Tag #142790 - Interview #97016 (Efim Finkel)

I liked Chernovtsy and its spiritual and cultural atmosphere. Jews had constituted half of population of Chernovtsy before the Great Patriotic War. I was told that there was a Jewish ghetto in the town during the war. Even after the war people that went through the horrors of the ghetto spoke Yiddish in the streets, went to synagogues and sent their children to the Jewish school. They were not afraid of showing their Jewish identity and found sympathy and understanding with people of other nationalities. Residents of Chernovtsy dressed in a nice fashionable manner. Men wore kippah at the synagogue only.  After the war there was one synagogue in Chernovtsy. There was a Jewish theater in the town attended by Jewish and non-Jewish intellectuals. 
There were no signs of anti-Semitism that was already felt in central parts of Ukraine.