A day without great events. A last walk through Chernivtsi (Czernowitz) and then an eight hours bus ride with the marshrutka to Lviv (Lwow, Lemberg).
The witnesses of Galicia’s multiethnic past are still there. But piece by piece they vanish. Many already don’t know about their meaning any more. When I was in Hrymailiv in February to change from one bus to another, I asked a few people for the location of the local synagogue. No one of them had ever heard of a synagogue in town. Today I was there.
My destination today is called Uhniv, with just about 2,000 inhabitants, the smallest town with the status of a city in Ukraine. From Lviv (Lemberg, Lwow), there are rarely direct buses to Uhniv. I decide to go first to Rava Ruska and to change the bus there.
It was a short trip in early June to Galicia – only three days. But enough to explore Belz and Burshtyn and to take pictures. Today I received the scanned black-and-white films and made a first selection. Here are the results. I have not yet decided which shots I will add to the two photo exhibitions in September. What are your favorites?
The ride from Lviv (Lemberg, Lwow) to Burshtyn is wonderful. On the Galician hills poppy florishes blood red, our marshrutka (mini bus) passes horse-drawn carts, cows stroll on the road and over all storks are circling – writing enigmatic signs in the sky. Burshtyn, that is in Yiddish and Ukrainian amber. Two synagogues and a Jewish cemetery are preserved.
My journey in February through Western Ukraine – through Galicia, Bukovina and Podolia – was another opportunity to take more photos for two exhibitions in autumn. Here is a first selection, including images from Lviv (Lemberg, Lwow), Sokal, Velyki Mosty, Zhovkva, Staryi Sambir, Ternopil, Sataniv and Chernivtsi (Czernowitz). What are your favorites?
My last day in Ukraine. Again, this day fluctuates between past and present. I visit the last remaining functioning synagogue in Lviv (Lemberg, Lwow) and experience the grief of the people for those slained on Maidan.
When I asked Mykola Kushnir, the director of the Jewish Museum in Chernivtsi (Czernowitz), how I could see the wall paintings in the former synagogue of Novoselitsa, he invited me spontaneously to go there with him today. A really nice and generous offer – especially as Mykola has the key to the synagogue. Thanks, Mykola, for this wonderful excursion – the last on this journey!
Writing is difficult for me today. More than 20 people have been killed in Kiev yesterday, the special police forces continue to besiege Maidan, the center of protests. It is impossible to ignore. Unfortunately I can not do more than express my solidarity with the brave Ukrainians, who are fighting against a corrupt and criminal government, and to report on what I see and experience. That’s why I hold on to my travel plans. Today I was in Sataniv.
A long day trip through Galicia – north of Lviv (Lemberg, Lwow) – to the towns of Sokal, Velyki Mosty and Zhovkva. Bright sunshine, the winter is coming to an end. We pass a down going industrial landscape, traces of the past and the dawn of a new, still undetermined Ukraine.
Vanished World 