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!)
I visited the synagogue in 1998 and there was still a lilac on the Bima then so not much is changed. I sensed that it was the synagogue of my Jewish ancestors who were from this town of Cimpalong. As an artist I later did a drawing of the exterior