Hi Boaz, What a fascinating question, about how political sensibilities and even personality traits echo through the Bukovinan diaspora through the generations.
I do think of the interesting differences and similarities between my father’s father’s Dr. Jacob Auslander and his sister Dr. Cilli Auslander, both of whom grew up in Radautz and who were politically progressive, and both of whom were trained at the University of Vienna (Cilli actually had two doctorates from the University in 1920 and 1971, in Chemistry and Linguistics). Their grandfather Gerschon Auslander was from Sadagóra. Cilli was a life-long member of the Comintern (and was imprisoned in Romania in the 1930s for her political activities, before spending the war in the Soviet Union); she was fairly orthodox in her communist politics, I suppose, but remained deeply interested in diverse positions and loved, up until her death in Vienna in 1989, to engage in far reaching conversations about politics, culture and art, without ever shutting down alternate perspectives, although at the end of the day she did want to “enlighten" her listeners on the proper party line. Her brother Jacob in contrast, remained left throughout his life without being a party member and certainly took great delight in learning about the diverse perspectives of everyone he talked to. I don’t think he would ever try to ‘convince’ anyone of any particular political position, although he often told jokes that were clearly supportive of a general left stance. I would say that tendency was also strongly shared by their cousin Severin Pagis (later “Dan Pagis’) who in spite of the terrors of the Deportation in Transnistria, also remained very open to political subtlety and complex, and to overlapping positions; that cosmopolitanism certainly comes through in his poetry, with which you may be familiar. My father, Jacob’s son, still alive at age 92, certainly has retained strong leftist sympathies but continues to take delight in talking to people across the entire political spectrum. I think for all of these figures, they associated the heritage of Bukovina and Radautz/Czernowitz as well as Vienna with a kind of global cosmopolitanism, and in particular with a love of open conversation, strongly tied to their memories of cafe society in these cities. Having said that, I recall that Tante Cilli had strong likes and dislikes of various Viennese cafes, based on which ones she considered to be suspectly ‘bourgeois” or properly “proletarian”— all the cafes struck me as a child as equally opulent, and stocked with equally delicious pastries, but the newspapers were different! I would be most interested to hear perspectives from others on this list —on intersections of history, politics, and family dynamics! warmest regards, Mark Mark Auslander Concord, MA (USA) > On Nov 25, 2022, at 5:28 AM, B W <[email protected]> wrote: > > Hi group, > > My grandfather was born and raised in Sadgura until 1916 when he and family > moved to Vienna. He then barely escaped in 1938. I met him several times. He > didn’t tolerate disagreement well, especially on political matters. My > father, now elderly, is hesitant to express his opinion on anything, and > conflict avoidant, except on politics. He’ll steer conversations to politics > and then give an uninformed, rigid political opinion - almost like a test of > loyalty. I don’t understand these behaviors, and I wonder if it can be > attributed to the jewish culture in sadgura or vienna of the time. Do these > behaviors ring a bell? Thank you for any information. > > Boaz > This moderated discussion group is for information exchange on the subject of > > Czernowitz and Sadagora Jewish History and Genealogy. The opinions expressed > in these posts are the opinions of the original poster only and not > necessarily > the opinions of the List Owner, the Webmaster or any other members > or entities connected with this mailing list. The Czernowitz-L list has > an associated web site at http://czernowitz.ehpes.com > <http://czernowitz.ehpes.com/> that includes a > searchable archive of all messages posted to this list. Beginning in 2021, > archived messages can be found at: > https://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/ > <https://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/> > To send mail to the list, address it to <[email protected] > <mailto:[email protected]>>. > > To remove your address from this e-list follow these directions > <https://it.cornell.edu/lyris/leave-e-lists-lyris>. > > To receive assistance for this e-list send an e-mail message to: > [email protected] > <mailto:[email protected]> > ******************************************************************************* This moderated discussion group is for information exchange on the subject of Czernowitz and Sadagora Jewish History and Genealogy. The opinions expressed in these posts are the opinions of the original poster only and not necessarily the opinions of the List Owner, the Webmaster or any other members or entities connected with this mailing list. The Czernowitz-L list has an associated web site at http://czernowitz.ehpes.com that includes a searchable archive of all messages posted to this list. Beginning in 2021, archived messages can be found at: https://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/ To send mail to the list, address it to <[email protected]>. To remove your address from this e-list follow the directions at https://it.cornell.edu/lyris/leave-e-lists-lyris To receive assistance for this e-list send an e-mail message to: [email protected] -----------------------------------------------------------------------------
