–Written and narrated by Peter Bejger. Who closes the door? And who can open it? Who escapes? And who doesn’t? A compelling book entitled The Great Departure: Mass Migration From Eastern Europe and the Making of the Free World by Tara Zahra answers some of these questions. Tara Zahra is a professor of modern European history at the University of Chicago and a recent winner of a MacArthur Fellowship. Her book is an impressive work of scholarship that is filled with often-heartbreaking personal stories of the devastating human toll of migration. Between 1846 and 1940 more than fifty million Europeans moved to the Americas in one of the largest migrations of human history. Villages were emptied out throughout Europe—especially Central and Eastern Europe. The homes the emigrants left behind as well as their new homes were fundamentally changed. From almost the very beginning emigration policies were political tools to be manipulated and exploited. Governments and nationalist movements were eager to see certain groups leave—they were often called “surplus populations”—while trying to restrict the departure of other “favored groups” considered essential for state or nation building. The goal was to create nationally homogeneous populations. A goal pursued by various regimes and […]

–Written and narrated by Peter Bejger. History, trauma, and the museum space. Museums can offer many faces to the world. From dusty collections of artefacts to dramatic arenas outlining—or avoiding—compelling national or cultural narratives. A recent lecture sponsored by the Center for Urban History of East Central Europe in Lviv looked at the role museums play in tackling difficult issues of history. Vadim Altskan, originally born in Ukraine, is a historian specializing in Eastern European, Balkan, and Jewish history. He is a Project Director for the International Archival Programs at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum’s Center for Advanced Holocaust Studies. Altskan’s lecture was entitled “The Missing Page in Museums: The History of Jewish Communities as Part of the Multiethnic Heritage of Ukraine.” The challenge of integrating the history of the Jewish communities of Ukraine into the museums and educational systems of contemporary Ukraine is not a problem unique to that country alone. Ukraine’s neighbors in Eastern Europe and the post-Soviet space have grappled with this issue with varying degrees of frustration and success. Altskan made the fundamental point that to provoke interest in other people’s lives requires you to show who they were, how they lived, and why they are […]

    –Written and narrated by Peter Bejger. Perhaps some listeners fall into the same serendipitous mood I do when reading a book, or any collection of texts. Perhaps you start from the end. Or the middle. After all, every story has a beginning, middle, and end. But it doesn’t have to be told in that manner. A very interesting new issue of the Odessa Review prompts this reflection. The October/November issue focuses on one vital theme—relations between Ukrainians and Jews. Past, present, and future. This very special issue—supported by the Ukrainian Jewish Encounter—recognizes an important truth. As Vladislav Davidzon, editor-in-chief of the Odessa Review notes, no matter how complicated or difficult the subject of Ukrainian-Jewish relations has been, the story is far from over. An impressive array of contributors presents multiple views on the complexities and challenges of the Ukrainian-Jewish relationship. Wolf Moskovich, Professor Emeritus at Hebrew University of Jerusalem, reviews the impact of two towering figures on Ukrainian-Jewish relations in the early decades of the 20th century. The Ukrainian writer Ivan Franko and the Zionist leader Vladimir Jabotinsky both attempted to build bridges between the two groups. Professor Moskovich shows how they helped to sow seeds of cooperation […]

    Poetry in a time of war. Such is the headline by the German newspaper Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, or FAZ, in its recent reporting on the dynamic annual poetry festival Meridian Czernowitz, held earlier in September in the western Ukrainian city of Chernivtsi. Why war? Because the newspaper picked up the subtle influences of the war with Russia in the East on this gracious city far from the front. As international literati gathered to celebrate the word, young men in camouflage and stony faces marched under the chestnut trees. And why Czernowitz? Such was the name of this city from 1774 to 1918 when it was the capital of the Imperial Austrian crownland of Bukovina under the reign of the legendary Habsburg dynasty. In this period it became known as a “Little Vienna” due to its architectural style. And also for the fact it was the home of a growing German-speaking community and German-language university. But the city was always cosmopolitan—a center for both the Ukrainian and Romanian national movements. And in 1908 it was the site of the first Yiddish language conference. Not surprising, as nearly a third of the city by this time was Jewish. The stories […]

– Written and narrated by Peter Bejger. Guilt, justice, and family ties. These dramatic themes are recalled today due to the recent publication of the Ukrainian-language edition of East-West Street by Phillip Sands, a book presented by the author at this year’s Lviv Book Forum. The Ukrainian publication of the critically acclaimed book by Sands recalls a panel discussion held on the very theme of guilt, justice, and family ties back in 2014 at the Center for Urban History of East Central Europe in Lviv. Panel moderator Sofia Dyak noted back then that we have many accounts of the Holocaust and other atrocities, but very few of the perpetrators. Sands was joined at the panel by his two of the subjects of his book. There was Nicklas Frank, the son of Hans Frank, a Nazi war criminal who was convicted of war crimes at Nuremburg and executed in 1945. He was joined by Horst von Wachter, the son of Otto von Wachter, who was the Nazi governor of Galicia and died in hiding in Rome in 1949. Sands, Frank, and von Wachter all share ties with Lviv, or, as it was known then, Lemberg. Sands’s maternal grandfather was born there […]

Written and narrated by Peter Bejger. How do you tell a story? Museums are essential places where stories about nations and cultures are told. But they are also places where the story may not fully told. Or the story may need to be retold. There has been a global boom in new museums. There are new technologies, and new ways to tell a story, especially with interactive multi-media formats. Museum visitors are no longer just passive consumers of information. This museum boom is now reaching Eastern Europe. And fresh ideas about museums are facing new challenges in rapidly changing societies in that region. History, and re-thinking history, and re-telling history, is complicated in post-communist societies. Controversial. And often painful. Recently the Center for Urban History of East Central Europe in Lviv tackled the issues of museums telling, or not telling, the story. What are the challenges that Ukrainian museums face when including Jewish history into the dominant narrative of their exhibitions? A public program called “Jewish Days in the City Hall: (Un)Displayed Past in East European Museums” featured researchers and museum experts from Ukraine, Poland, Israel, Russia, and the U.S. The focus was on emerging trends in museum practices. A […]

  New initiative will help Ukraine preserve its Jewish cemeteries and heritage for future generations “As if they are trees falling in the middle of the forest in the middle of the night.” This haunting remark was made by Phil Carmel, the CEO of the European Jewish Cemeteries Initiative. The Initiative was launched to physically protect Jewish burial sites in Europe. And this was done most specifically in places where Jewish communities were destroyed in the Holocaust. The Initiative was set up as a German-based non-profit organization in early 2015. The goal is to protect and preserve Jewish cemetery sites across the European continent. This is done by marking cemetery boundaries and building cemetery walls and locking gates. The Initiative announced earlier this year that it is about to begin a “vast system of surveys and monitoring” of Jewish burial sites in Ukraine. The survey will entail an estimated fifteen hundred to two thousand sites. Belarus will also have its own survey. The aim of the Initiative is “to create the first ever comprehensive and up-to-date repository and listing of Jewish cemeteries across Ukraine.” The monitoring will be “backed up by a research team checking historical records of Ukraine’s Jewish […]

-Written and narrated by Peter Bejger. “I saw that that the windows of these ruined houses were stuffed with rags or boarded up. In these unheated kennels were human beings, whole families, starving, usually sick because all kinds of epidemics were raging….” One hundred years a bitter war was raging throughout Europe. One of the most devastated regions was the borderland of Galicia. Here the massive armies of Tsarist Russia clashed with those of the Austro-Hungarian Empire and Imperial Germany. The front surged back and forth. Refugees streamed in all directions. Towns were looted and burned to the ground. Villagers were taken hostage. Exiled. Lynched. And raped. Into this devastation the influential Jewish-Russian writer S. Ansky was sent to organize relief for devastated Jewish communities. Ansky, born Shloyme Zanvel ben-Aaron Rappaport in Belarus, lived from 1863 to 1920. He is best known for his classic drama The Dybbuk. One of Ansky’s greatest contributions was the archive of Jewish folklore he collected during ethnographic expeditions in the Pale of Settlement before the First World War. These songs, stories, and superstitions recorded a culture already on the brink. A culture hit by the forces of emigration, persecution, and modernity. And now war. […]