Return to Transnistria

Posted on August 20, 2016 by Christian Herrmann under Bessarabia, Jewish Cemeteries, Podolia, Synagogues

Our journey to Ukraine and Moldova goes on. The wish of my friend Sylvia to visit Bessarabia gave me a good pretext to return to Chişinău (Kishinev). While our friends Marla and Jay returned to Lviv yesterday, Sylvia and I took the bus to the Moldovan capital. Today we were out for a long day trip to Transnistria, a break-away ‘state’, only aknowledged by Russia. We visited Dubăsari (Dubasari), Raşcov (Rashkov) and Rîbniţa (Rybnitsa).

Dubăsari (Dubasari) mass grave

Raşcov (Rashkov) Jewish cemetery

Raşcov (Rashkov) – ruin of a Christian church

Lenin is still alive in Transnistria

Raşcov (Rashkov) – view towards river Dniester

Raşcov (Rashkov) synagogue

Rybnitsa Jewish cemetery

Our marshrutka from Chernivtsi (Czernoeitz) to Chişinău (Chisinau)

Chişinău (Chisinau) – view from Cosmos hotel

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Kosiv today

Posted on August 18, 2016 by Christian Herrmann under Eastern Galicia, Jewish Cemeteries

The volunteers of SVIT Ukraine, who clear the Jewish cemetery in Chernivtsi (Czernowitz), were out for a day trip today. On the itinerary was among others the Galician town of Kosiv – famous for its local crafts market – and its Jewish cemetery. In the densely overgrown cemetery we met an old man who was mowing grass with a scythe. He had a story to tell.

Kosiv Jewish cemetery

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Of traveling in Moldova, Jewish cemeteries, vanished worlds and photographs

Posted on May 27, 2016 by Joachim Steinigeweg under Bessarabia, Jewish Cemeteries

Usually Christian is the author if this blog. Recently he gave me the opportunity to write about my impressions of the journey we just had together in Moldova. I am thankful to have a place to publish my thoughts.

Portrait on a Jewish gravestone

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Exhibition on the Holocaust in the Galician Oil Belt opened in Cologne

Posted on February 24, 2016 by Christian Herrmann under Eastern Galicia, Exhibition

On 18 February ‘A Story of Destruction and Rescue’, an exhibition documenting the Holocaust in the eastern Galician towns of Drohobych and Boryslav was opened in Cologne. The exhibition was created by an international team from Poland, Israel, Ukraine and Germany. It was already on display in several locations in Poland and Ukraine and will be shown in more places in Israel and Ukraine this summer. The Cologne exhibition will remain open to the public until 31 March.

Visitors at the exhibition opening

Activists of Action Reconciliation Service for Peace, among them Georg Goosmann

Galician sounds by Trezmorim Klezmer Band

Jürgen Wilhelm – head of the Regional Assembly of the Rhineland – speaking

Exhibition curator Klaus Hasbron-Blume speaking

Varda Ghivoly – representative of Drohobycz Borysław and Vicinity Organisation – speaking

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Three days in Riga

Posted on February 11, 2016 by Christian Herrmann under Livonia (Livland), Synagogues

Latvia’s capital Riga looks back on a rich Jewish heritage from the middle ages up to the present. Riga ghetto was the last destination for many Latvian Jews as well as for those who were deported from the Reich. Today there are remembrance sites as well as a functioning Jewish community. A long weekend gave me the opportunity to have a look on it.

Remains of Choral Synagogue

Holocaust memorial

Former synagogue in Moscow suburb

Flea market at Moscow suburb

Former “Yiddishe Handwerker Shul” – an educational institution to qualify craftsmen

Moscow suburb

A Soviet style tower dominates Moscow suburb

Ghetto Museum

Jewish museum in the former Jewish theatre

Former synagogue in Stabu Street

A plaque marks a building where Jews were hidden by Latvians

Medieval city center

Peitavas Synagogue

Detail from a building designed by Mikhail Eisenstein

At the banks of Daugava river

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In Transnistria

Posted on June 10, 2015 by Christian Herrmann under Jewish Cemeteries, Podolia, Synagogues

Transnistria was a Romanian deportation zone for Jews and Gypsies during the war. Thousands died of typhus, inhuman working conditions, of hunger or were shot. My fellow traveler Sylvia was here more than 70 years ago when she was a little girl. Today we explored some places in Transnistria – now part of Podolia in Ukraine.

Nemiriv – mass grave

Bratslav synagogue

Bratslav Jewish cemetery

Tulchyn Jewish cemetery

Tulchyn – former ghetto

Cariera de Piatra

Mykhailivka – site of former concentration camp

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Plans For June

Posted on May 26, 2015 by Christian Herrmann under Podolia

From June 5 to 15 I will travel in Ukraine again. Together with my friend Sylvia de Swaan I will thereby explore an area that is unknown to most people. However, those who have heard of Transnistria, think of the place with horror.

Travel locations in Transnistria

1. Bratslav, 2. Tulchyn, 3. Cariera de Piatra, 4. Mykhailivka, 5. Chernivtsi, 6. Mohyliv-Podilskyi

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A last excursion to Galicia

Posted on January 2, 2015 by Christian Herrmann under Eastern Galicia, Jewish Cemeteries, Synagogues

Again, I was travelling with Vasyl and Renata. I highly appreciate both of them – because of their kindness and because of their excellent knowledge of local history. My journey is slowly coming to an end and it was a final opportunity to explore Galicia during this trip. Olesko and Busk were the places we went to.

Olesko Jewish cemetery

Olesko synagogue

Olesko castle

Busk synagogue

Busk Jewish cemetery

Busk Jewish cemetery – mass grave site

Busk Jewish cemetery

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Into The Nothing

Posted on December 28, 2014 by Christian Herrmann under Volhynia (Volyn)

Trochenbrod (Trachimbrod, Sofiyovka) was an all-Jewish town that was completely wiped out. Not a single stone has been preserved from a place with formerly 6,000 residents. Nevertheless Trochenbrod has a unique afterlife – the place became famous through Jonathan Safran Foer’s novel “Everything Is Illuminated” and the film adaptation by the same title. Like many others, I thought Trochenbrod was fiction. But Trochenbrod existed.

Trochenbrod memorial

Trochenbrod – former main road

On the way to Trochenbrod

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In The Mist

Posted on November 1, 2014 by Christian Herrmann under Western Galicia

Podgorze is the other Krakow. West of Vistula river – opposite the old town – there are no magnificent old buildings, no picturesque places and no cozy cafes for locals and tourists. Severity hangs over the houses from the 19th century and the interwar period. Many facades are blackened by the smoke of industry, some house are empty – the windows boarded up. Podgorze is the district in which the Nazis established a ghetto – for its Jewish inhabitants it was the beginning of the end. Further west is Plaszow, the territory of a former concentration camp.