(Bojan, 10.10.09) Bojan is a village in the close vicinity of Czernowitz. Tracing the Rudel family, part of my own family, I’ve received from Ludwig Rudel from the USA the following report:
The oral history of the Rudels goes back to 1825, with the birth of Eliezer. He was born in Galicia (in the Russian part of Poland). In 1833 there was an upheaval in that region. Two things occurred. One was the Polish rebellion against Russia (began in 1830-1831) and led to a brutal repression by the Russians in 1833. The second was the cholera epidemic of the same time. It was said that the schtetl in which Eliezer lived had a Cabalist Rabbi and he decided that God was angry with their village and that, to appease God, they should send four children of the village out of the village; one child North, one to the South, one to the East and one to the West. (A more charitable interpretation might be that the Rabbi wanted to get the children away from there because everyone was dying.)
Eliezer was one of the children sent away. A wagon driver passed through the Schtetl and Eliezer was given to him to take with him to his destination and care for him. Eliezer’s family name was not disclosed to the wagon driver. The wagon driver’s name was Rudel. (You might recall that last names were assigned to Jews in Austria in 1786 in preparation for the census.) He raised Eliezer, married him off to one of his daughters (Rebecca Rachel) and they settled in Bojan.
No doubt about, that based on this fascinating story, I visited to Bojan, looking for traces of Jewish live and death.
(GPS N 048° 16′ 17,6″ E 026° 08′ 03,0″)
I’m not sure but I’m afraid that might be the last opportunity to see the Cemetery, as there are suspect clearing activities in progress there.
In Bojan I was talking to an eyewitness, who observed in 1941 the execution of Jews on the village square.
Mr. Florea, aged eight at that time, reports on the cruel details, he has seen. Asked by me, who has been responsable for the executions, he initially evaded the issue, mentioning the execution has been conducted by soldiers. I was insisting and I’ve asked wether there were German or Romanian soldiers. Somehow embarressed he confirmed: “They were Romanians, unfortunately Romanians.“
Edgar Hauster http://hauster.blogspot.com/
P.S.: Would somebody, who reads Hebrew be so kind to translate the cemetery plate?
ehpestesto 
About Bojan and massacres performed by the Romanian army and local
collaborators in rural north Bucovina.
1. The victims of the Bojan massacre are buried in a mass grave on the
Novoselitsa Jewish cemetery.
2. There is a Chassidic court of the Bojaner Rebe and it’s almost sure that
they were the ones that did the (partial) restoration there.
3. There was what may be called a common pattern of action of the Romanian
army joined by local collaborators in all rural settlements of northern
Bycovina. During the first days of occupation of the place the Jews that
they could put their hands on were assembled somewhere and killed and most
of the Jewish owned houses were put on fire. Those that survived were driven
on foot all the long way to Transnistria.
Yosef Eshet, Raanana, Israel
The jews of 1918 Romania found asylum from Slavic persecutions. However, many of them became NKVD assasins and killed and deported over 10,000 Romanians from Basarabia/Bukovina between 1939-1941 (when Stalin and Hitler diktated these Romanian lands be given to Soviet Union and N. transylvania to Hungarians). Any mass killings of Jews between 1941-1944 were retaliations for the Romanian victims killed by the Communist Jews between 39-41(you reap what you saw).
YET, Romania PROHIBITTED the Germans to take to the extermination camps ANY Romanian-Jew, because they were citizens of Romania. Hungary didn’t, Bulgaria didn’t, Poland didn’t, Ukraine didn’t; but “Fascist” Romania PROTECTED its Jews from the camps and only killed the Bukovinean/Besserabian Jews who had witnessed and provoked the Romanian genocide between 1939-1941.
Giga’s comment is a perfect example for stereotypical anti-Semitic, Romanian-nationalistic, anticommunistic positions, which made possible the Romanian Holocaust during WW2. Each and every of Giga’s “arguments” has been disproved by historiography. It was not the Romanian “hospitality”, which saved Jews from death, but the crushing defeat of Stalingrad, which prevented Ion Antonescu from completing the “Final Solution” for Romanian Jews. However, about 300,000 Jews and Roma paid with their lives for the dream of Greater Romania.
However the excuses given to justify the murder of the Jews in rural areas it is still murder.
All my relatives who lived in Pohorlouti, Zastawna, Ocna and souroundig area were were murdered by the locals and neighbouring gangs. It was a curious occurence where I and my brother Leo visited Pohorlouti which he remembered better then I. Nothing was left to remind us about our relatives excepting an old Austrian schoolhouse that apparently my grandfather had built.However an elderly man
came to us; Who are you looking for? The Weisingers That
man knew them well he was able to name my Uncles and Aunts by their Yidisch names and he also spoke Yidish. He told us that gangs from other villages came and murdered the lot. I loved your familly were the parting words they were good people.
There was no justification for murder but an unbridled hatred.
My mother at age 11 was the first orphan in Bojan, Romania after the massacre of June, 1941. She was the only survivor of the massacre that took place at the city hall (village square). She climbed out of that grave alive!!! Her parents were killed the night before. She was marched to Transnistria. Her story continues from there. She survived alone and lived in Israel from 1944-1956, when she then came to America. My grandparents from Bojan were NEVER Communists but apparently all the Jews in these villages were stereotyped as such. As a matter of fact, my grandparents owned a dairy store and according to my mother, prior to 1937 the Jews lived peacefully under Romanian rule. Many innocents lives were lost, all because of mass hatred, hysteria and ignorance. My children and I are the only Jewish descendents that we are aware of from Bojan. We consider that a true badge of honor.
It is a myth among Romanians that Romania treatd its Jews better than did other central and eastern European counries. If a greater percentage of Romanian Jews survived, rather than Jews of other countries, it is because the Romanians were less eficient, their hatred and murderous intention were the same.
Justifying mass murder by accusing all Jews of having been communists is prescription for continued criminality.
Actually, in my book about the pogroms of Bucovina published in ’45, it states categorically that the pogroms were a direct retaliation by the Romanian battalion of retreating soldiers who were met by a few Soviet flag-bearing Jews in my mother’s village of Ciudin,- because the Jews thought they were meeting the advancing Russians to save them from the Fascists. The Romanians vowed that they will kill all the Jews if they ever returned,- which unfortunately they did. The local population was given a free hand over 24-48 hours to do whatever they liked to the Jews and they sure took advantage of it. The soldiers just finished the job by shooting whomever they found alive,- including my grandfather and my aunt. We were there in 2008 and there is a small monument behind the school in Ukkrainian stating that 642 Jews were murdered and apparently the football ground is their mass grave!
An uncle who hid in a loft survived afterwards in Transnistria.
As for the Romanian ‘regat’ where I survived with my parents in our home just over the border in Botosani,- we were lucky. Some of my Jewish Romanian friends will argue to this day that ‘there was no holocaust in Romania’! Madame Lupescu did have a lot to do with our good fortune!
The Jews of Bulgaria were also saved.
I am more inclined to put it down to the difference in the Christian Churches ,- the Orthodox ones were not as bad as the Catholics in their anisemitic teachings! There were a few orchestrated pogroms, but not the mass murders of the surrouning countries.
Even if my hebreu is good I cannot translate the dates and abreviations, so I translate as follow :
Here is the old jewish cemetery bayan which has been newly renovated and walled in year (hebreu calender tav shin sameh dalet) by the jewish association “Zitomir and west ukraina under the management of the great Rabbi Shlomo Wilhelm and with the endeavor of the new Rabbi Menahem Nahoum Fishmann memberes of the important and head office of the Bayan Hasidim in USA, with the help of the wealthy man Arie Wasner for the memory and respect of our old ages persons souls, the Gaon Hasid Rabbi Israel Isar Sternhal which served with holinessas A Rabbi and president of a court of justice here the holy congreration and rest in this life house .
This translation is what I feel and understand
Shabat shalom Anny Schäfer Chemla from Paris France
My feelings about the Rumanian and Ukranian behaviour in the book “A jewish History” by Johnston were confirmed. He writes that THE GERMANS!!! WERE TAKEN ABACK BY THE RUMANIAN AND UKRANIAN BRUTALITY IN EXECUTING JEWS!!! need I say more??
In Bukarest they took rich Jews and hung them from butcher’s hooks alive!!! I met some of those families in England – this is NOT hear say-
I personally didn’t suffer of it, but I saw the Coga-Cuza that night in Czernowitz (I think 1936/37) but the sight of the “populis” can never ever be forgotten. I often said that I never knew how much SCUM lived in our city before they made their appearance on the Ringplatz that rainy evening.
anny M
looking for Weissman families from Tulchin.
There are some Jews from Tulchin surviving.
Would love to be in touch with them
Esther Feinstein Sackheim
ZeraKodesh@aol.com
I would like to be in toouch with Tina Weissman whose name I just saw on your site
Esther Feinstein Sackheim
ZeraKodesh@aol.com
I would like very much to be in touch with Tina Weissman. My mother is part of the Weissman family fromt that area.
Sholom
esther Fe instein Sackheim
ZeraKodesh@aol.com
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