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Introduction
Pre-War Photographs
Czernowitz Postcards
Schools
of Czernowitz
Prelude to War
The Second World War
Return from Transnistria
After the War
Songs of Czernowitz
►
Czernowitz, My Dream
Shpatsirn
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Feuerstein Family
1923 |
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Father Moritz with sons Rudi
and Emil,
1917 |
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Moritz Feuerstein,
1880
portrait created by Teodozy
Bahrynowicz studio of
Czernowitz. |
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Anna and Heinrich Feuerstein,
1880
photograph created by Soger Gusztav studio in
Nyitrán. |
Heirnich was the first manager
of the Czernowitz brewery. |
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Portrait of
Moritz Feuerstein,
1922
created by studio Fritz Knozer,
possibly
Vienna, Austria |
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Emil Feuerstein, son of Rosi
and Moritz, at the Italian Front,
Apr 1917 |
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Emil dressed as the
"Fuchs-Major"
Hebronia outfit
(Zionist student organization) -Czernowitz,
1923 |
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Marriage of
Friederike (nee Feuerstein) and
Adolf Langhaus,
Czernowitz, 1911 |
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Friederike Langhaus (nee
Feuerstein)
1915 |
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Hedwig Langhaus,
1932 |
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Town with a Jewish
Past: The Town I Called Home |
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Czernowitz, My Dream
by Rosi
Gruber-Feuerstein, grandmother of Hedwig Brenner (nee
Langhaus). Translated by Mimi Taylor.
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Czernowitz was a beautiful Austrian city, situated at
the easternmost corner of the Royal and Imperial
Monarchy.
It was a city in ascend, also a city at the point of
departure, constantly changing, a city of culture,
music and magnificent buildings. The residence of the
archbishop, the colorful glistening roofs of which,
mirrored the sun, was one of the worthy sights of
Austria. The well designed park, named Volksgarten, in
which on Sunday girls from the suburbs and Ulans
(soldiers of a particular regiment) would exchange
hidden kisses, was always full of strollers. There the
pretzel-man offered his fresh ware, there one could
for two Heller (Austrian coins) obtain an apple fished
out of a wooden can. These apples were sweet sour and
had a very special aroma.
The hill on which Czernowitz had been built, descended
in the north steeply down towards the valley of the
Pruth, in the south it spread over a plateau. The
inhabitant of the city belonged to various nations and
discernible social layers, these, like concentric
circles almost never overlapped and only rarely
touched. One had to be born, like me in a "Haubchen"
or "Habl" (a little bonnet, by which is meant the
amniotic sack, which was considered a sign of great
good luck), in order to reach a higher social class
than the one, one was borne in.
On the plateau, meaning in the vicinity of the
Volksgarten there was the so called villa section of
town. There lived, in streets with noble names, such
as "Printz-Eugenstrasse" or "Erzherzog-Karl-Gasse",
those favoured by luck, rich owners of estates and of
factories, in short the Hautevolee (upper crust).
Those favoured by luck - but were they really favoured
by luck? I often asked myself whether riches were
synonymous with luck?
In the central section of town there was the
commercial quarter, some hotels like the "Schwarze
Adler" with a very elegant restaurant, which still
exists today, the hotel "Paris" and the
"Drei-Kronen-Haus." The "Herrengasse" was the
promenade, where at any time of day or evening, young
ladies and students paraded. Did they ever work? In
the streets adjoining the Ringplatz, there lived
intellectuals, artists, physicians, lawyers,
newspaper-people and office workers.
The stand of the Fiaker (carriage) was on the
Ringplatz. Here you could find carriages drawn by one
or two horses. A tramway line connected the "Volksgarten"
with the "Pruthbrucke". In the summer we bathed a few
times in the eddies of the Pruth, in the vicinity of
the bridge the current was very strong. We bathed in
our underwear, obviously in a different spot from the
men, because the linen underwear stuck to our bodies
as if we were naked.
The religious Chassidim lived in great numbers on the
lower circumference of the hill, the streets on the
lower slope. Small, meandering streets and alleys,
which started at the Springbrunnenplatz and which were
commonly called "Ham". The Synagogengasse, the
Uhrmachergasse and others formed the
Jewish quarter, and that area looked like a Galitzian
"Shtetl". Here the
Jewish craftsmen had their workshops and all guilds
were represented. The musicians who played at the
circus, also lived in this part of town.
In this memorable year, 1877, we were supposed to
travel to Leipzig,
immediately after Purim, the Jewish festival of joy.
We were going to the wedding of the brother of my
father, Max Gruber. At happy celebrations like
weddings and birthdays, but also at funerals, the
whole clan met in Leipzig. On this Purim-eve my
parents went to a private celebration and I was
allowed to join them. It was a masked ball, mother
dressed as a nun, father as a clown and I as Snow
White. After a voluminous meal we were served "Humentaschen,
sweet dough triangles, filled with Powidla (prune jam)
and nuts, which tasted delicious.
Mother ate a lot, and next day her abdomen hurt. A
physician who was summoned, recommended that she be
hospitalized. Father took mother to the Jewish
hospital in a Fiaker, and the hospital director Dr.
Moritz Schaerf treated her. The test results showed
that she had become sick with dysentery, which at that
time was common in Czernowitz and which usually had
deadly consequences.
After a consultation, the physicians said: "Hopefully
her constitution will withstand the disease". We
prayed to God that he would let her live, my beautiful
precious "Mammi"! We sent a telegram to my brother in
Bucharest, so he would come. After five tortuous days
of fighting with death, death was victorious. We
carried mother to the Jewish cemetery behind the
vineyards of Czernowitz and laid her to rest.
Why did God have to do this to me? How had I aroused
his anger? Often I denied his existence and did not
believe in his might.
During the long conversations which we had, father
maintained that every person carries his own fate
since birth and that the astrologers could calculate
it all. The Kabala too, this Jewish mystic work, which
is studied by religious Jews, who by means of
assigning numbers to every sentence in the bible,
attempt to divine and guess it's hidden meaning, is
preoccupied with the inquiry of what the heavens and
world were like before the creation of mankind.
During the "shiv'a" we interrupted our performances.
We sat in our wagon, my brother Max had come together
with the gentleman at whose house he lived in
Bucharest. Even though he was only a boy of twelve,
father took him morning and evening to the "shul", to
say "Kaddish" the prayer for the dead. Many people who
had seen mother and had admired her came to offer us
their condolences.
I took over the show numbers and programs in which my
mother had appeared and had to practice a lot more,
but this helped me to fight my pain.
My brother had left for Bucharest and we too took down
our tents. Our wagons were coupled to the train which
went to Lvov and it was the great advance of the
century, which was slowly coming to an end, that we
now could travel by train and no longer by a cart
pulled by horses.
This way some years passed with travels through
Austria and Poland and twice we visited France.
Everywhere we were celebrated and our circus reached
new heights of esteem and fame.
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THE FEUERSTEIN FAMILY
1894
Czernowitz
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Rosi and
Moritz Feurstein and their two children
This family portrait was taken by the studio
of Teodozy Bahrynowicz in Czernowitz. |
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