Chernivtsi Museum of the History and Culture of Bukovinian Jews

Чернівецький музей історії та культури євреїв Буковини

The Museum for the History and Culture of Bukovinian Jews was opened in 2008 in Chernivtsi (German: Czernowitz, Romanian: Cernăuţi). The museum commemorates Jewish life and culture in the multiethnic region prior to World War II. At least 45,000 Jews from the Bukovina region fell victim to mass shootings, forced labour and deportations beginning 1941.

History

Czernowitz, capital of the historic region of Bukovina, was part of Austria-Hungary until 1918. Bukovina was the epitome of multi-ethnicity in the Austro-Hungarian Empire; during this period, Jewish life in the city flourished, a prime example of this being the completion of the magnificent synagogue of the reformed community in 1877. After World War I, Bukovina became part of Romania. In 1940, the Soviet Union occupied the northern part of Bukovina, including Czernowitz, in accordance with the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, and Romania was forced to cede these territories under diplomatic pressure exerted by the German Reich. At the time, Czernowitz was home to nearly 50,000 Jews representing over a third of the total population. During the Soviet occupation of the city, the Soviet secret service NKVD deported many inhabitants of Czernowitz to Siberia, among them thousands of Jews.
After the German invasion of the Soviet Union in 1941, during which Romania fought alongside the Germans, the region came under Romanian rule. The invading armies marching into Czernowitz were closely followed by SS-Einsatzkommando 10b (mobile killing squad), which consequently shot hundreds of Jews. In October 1941, Romanian dictator Ion Antonescu deported the Jews of Bukovina to Transnistria, a region in the Ukraine under Romanian occupation, as agreed upon with the German military. By November 1941, over 28,000 Jews were deported from Czernowitz across the river Dniester. Further transports carrying several thousand Jews from Czernowitz followed in 1942. Only few survived the forced labour, terror and inhumane conditions in the camps and ghettos of Transnistria. Those who remained in Czernowitz had to conduct forced labour under dire conditions. When the Red Army reached the city in April 1944, it liberated about 14,500 Jews.

Czernowitz, undated, The Jewish National House, Chernivetskiy Muzey Istorii ta Kulturi Evreiv Bukovini

Czernowitz, 1941/1942, Jews and Soviet POWs being marched off to do forced labour, Nacional’nyy Muzey istorii Velikoy Otečestvennoy Vojny Kiev

Victims

About 90,000 Bukovinian Jews were deported by Romanian military units to Romanian occupied Ukraine, the so-called Transnistria region, beginning 1941. Only half of the deportees returned home; about 45,000 perished in Transnistria of the effects of abuse, forced labour and the living conditions in the ghetto.

Ukraine, the second-largest Republic in the European part of the former Soviet Union, was at the centre of the Second World War and the Holocaust. It is estimated that five to six million Ukrainians died during the war, including around 630,000 Jews. In mid-September 1939, following the Soviet occupation of eastern Poland in accordance with the Hitler-Stalin Pact – a secret German-Soviet agreement –, the south-east of Poland became part of the Soviet Ukraine. The oppression of the local population was now an everyday occurrence. In summer 1941, the German attack on the Soviet Union initially affected these very regions. Right from the start of the invasion the Jewish population was accused of supporting the Soviet powers and became the target of brutal attacks. These attacks were often the work of nationalist Ukrainians, who initially welcomed the advance of the Wehrmacht. German SS Einsatzgruppen and allied Rumanian units soon began to carry out mass shootings of Jews. The Babyn Yar ravine near Kiev, where German units and Ukrainian militia murdered over 33,700 Jews over two days in September 1941, has since become a global symbol of the genocide of Jews. The non-Jewish population was also a target for persecution. National Socialist racist ideology classed Ukrainians, as all »Slavs«, as »subhuman«. The occupiers looted the country, deported way over one million civilians to carry out forced labour and publicly executed hostages. By 1943 a partisan war against the Wehrmacht was raging along with the campaign of the nationalist »Ukrayinska Povstanska Armiya« (Ukrainian Rebel Army or UPA) against the Soviets and the Polish population in western Ukraine. The number of Poles to die in the process lies way over 100,000. From 1944 the Ukraine was again part of the Soviet Union and also encompassed former territories in eastern Poland. The UPA continued its campaign until the mid-1950s. The Soviet authorities deported around 300,000 Ukrainians to Siberia to counter the resistance. The Ukrainian culture of memory was aligned with the symbolic forms of remembrance found in the Soviet Union. Monumental sites of memory were constructed to celebrate the »victory« in the Great Patriotic War. It is only recently that victims have been remembered alongside the venerated heroes. In addition, a culture of memory centred on the campaign of the UPA has emerged in western Ukraine, with the UPA’s legacy being interpreted as a struggle for independence. Confrontation with anti-semitism and the collaboration with the German occupiers has only begun around 2000. With just a few exceptions, the mass shootings of Jews were ignored until the 1980s. It was not until 1991 that the government of independent Ukraine acknowledged Babyn Yar as a »symbol of Jewish martyrdom«. Long after gaining independence, Ukraine was still on the search for its national identity. The documentation of Soviet crimes – for example the state’s responsibility for the Great Famine (Holodomor) in 1922-23 that led to millions of deaths – has more significance in the establishment of a Ukrainian identity than learning about the Holocaust. Nevertheless, new memorial sites for the murdered Jews were established throughout the country, such as Drobitskiy Yar in Kharkiv or the Holocaust Museum in Odessa. On many mass grave sites new memorials were created, partially with German support. In Kiev, a new grand memorial site with global relevance was planned at Babyn Yar. These plans were put on hold with the beginning of the full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine on February 24, 2022. What impact the current defensive war will have on Holocaust remembrance in the future remains to be seen.

Remembrance

The Jewish National House was built by architect Julius Bochner in 1908. It was located in direct vicinity of the municipal theatre and the chamber of commerce in the city centre of Czernowitz. The building, which housed a number of Jewish institutions and served as a cultural centre, was an expression of the confidence of Jews in Czernowitz; a further expression of this was the synagogue. Many minorities established similar »national houses« at the beginning of the 20th century, thereby asserting their wish to participate in public life. In 1908, the Jewish National House hosted an international Yiddish conference.
At the end of World War II, Czernowitz and the surrounding areas fell to Ukraine, which was then part of the USSR as a Socialist Soviet Republic. The former Jewish National House was converted to a cultural centre for textile workers. Only in the 1990s did the Jewish community of Chernivtsi obtain permission to use a few rooms in the building. In 2008, a small Jewish museum was opened in the former Jewish National House. The exhibition concentrates on Jewish life and culture in Bukovina under Austro-Hungarian rule.

The »Chernivtsi« cinema is located very close by. The building was constructed on the ruins of the largest synagogue in Chernivtsi, the Israelite Temple, which was consecrated in 1878. The synagogue was closed following the Soviet annexation in 1940 and was set on fire during the German and Romanian occupation in 1941. The building has been used as a cinema since 1959. A plaque on the façade indicates the building’s original purpose.

Chernivtsi, 2026, The »Jewish National House« today, Stiftung Denkmal

Chernivtsi, 2026, Banisters with stars of David in the former Jewish National House, Stiftung Denkmal

Open

Tuesday to Friday: 11 am to 3 pm, Saturday: 11 am to 2 pm, Sunday: 10 am to 1 pm

Contact

http://muzejew.org.ua

jm.chernivtsi@gmail.com

+38 0372 550 666

Teatralnaja Ploschtscha 5
58000 Czernowitz

Chernivtsi, 2026, Staircase in the former Jewish National House, Stiftung Denkmal

Chernivtsi, 2011, View of the exhibition, Verenko Ya.G.

Chernivtsi, 2011, Former synagogue, today cinema »Chernivtsi«, Daniel Fuhrhop

Chernivtsi, 2026, Plaque on the building of the former Israelite Temple, Stiftung Denkmal

Chernivtsi, 2026, Details of the façade of the »Jewish National House«, Stiftung Denkmal

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