30 June 2015

The Parallels Between Czernowitz and... (Brăila - 3610 km)

(Brăila, 26.06.2015 - 27.06.2015) Currently the Municipality of Brăila is idealizing Brăila as a "cosmopolitan city", stating that "Turks, Jews, Roma, Lipovan-Russians, Bulgarians, Armenians, Greeks, Hungarians, Germans, Ukrainians, Polish, Albanians and Italians lived 'in good friendship' with the Romanians settled here, each of them having their well-established place in the community, each of them writing in their own way a page in the history of Brăila." Doesn't that sound very familiar to many Jews from Bukovina? Well, as a matter of fact, the cityscape shows many striking parallels between these two cities.




















Looking closer at the dilapidations brings us rapidly back down to earth and the decrease in the number of Jews from more than 11,000 in 1930 down to 40 in 2013, according to ProBrăila, doesn't convincingly reflect that Jews always lived "in good friendship" with the Romanians settled here.

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