Another full day and a lot of information to tell you. First, in Ivano-Frankivsk this morning, Alex Denysenko and I met for 2 hours with Rabbi Moyshe Leib Kolesnik to discuss a number of Rohatyn items. Ця стаття також доступна українською. We not only filled him in on the headstone project, but also raised the issue of the human remains…
It has been 6 months to the day since my last visit to Rohatyn. Since then, [our group] has launched a project for the commemoration of Rohatyn’s lost pre-War Jewish community. I am in Rohatyn with Lviv artist, architect, and friend Andrij Bojarov, with whom I have been working on ideas for this memorial project. The project envisions incorporating Jewish…
Dobry den from Prague to Rohatyners, Fellow researcher and dear friend Edgar Hauster had a terrific idea last night which I would like to raise with the group. As you are all probably already aware, across Europe and America there is the idea of “twinning” cities and towns. You can read more about the underlying philosophy of this idea on…
Hi, there. The 35-minute TV program developed by Renaud Lavergne for France’s national television station France 2 was aired yesterday (July 4th, 2013). The Rohatyn segment is only about 4 minutes near the end, but the entire program is an interesting group portrait of ‘surveyors’ of Jewish memory landscapes. The Rohatyn segment was filmed with me, Jay, Alex Denysenko, and…
MANAGING JEWISH IMMOVABLE HERITAGE IN EUROPE From April 23-25, 2013, I attended a conference at the Jewish Community Center in Kraków, Poland on Jewish heritage management. The conference was a follow-up to an earlier seminar on Jewish heritage management held in Bratislava, Slovakia in March 2009 by Jewish community representatives and experts from a dozen countries. Ця стаття також доступна…
Jay and I are at the Lviv airport flying home today to Paris, and while here I want to give a report of our day in Rohatyn yesterday with Alex Denysenko and Jeremy Borovitz, along with France 2 TV reporter Renaud Lavergne and his cameraman Vincent Barral. As usual, Alex arranged for Vitaly to be our driver in his large…
Thanks to Abe Lyons in Rohatyn for forwarding to me the attached article written by Mr. Vorobets that appeared in a local Ukrainian newspaper about my lecture in November to Rohatyn high school students, and to Jeremy Borovitz for the quick English translation, included below! Warm regards to all, Marla Ця стаття також доступна українською. [Note: This report was originally…
Jeremy Borovitz reported to me yesterday that he had heard from Abram Lyons, the Peace Corps volunteer currently serving in Rohatyn; Abe related some events of the day and forwarded several photos. Abe had been contacted the previous day by Rav Israel Meir Gabai, director of Agudas Ohalei Tzadikim (the organization which had built the ohel in Rohatyn’s old Jewish…
As you know, Jay and I made a 2nd 2012 visit to Rohatyn this last week. We arrived in Lviv at noon on Wednesday November 7 and were greeted by Alex Denysenko and his driver Vitaly, with whom we have traveled on numerous prior occasions. We drove directly from Lviv to Rohatyn and met first with Peace Corps volunteer Abe…
This begins a difficult topic. In late January 2012, the Ukrainian Church on the Rynek began extensive renovation work. Below the church there exists a large underground cellar. Human remains were found here. The location of these bones and this portion of the cellar – several meters below street level – is across from the building that formerly housed the…