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A lot books and articles, which were published in different times and in different languages,
are dedicated to the life of the Bukovinian Jews.
Many of them are in the museum's collection and some of them are accessible online.



One of the most fundamental researches on the Bukovinian Jewish history is the collection of articles and memories "Geschichte der Juden in der Bukowina", edited by Hugo Gold. It consists of two volumes and was published in 1958-1962 in Tel Aviv in German.
The history of the Bukovinian Jewish Community and different aspects of the social, religious and cultural Jewish life are minutely examined in the collection. The articles are accompanied by many historical photos and illustrations by Bukovinian Jewish artists.

(Photos and illustrations).

Almost all articles of the collection were translated into English and are accessible online on the website of the Jewish genealogy project JewishGen.


An important source for research of the life of the Jewish inhabitants of Bukovina in the Austro-Hungarian times is the collection of documents and materials "The Jewish population and the development of the Jewish national movement in Bukovina in the last quarter of 18th to the beginning of the 20th century". The authors are the Chernivtsi historians O.Dobrzhanskyi, M.Kushnir and M.Nikirsa. The collection was published in Chernivtsi in 2007 in Ukrainian and Russian, and it was reissued in 2010 in German.

This collection is the first systematic compilation of documents and materials on the history of the Bukovinian Jews in the period when Bukovina was a part of the Habsburg Empire (1774 - 1918). Documents from the funds of the State archive of Chernivtsi oblast, Austrian State Archive and numerous publications of the Bukovynian press from that time are presented in the book.

M.Winkler's review on the German edition of the compilation.


The book of the Israeli art historian Boris Khaimovich "The Work of our Hands to Glorify" is dedicated to the murals of the Bejt Tfilah Benjamin synagogue in Chernivtsi and acquaints the reader with visual language of the unknown Jewish artist who created these unique murals. The book was published in Kiev in 2007 in Russian and English.

The murals of the Bejt Tfilah Benjamin synagogue belong to the few art works from the middle of the 20th century which are filled with true religious feelings. They present one of the most extensive achievements of pictorial art to be found in all of the synagogues of Eastern Europe that were discovered in our times. Despite of numerous innovations by the artist, these paintings belong to the old medieval art tradition and represent an artistic embodiment of pure religious spirit.

(Photos and illustrations) .


An issue of L'viv's independent cultural journal "Ї" (#56/2009) which is entirely dedicated to the history and culture of Chernivtsi. Authors of the edition are famous Ukrainian historians, writers and culture experts. Almost every article, in one way or another, concerns the topic of Jewish presence in the multicultural and multinational surroundings of Chernivtsi and Bukovina, and some articles of the edition are directly relevant for our museum's exhibition and activity. The edition is in Ukrainian.



The Holocaust on the Periphery. Policy concerning Jews and the destruction of the Jews in Romania and Transnistria from 1940 to 1944. Collection of articles. Edited by Wolfgang Benz and Brigitte Mihok, Berlin 2009 - 263 pages.

After World War II the main opinion in Romanian historiography was that the country was virtually occupied by the Germans. This way the atrocities were attributed to the Nazis. The full historic truth however is more complicated: the country that was allied with Nazi Germany left the Jews in its main territory untouched, but expelled and murdered the Jews in the newly acquired territories Bukovina and Bessarabia without mercy.

The contributions to this collection on the Holocaust are based on an international conference of the Centre for Research on Antisemitism (at Technical University Berlin, translator's note) in 2008. The authors are distinguished Holocaust researchers from Romania, the UK, the United States and Germany, who discuss different aspects of the persecution in Transnistria and give insight to the current discussion on Romanian and German responsibility.

(The book cover)


The Final Report of the International Commission on Holocaust Research in Romania. Abstracts, connected with Bessarabia and Bukovina. Published based on the materials of the book "The Final Report" (by the International Commission on Holocaust Research in Romania; Head: Elie Wiesel, editors: Tuvia Friling, Radu Ioanid, Mihael E. Ionescu. Ia?i, 2005) and materials from the National Archive of the Republic of Moldova.

For a long time Romania refused to acknowledge its participation in the Holocaust at the time of the pro-Nazi regime of General Ion Antonescu. In 2003 the Romanian government decided to clear this situation and called an international commission of historians chaired by Nobel Laureate Elie Wiesel, which minutely studied this period of the country's history and came to a conclusion that was unfortunate for Romania.

According to the commission's report, 400,000 Romanian and Ukrainian Jews died because of the state terror from 1940 to 1944.

(The book cover)



Markus Winkler: Jewish identities in a communicative space: press, language and theatre in Czernowitz until 1923.
Bremen 2007. 322p.

This monograph focuses on Jews and the German-language and Jewish press in Czernowitz (the capital of Bukovina) from the 1880s till 1923. It presents a diversified history of the cultural and political development of Czernowitz Jewry. The analysis is based on a large and important body of primary sources (German-language press and documents), and the use of methodologies from linguistics (Critical Discourse Analysis) and media sciences.
Czernowitz had been a centre of the German and Yiddish languages and cultures in the Habsburg Monarchy since the 1850s, and a focus of the Jewish-National and socialist movements. This was reflected particularly in a diverse German-language press.
The most important German-language newspapers published before and after the inter-war period (1918-1940) were edited by Jews, and provided a space of communication for Jews to maintain their identity. The thesis explores the content and evolution of Jewish identities after Czernowitz came under Romanian rule in 1918 through the analysis of two issues: the language battle (German - Yiddish - Hebrew - Romanian), and the theatre, both of which played a significant role in the Jewish nation-building process.












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