that the transformations undergone by families were a reflection of both difficulties and opportunities of the family unit under extreme conditions. Various factors impacting on the family unit will be examined, including communal organization, the position of the family in the social system of the ghetto, the economic situation of the family, the level of mutual support among family members, role change in the family, and different patterns of interaction between family members.

This is the first study dedicated to this particular ghetto in Transnistira, with its population of 4,500. The research is based on primary sources from the ghetto, including formal archival materials of the authorities, personal letters, journals and memoirs, and oral histories. The analysis will draw on the theories of sociology as they relate to the structure and conduct of families in everyday life as well as life under extreme pressure. The study findings will provide new insights to understanding life in this ghetto and may offer a comparative approach to everyday life in East European ghettos under German occupation.

SURVIVING IN MURAFA GHETTO: A CASE STUDY OF ONE GHETTO IN TRANSNISTRIA Murafa Ghetto 14.7

The Hebrew document: יחיד, משפחה וקהילה: חקר מקרה להישרדות בגטו מורפה בטרנסניסטריה
גטו מורפה

Djurin Ghetto – by Sara Rosen, Phd. – April 2017

Mrs. Sara Rosen has researched processes in Ghettos in Transnistria.
Her paper provided hereafter deal with the Djurin Ghetto and is provided here with her permission. Sara, thank you!

Ghetto Djurin in Transnistria through the lenses of Kunstadt Diary

Djurin is located about 45 kilometers northeast of the city of Mogilev, about 25 km south of Shargorod. Before the outbreak of the second WW, the local Jewish community numbered some 2,000 people. The Jews lived in very great poverty. Notably Rabbi Herschel Karalnik was the respected leader of Jews in the town.

At the outbreak of the war all men were drafted into the Red Army including the Jews. In town remained only the elderly, the sick, women and children, about 1,000 people. Date of occupation by the German and Romanian armies: July 22^nd , 1941. From the fall of 1941, the Romanians ruled Djurin.

The first deportees arrived in Djurin in September 1941 from Bessarabia. They arrived after a long weeks of wondering from camp to camp. Those deported Jews were housed in the synagogue and most of them died shortly after arrival. From the end of October of that year to January 1942 hundreds of deportees, arrived in Djurin ghetto. Most of them were brought from Bucovina, and others north of Moldova (Dorohoi) .

Inspired by Rabi Karalnik, local Jews welcomed the deportees with open arms although the locals themselves were very poor. 8- 10 persons crowded in one room. The homes of local Jews were able to receive more than two-thirds of them and gave those blankets and household items. About 1,000 people did not have a place; they were housed in barns and warehouses.

This paper is focusing on the reality of the new life in which the Jews deported to Djurin ghetto found themselves, as Kunstadt wrote in his Diary. The paper describes the local Jews and the relationship between them and the deportees, as well as the non-Jewish environment outside the ghetto and the relationships forged with those outsiders. All of this as it emerges from this diary.

See in the link: Kunstadt – Sarah Rosen

The Synagogue of the Sadagora Rebbe – November 2016 – Collected by Baruch Eylon

In early November 2016 it was announced that the restoration work on the Sadagora synagogue of the Ruzhiner Rebbe has been completed and the building was re-dedicated.

I thought it will be good to collect pictures and various articles from different times and sources, showing the synagogue status and look, into one document and make it available to all. This was done in this document.

November 2016: Photos and news stories by Mr. Leonid Milman (found on Facebook), and Mr. Marc Goldberger (You can translate from Ukrainian to English using the Chrome browser):

http://zik.ua/news/2016/11/04/u_chernivtsyah_vidkryly_vidrestavrovanu_synagogu_hasydiv_985725 or http://tinyurl.com/jqmnl75

http://molbuk.ua/chernovtsy_news/117828-u-chernivcyakh-vidkryly-vidnovlenu-synagogu-sadgirskykh-khasydiv.html or http://tinyurl.com/zdek3rs

http://bukovina.biz.ua/news/41714/

November 2016: Additional pictures from the re-dedication ceremony:

http://cja.huji.ac.il/wpc/browser.php?mode=set&id=10438

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=1579066205444204&set=pcb.1579068682110623&type=3&theater

July 2016: Pictures taken during the Pilot Project by the World Organization of Bukovina Jews: http://www.eylonconsulting.com/bukovina/blog/?p=1453

April 2016: Ukraine: Sadagora synagogue restoration nearing completion

http://www.jewish-heritage-europe.eu/2016/04/08/ukraine-sadagora-synagogue-restoration-nears-completion/

July 2015: A post by Mr. Isaac Herzig after visiting the site as part of the journey on the path of the Holocaust of Romanian Jews, in Bukovina and Transnistria valley of death.

Mr. Isaac (Itzik) Herzig took part in this journey, that journey was organized by the World Organization of Bukovina Jews.

http://www.eylonconsulting.com/bukovina/blog/?p=575

July 2015 – A post in Hebrew by Mr. Moshe Ben Deror, after the above journey.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J3DhsxRmoP8&feature=youtu.be

2004 – by Iosif Vaisman: few pictures of the synagogue interiors in 2004, with the remnants of beautiful murals seen through the peeling plaster –
http://gr-czernowitz.livejournal.com/1845900.html

1998: Here is what this building looked like

http://kehilalinks.jewishgen.org/sadgura/sadg04.jpg

http://kehilalinks.jewishgen.org/sadgura/sadg03.jpg

http://kehilalinks.jewishgen.org/sadgura/sadg02.jpg

And in 1993:

http://www.kehilalinks.jewishgen.org/sadgura/reesphotos.html

Stanivtsi – Stanestie pe Ceremus Unter /de Jos – by Carol Simon Elias – July 2016

The Unter-Stanestie/ Vivos (Vivis) Pogrom: July 5-6, 1941

My mother and grandparents survived a pogrom which took place on July 5^th and 6^th, 1941 in the small village of Unter-Stanestie (Stanestie de Jos) and in its tiny, neighboring, almost unknown, unmentioned village of Vivis (Vivos) in Romania (now Ukraine). A summary of the events are detailed below as part of a concise and accurate article:

“In Stanesti de Jos, a village east of Chernowitz…the locals organized a Ukrainian national committee to take control of the village, ‘arresting’ the Jews and holding them in the mayor’s office or the saw mill. The Ukrainian nationalists soon began to murder their prisoners, and when the Romanian army reached Stanesti de Jos, the pogrom was intensified. Upon his arrival, the Romanian commander put a stop to the blood bath, but by that time between 80 and 130 Jews had already been killed. The fact that a local gendarmerie commander could stop a massacre underscores the fact that the impetus for pogroms often came from below… The Jews barricaded themselves in their homes, and the Ukrainians ‘patrolled’ usually armed with agricultural tools, for firearms were not widely available. The Ukrainians then decided to ‘fetch’ the Jews from their homes and concentrate them in one place. A list was compiled from which the names of the Jewish men were read out one by one, after which these were led away… Most of the Jewish men were beaten to death – only a few were shot….

Chana Weisenfeld, who was …from Stanesti de Jos, related how Ukrainian neighbors rampaged through the village armed with hammers and sickles. According to Weisenfeld, more than 80 Jews were killed in the pogrom. Close to the village, local perpetrators killed a pregnant woman and beheaded her… The massacres of Jews by the local population sometimes seem especially puzzling because the perpetrators are civilians and the victims are their neighbors…. Later when it became clear that it was possible to murder with impunity, people murdered so that no one would be there to remember the stolen property. (Geissbuhler 2014, 434-439).

No Jews remained in Stanesti. My family’s survival was close to miraculous after my grandfather was captured and escaped. Chana Weisenfeld, mentioned above, is my mother’s first cousin, aged 82 today (2016). The pregnant woman, beheaded in the forest of Vivis, was my grandmother’s sister and my mother’s aunt. Her name was Chaika. I am her namesake in Hebrew; Chaya, and in English; Carol.

References:

Elias, Carol, ” ’I Love You, They Didn’t Say’- Holocaust and Diaspora Survival: the Next Generations”, Orion Books, Israel, 2015.

Geissbuhler, Simon, “‘He Spoke Yiddish Like A Jew’ – Neighbors Contribution to the Mass Killings of Jews in Northern Bukovina and Bessarabia in July, 1941”. “Holocaust and Genocide Studies”, 28, no.3, Winter, 2014, pp. 434-449.

Following are pictures related to Stanesti de Jos – the gravesite now and pictures from then.

Picture 1: The mass Jewish gravesite for the pogrom victims located within the Christian cemetery.

In the 1960’s after a flood the bones came out and then the mass gravesite was built in the Christian cemetery, according to Dr. Kahn, by contributions from either Jews from the US or elsewhere.

Picture 2: My grandfather, Abraham Sussman, in hat, mill manager before WWII, at the pogrom site with Ukrainian workers.

In the following picture you can see the same wood mill which is where the main pogrom took place and a mass grave was dug. Approximately 80-100 men were killed there.

Dr. Madeleine Kahn, like my mother, was 9 years old the day of the pogrom and she visited the village in 1980’s.