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People treated Jews nicely in Chernovtsy. There was no demonstration of anti-Semitism. We soon felt at home. The local people told us that relations had been cordial for ages. The Jews were patrons of the arts and music. This area initially belonged to the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy, then to Hungary and Romania. There was a Jewish school, a hospital for poor Jews, and a Jewish children's hospital in Chernovtsy before the war. And there were 67 synagogues! At present there is only one synagogue in town. After the Olympiad of 1980 when the eternal fire's route to Moscow crossed Chernovtsy, there appeared a joke: 'What did the Olympiad give Chernovtsy? A good road to the synagogue.' They asphalted this road in preparation for the Olympiad, and this is the road that leads to the synagogue. At one time Chernovtsy was called 'a small Paris', because it was a very culturally developed town. The writer Moshe Altman lived and worked here. The writer and poet Iosif Burg lives here. He is 90 years old. He wrote about the life of Jews in Yiddish. Speaking about the culture of Chernovtsy we need to mention the famous tenor Iosif Schmidt. He ended his life in a concentration camp. He was a world-renowned singer when the war began. The Germans sent him to a concentration camp. He wasn't allowed to sing and was constantly persecuted. He couldn't bear it any longer and committed suicide. Eleizer Shteinberg, a Jewish fable writer, lived here and many more famous people as well.
Period
Interview
Anna Ivankovitser