German TV star is interested in the Jewish past of Chernivtsi

On Thursday, the 31st of March, the well-known German actress Iris Berben visited the Museum of the History and Culture of Bukovinian Jews. Iris Berben is one of the famous German actresses. She starred in about 80 roles in different films. The actress won numerous international and German awards and one of the highest German state decorations: the Federal Cross of Merit (Bundesverdienstkreuz am Bande).

Besides her work as an actress, Iris Berben, who is a very kind and pleasant person, she also reads poetry and stories for audio books. Iris Berben came to our city in order to read poems by the Chernivtsi poet Selma Meerbaum-Eisinger, who was of Jewish origin and died young during World War II in a camp in Transnistria. Before her early death she wrote a whole collection of poems. Our museum's collection includes a facsimile copy of the album with her poems. Iris Berben was invited by the Chernivtsi centre "Gedankendach". She used all her free time here to get acquainted with historical monuments, and first of all, to discover - as she said - the traces of the Jewish past. Hence visiting our museum at the end of her cultural program was logical.

At our museum, Ms Berben took great interest in our exhibition and thanked the museum's team for their efforts concerning the preservation of the historical and cultural heritage of the Bukovinian Jews and left a note in our guest book.


Iris Berben.




Iris Berben reads a poem by Selma Meerbaum-Eisinger, "You, you know ...".