A Trip To Bukovina 2017

After nearly two weeks in northern Romania we are heading back west, towards home. And we have chosen the beautiful city of Oradea as the end of our journey. Here we spend our second and last Shabbes in Romania.

We have rented a very comfortable little apartment near the center of the town with its own kitchen where we can prepare our Shabbat meals. And the minyan is only a few minutes’ walk away!

And what a minyan it is! Friendly, gratious men and women, young and not so young; a rabbi with a booming voice who also serves as Chazen and as Baal Kore. Proud jews who keep up their Kehille even though it has diminished due to Aliyah to Israel. A mikve, a kosher canteen.

The guests from Vienna are very welcome. As the Rav put it, guests bring power to the kehille and also receive power. In the end everybody wins.

After Mussaf prayer everybody moves to the canteen. Delicious tshulent, loud and happy singing. And promises to come back whenever need be, may it be many simches!

!אויף סימכעס

This old orthodox synagogue is not in use at the moment. It is slowly overgrowing with plants. It has wonderful window frames and fences — great locksmith work

This orthodox synagogue is currently being renovated. From the outside it appears already finished. Here the Jewish community will gather again, soon.

The neolog synagogue is a cultural venue for concerts and exhibitions. Great interior! But on a hot day it is no place to cool down. Use the ice cream parlor in front for this :).

We knew it from the beginning of our trip: we will enjoy our last day in Oradea. And we certainly did! Finding a minjan was nice. All those wonderful Art Deco houses! Wow! This town should- after some more renovation work – become a must travel destination. Well, actually, we decided: it already is a must travel destination.main square – only recently being renovated

The old town of Bistrița in Transylvania is a lively, welcoming place with cafés, bakeries, parks and nicely renovated old houses. Near the center, once again, a synagogue, this time in excellent condition and even open.

As we approach, an elderly man immediately invites us in and turns on the lights for us. This is not a museum, and certainly not a house of prayer; it’s an art center. A stage with a piano has been set up in front of the Aron Koidesh and the Ezras Nashim, the women’s balcony, is filled with paintings by various local artists. Some of them are very interesting, in my view.

The question what should be done with old, disused Shuls is a difficult and controversial one and I have no clear opinion. I am sad to see them no longer serving their purpose. I am sad to see the damage to many buildings. I try to evoce images of what Jewish life used to look like in such places.

I also feel that this is not a good place for Jews. We are better off in Israel, there is no reason whatsoever to return and settle these lost places. This would be madness!

In Bistrița’s case, I am happy with what I find: A good and useful place which conserves the memory of what was once and can never be again.

Edit: I have been made aware of a little polish village, Radzanów, that recently staged a fake jewish wedding. The goal apparently was to educate the populace on the odd traditions of their former neighbors who have all been killed in the Shoah.
One resident is trying to re-open the local Shul that still stands. He, however, wants it to be a full-fledged synagogue complete with Sefer Torah and all, not a museum. He believes that returning a Sefer to the Shul will help the place heal.

Of course I think that maintaining Shuls where there will never ever be a Minyan is somewhat silly. But I do like the notion that these places where the Jews were driven out or murdered, need healing.

There’s an old peasant in Radautz. He seems to live near the Jewish cemetery. According to my nephew E., who knows the Bukuvina a lot better than anybody I know, this man actually spends his days in the cemetery. And sure enough, as we get there, the gate is not locked and as we enter we hear distant hammering. He is hear, repairing headstones, re-coloring letters, pulling out some of the weeds that are overgrowing the place.

We are searching for my great-grandmother’s grave; Pessie Rennert, née Katz. Though she lived in the nearby village of Putna she was buried here. There is no jewish cemetery in Putna.

And the man comes up to us, unsure at first, then smiling friendly. I tell him my name. He tries to remember. Then his eyes lighten up and he shows us the way. At the request of my cousin G., he himself has mended this headstone just four or so years ago! We place a pebble each on her grave.

Later, after several hours of searching, finding, reading inscriptions, comparing notes in this peaceful, quiet place, as we pepare to leave and bid goodbye, he offers water to wash our hands. Unassuming, modest, smiling kindly he pours water from a plastic bottle: left hand, right hand, left, right, left, right. First for me, then for my brother.

I don’t know his name. I know nothing of him, except that he has a good soul. It is good to know that he is taking care of my ancestor’s grave.

 

One striking difference between the expulsion / extermination of the Jews in Austria and Germany, and Romania is that Romanian Jewry did not experience the pogroms of November, 1939, the so-called Reichs-Kristallnacht. (They had their very own pogroms.) Thus, even though there are nearly no Jews left in Romania one will find buildings of great beauty, as well as cemeteries, in many small towns and often in quite prominent locations. Of course they are out-of-use, in various degrees of disrepair and void of life. Even when they are in good shape they are a sad sight. But they stand.

In Austria they were usually burned to the ground and nothing remains of them but a photograph here or there.

Driving along through this town of 13.000, suddenly we noticed the beautiful building with Shield of David ornaments on the windows. So we stopped, got out of the car and had a look. The old synagogue is surrounded by weeds and a fence. All the entrances are locked. From the neighboring yard, Barbara has a good view and settles to draw the front side. Meanwhile I explore the surroundings hoping to find a way in. Somehow I succeed to get into the surrounding field of nettles. But the entrances to the synagogue are firmly locked.

Even the windows are too high up to peek in. But at least I can take some photographs of the inside through the glass panes. Inside is a mess. But you can also glimpse what it should look like, inside. Forgive the questionable quality of some of the following pictures.

 

On their trip in 1935, my father’s family passed through this small town of about 10.000 and stayed overnight. In his memoirs, he recalled how they found a small windowless room at a tavern that reminded him of Wilhelm Hauff’s tale “Das Wirtshaus im Spessart“, with grim-looking, but probably simply tired proprietors and patrons. (Next morning, by daylight, they looked a lot friendlier.) On the streets, he saw Jews in Orthodox garb (which he apparently had not met where he lived in Vienna) and their children. I think the reason he mentioned this fact in this way was, because Câmpulung’s Jewish; something my father had not yet witnessed before. Also, perhaps his parents were not particularly observant; so this sight must have been new to him.

Nowadays, of course, nothing of this remains. The town is Romanian, period. No Germans, no Ukrainians, few Roma or Sinti and certainly no Jews. The Shil is still there, just a few yards from the main road. It looks quite well-kept from the outside. The door is firmly locked and there is no sign indicating a name or a phone number to call, should you be interested in seeing the inside.

(Edit: As my knowledgeable nephew E. informs me, the Campulung Shul serves as a venue for the Campulung Film Festival 2017. On the festival’s homepage you can see a nice photograph of the inside. Complete with burning Chanukah candles AND a lulav lying on the shulchan… Sometimes the jewish calendar plays funny tricks!)

Besides the main Synagogue at the center of Radautz, we found what remains of one other Shul, namely the Vishnitzer Shul. It is located in the back yard of a house on 31, 1st May Street, Strada 1 Mai 31. It is in a state of terrible disrepair.

I learned drawing at University, which is a long time ago. I did it for many years in all sorts of places. And people react differently. Sometimes people come and look, some talk to me, kids come and watch. Here in Romania, people are maybe shy. Only one guy approached me and told me quite a lot of things. Of course, I didn’t understand… he didn’t care. No problem, he didn’t really disturb me, I rather disturbed him, I guess.
Yesterday, I sat across the synagogue in Radauti and had to concentrate, really concentrate. People passed by, they looked and went on, then a boy on a bike passed by, watched, stopped, came back and said:”wow!”, looked at me and smiled. I looked at him and smiled a thank you. But then his mother came and shouted at him and they went on. But I liked his “wow” 🙂

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And a few more drawings from this area:

A small town right next to the Ukrainian border. During Communist rule it was home to a terrible prison right in the middle of the city. Dissidents from all over the country were brought here. It’s a forbidding building with massive iron bars across the small windows. Today it houses a memorial museum.  

Szighet / Sighetu is the birthplace of Moshe Teitelbaum, the former Rebbe of the Szatmár Chassidim and descendent of many generations of Teitelbaums who have led the Jews of the town for almost 300 years.

It is also the birthplace of Elie Wiesel who died just a year ago. His parents’ house is now a museum. People here are really proud of their town’s son. 

We also met remaining members of the Jewish Kehille and a very endearing man who drove by on his bicycle as we were standing in front of the only remaining shul. He turned out to be a local historian who has written and published about the Jewish community of Szighet. This, as well as the Wiesel museum deserve their own posts.