Annotated Bibliography
Here are some helpful resources on Jewish life in the Carpathians. A few mention Vishni Bystra by name, although often by one of its alternative spellings. Some of these listings are very difficult to find or not in English or German and I therefore have not been able to check them out. Feel free to contact me with additional listings or any feedback on these listings.
Amsel, Melody. Between Galicia and Hungary: The Jews of Stropkav. Bergenfield, NJ: Avotaynu, 2002.
Arnstein, George, "Jewish Life in Eastern Hungary during the 18th century," Avotaynu, Vol . XIX, p.34-38.Baran, Alexander, "Jewish-Ukrainian Relations in Transcarpathia," in Peter J. Potichnyj and Howard Aster (Eds.), Ukrainian-Jewish Relations in Historical Perspective. Second Edition. Edmonton: Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies Press, 1990, 159-172. Baran starts off in his first paragraph stating the following: "The Jewish situation...was entirely different from that in the other regions of Ukraine. [It] was the only Ukrainian territory where there was no conflict or antagonism between the Ukrainian and Jewish communities; it was an area where anti-Semitism was unknown among the Ukrainian population and where the Jews never took the side of the oppressors of the Ukrainian population. The real relationship between the Jewish and Ukrainian populations...was always a tolerant co-existence, which during the Second World War evolved into a useful co-operation." While my mother indicates in her memoirs that the Jews and the Ukrainians got along reasonably well before the war, this was certainly not the case during the war.
Braham, Randolph L. The Politics of Genocide: The Holocaust in Hungary, Vol. 1. New York: Columbia University Press, 1994, 148-151, 595 (Bistra is mentioned here under the ghetto of Iza), 666-669, 738, 784-785 (pictures of Carpathian Jews).
Braham, Randolph L., "The Destruction of the Jews of Carpatho-Ruthenia," in Braham, Randolph L. (ed.), Hungarian Jewish Studies, Vol. 1, NY: World Federation of Hungarian Jews, 1966, 223-233.
Committee for Perpetuating the Memory of the Seven Communities. The Matyrs of Seven Communities: Dolha Kusnica Zadne Kerecke Bereznik Lisicovo Sucha-Bronka: A Portrait of Carpathian Jewry on the Eve of Destruction. Jerusalem: Graphit Press, 1993. These are shtetls in the same general area as Vishni Bystra. This book is mostly in Hebrew but has 74 pages in English.
Dicker, Herman. Piety and Perseverance: Jews from the Carpathian Mountains. New York: Sepher-Hermon, 1981. Out of print. Chapters on history, personalities, Hasidic melodies, and old photographs.
Eden, Joseph. The Jews of Kaszony, Subcarpathia. Great Neck, NY: 1988. Available from the National Yiddish Book Center. This book may also be found online at the New York Public Library.
Erez, Yehuda. Karpatorus. Jerusalem: Encyclopedia of the Jewish Diaspora, 1953. A memorial book in Hebrew with pictures.
Fankhauser,Urs. "Vergessene Juden. Keine Bescheinigung aus Auschwitz, " Berner Zeitung, November 22, 1997. This German language newspaper article includes brief interviews with two survivors who still live in the Carpathians.
Fejes, Judit, "On the History of the Mass Deportations from Carpatho-Ruthenia in 1941," in Randolph L. Braham and Pok Attila (eds.), The Holocaust in Hungary: Fifty Years Later. New York: Columbia University Press, 1997, 305-321.
Freilich, Samuel. The Coldest Winter: The Holocaust Memories of Rabbi Samuel Freilich. NY: Holocaust Library, 1988. Rabbi Freilich (who shares the same last name as my mother and may be a distant relative) grew up in Torun (a shtetl a few kilometers from my mother's) and is the father of Hadassah Freilich Lieberman, the wife of American Senator Joseph Lieberman. He has scattered references to Jews in the Carpathians throughout the book. Chapters 16 and 18 deal with the period right after the end of the war.
Gross, S.Y. and Kohen, Yitshak Yosef. Sefer Marmarosh: me'ah ve-shishim kehilot kedoshot be-yishuvan uve-hurbanan. Tel Aviv: Bet Marmarosh, 1983. This memorial book is in Hebrew but does have an excellent summary covering pre-war life and the Holocaust in English. Pages 455-456 are about Vishni Bystra.
Gryn, Naomi (producer and director), Chasing Shadows. 52-minute video on Hugo Gryn's return to this hometown of Berehovo. 1990. This video is a very moving account by this deceased English reform rabbi who was involved in human rights work. His autobiography, Chasing Shadows, was published by Penguin Books in 2001.
Hellman, Peter. The Auschwitz Album: A Book Based Upon an Album Discovered by a Concentration Camp Survivor, Lili Meier. NY: Random House, 1981. Photos taken by a Nazi offiicer of the deportation of Carpathian Jews. Includes a description of pre-war life in Bilke, pp. xi-xviii. Remarkedly, not only did Lili Meier find this album but she also found pictures of herself and her family in it.Honigsman, Jakov S. Juden in der Westukraine: judisches Leben and Leiden in Ostgalizien, Wolhynien, der Bukowina und Transkarpatien 1933-1945 (Jews in the West Ukraine: Jewish Life and Sorrows in East Galicia, Wolhynien, the Bukowina, and Transcarpathia 1933-1945). Konstanz: Raymond M. Guggenheim, 2001. (in German).
Jackson, Michael (Jakubowics). Head of the Line: A Holocaust Survivor's Memoir. No city: Moriah Press Offset Corp., 2000. This book is about Mr. Jackson's pre-war life in Torun and his experiences in Auschwitz. Mr. Jackson's original last name was the same as my mother's grandmother so we may be distant relatives. Pages 1-52 are about his days in Torun up to the Holocaust. On the footnote on page 91 he has the following quote: “Bistra’s Jewish community was smaller than Torun’s, totaling only about a hundred Jewish families. Bistra also had fewer Zionists, not because the community was smaller but because the village lacked a Hebrew school. In general, the Jews of Bistra were more pious than those in Torun. Only a small group of Jewish youths from Bistra secretly belonged to the Zionist organization.” This small group of youth include my mother and my aunt. On pages 264-265 he talks about his best friend from his boyhood, Zvi Fixler, my mother’s first cousin, and Zvi's experiences in Israel during the time of the British mandate. Mr. Jackson died in January of 2004 in Allentown, PA.
Jacobs, David. Remember Your Heritage Montreal Institute for Genocide and Human Rights Studies, Vol. 10. Memoirs of a survivor. Available online.
Jelinek, Yeshayahu A. The Carpathian Diaspora:
The Jews of Subcarpathian Rus' and Mukachevo, 1848-1948.
NY: Columbia University Press, 2007.
This scholarly work is very helpful and has excellent photos.
Jelinek, Yeshayahu A., "Carpatho-Rus' Jewry: The Last Czechoslovakian Chapter, 1944-1949," Shvut, No. 1-2 [17-18], 1995, 265-295.
Jelinek, Yeshayahu A. Exile in the Carpathians: The Jews of Carpatho-Rus' and Mukachevo, 1848-1948 (in Hebrew). Tel Aviv: Tel Aviv University, 2003.
Jelinek, Yeshayahu A., "Jewish Youth in Carpatho-Rus': Between Hope and Despair (1920-1938), " Shvut,, No. 7[23], 1998, 147-165.
Kachyna, Karel. Hanele.1999 Czech film (with English subtitles), 92 minutes. A dramatization of Olbracht's The Sorrowful Eyes of Hannah Karajich.
Karsai, Laszlo, "Zsidosors Karpataljan 1944-ben (Jewish Fate in Carpatho-Ruthenia in 1944)," Mult es Jovo (Past and Future), No. 3, 1991, 60-66 (in Hungarian).
Kasnett, Yitzchak. The World That Was: Hungary/Romania. A Study of the Life and Torah Consciousness of Jews in the Cities and Villages of Transylvania, The Carpathian Mountains, and Budapest. Cleveland Heights, Ohio: Hebrew Academy of Cleveland, 1999. Scattered throughout are references to life among the ultra-Orthodox in the Carpathians.
Katzburg, Nathaniel. Hungary and the Jews: 1920-1943. Ramat Gan: Bar Ilan University, 1981, 284-285.
Kramer, Naomi and Ronald Headland. The Fallacy of Race and the Shoah. Ottawa: University of Ottawa Press, 1998. Pp. 3-38 and 281-296 are specifically about Carpathian Jews. NEW!Lebovitz, Shirley. The Enduring Spirit: The Inspiring True Story of a Holocaust Survivor. Phoenix: Gildith Press, 1993.
Mendelssohn, Ezra, "Czechoslovakia," in Mendelssohn, Ezra (ed.), Jews of East Central Europe Between the Wars. Bloomington, Indiana: Indiana University Press, 1983, 131-174.
Moskovits, Malda. The World That Crumbled. NY: Holocaust Library, 1993. A memoir by a survivor from a shtetl near Chust. The Bystra she refers to is Niznie Bystra (Lower Bystra), not Vishni Bystra (Upper Bystra).
Nadler, Allan L., "The War on Modernity of R. Hayyim Elazar Shapira of Munkacz," Modern Judaism, XIV(3), 1994, 233-264. Available at http://depts.drew.edu/rel/Munkaczer%20Rabbe.pdf.
Olbracht, Ivan. The Sorrowful Eyes of Hannah Karajich. Budapest: Central European University Press, 1999. A novel set in the inter-war era about an ultra-Orthodox girl from the Carpathians who becomes a Zionist and falls in love with a highly assimilated Jewish man and the turmoil this causes in her village. The author made extensive travels in the Carpathians during the 1930's.
Peled, Ram. Young Pioneers: Hechalutz Hatzair in Subcarpathia: the Story of the Youth Zionist Movement in the 1930's and 1940's in Czechoslovakia. English translation from the original Hebrew by Joseph Eden and Kenneth Abrahami. NY: Avekta Productions, 198?. This video has wonderful archival pictures but is very hard to find. There is a copy in the New York Public Library.
Redlich, Shimon. Together and Apart in Brzezany: Poles, Jews, and Ukrainians, 1919-1945. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2002. NEW!
Rosen, I. There once was...: The Oral Tradition of the Jews of Carpatho-Russia (in Hebrew). Tel Aviv: Tel Aviv University, 1999. English abstract.
Rotkirchen, Livia. "Deep Rooted Yet Alien: Some Aspect of History of the Jews in Subcarpathian Ruthenia," Yad Vashem Studies, Vol. XII, p.147.
Sole, Aryeh, "Subcarpathian Ruthenia: 1918-1938," In Colman, Hugh (ed.), The Jews of Czechoslovakia, Vol. 1, Philadelphia, PA: Jewish Publication Society of America, 1968, 124-154.
Stark, Tamas. Hungarian Jews During the Holocaust and After the Second World War: 1939-1949: A Statistical Review. New York: Columbia University Press, 2000, 105-110. Discusses survivors.
Stransky, Hugo, "The Religious Life in Slovakia and Subcarpathian Ruthenia," in Colman, Hugh (ed.), The Jews of Czechoslovakia, Vol. 1, Philadelphia, PA: Jewish Publication Society of America, 1968, 347-392.
Strom, Yale. Carpati: 50 Miles, 50 Years . This video features Zev Godinger, caretaker of the Jewish community in Berehovo.
"Subcarpathian Ruthenia," Encyclopedia Judaica. Vol. 16, p.472.
Wynne, Suzan. The Galitzianers: The Jews of Galicia, 1772-1918. Tucson, AZ: Wheatmark, 2006. NEW!