Shadows of a Forgotten World

I recently finished reading Daniel Mendelsohn's book  The Lost: The Search for Six of Six Million about his search for what happened to six of his relatives during the Holocaust. He searched specifically for the fates of relatives who lived in Bolekhiv, Ukraine, a place where his Jewish ancestors settled many centuries ago. His research took him all over the world, visiting places where the tragic events happened and meeting survivors who he hoped would be able to share with him specific details about these relatives and what happened to them. It was a very well written and engaging story, both his own journey and search, but also the story of his relatives. I highly recommend this memoir as a good source from which to learn what exactly happened to the Jews of one particular town in Galicia. It's these personal stories that really touch you, the people become no longer just part of a statistic of all the people who perished during the war, but people you feel you knew. Duri...

During WWII my grandmother was separated from her sister, only to be reunited with her half a century later on the other side of the world. While my grandmother and her family succeeded in escaping Ukraine before the Soviets took over their homeland in Galicia, her sister Maria had an entirely different fate, which carried her into the underground movement, a Gulag work camp, and exile in Siberia before she was able to return to Ukraine. By the time I was old enough to be curious about my grandmother's life in Ukraine and experiences during the war, it was too late to ask her. Fortunately, her sister took up the daunting and I'm sure emotionally difficult task of reliving her tumultuous life in order to document her experiences for her descendants. It was through these memoirs that was I was able to learn about my grandmother's life and her family, about the country I had heard so much about, about their struggle and sacrifices for a land they loved so dearly. Although ...

On Lviv's ghost signs from the book "The House with a Stained Glass Window" (by Żanna Słoniowska, 2015), which takes place in the early 1990s: I always tried to read the city like a book, but it turned out that he knows the alphabet. Near the facade of a building, from which recently the plaster had crumbled, he said:      "It's Yiddish: "coffee, tea, milk." Every spring Lviv sheds, uncovering on the facades letters from different alphabets. The current government treats this phenomena as a dangerous disease. Something like a rash. The symptoms, overcome in one place, then always appear in many other places. But homegrown doctors are confident in their skills and their chosen therapy."     "And nothing works out for them?"     "So far no. But this...won't last long. For me the stained glass window in your staircase is the last cultural membrane of the city. If it cracks, nothing can save it."     "The fall of Rom...

Recently on Facebook, "Пані Стефа" shared a post about Galician cuisine using Galician culinary vocabulary. I'm familiar with many but not all words. Original post found here . Image from the cafe Spizharka (Galician word for "pantry") in Lviv Баняк, ринка, миска і тареля в креденсі.  Зупа з ляним тістом і росіл з клюсками, налиті кохлею в таріль.  Салатка в салятерці.  Мізерія і зеленець. Карманадлі і шницлі, засмажені на пательні.  Парені, накипляки і будині. Яськи, шпарагівка, каляфйори, шпараґи, селєра, пора і калярепа. Риж, грисік, кулеша, логаза і пенцак. Пляцки, цвібак, андрути, мармоляди, конфітури і галярети в спіжарці. Птисі і бішкопти. Ґоґодзи, гечі-печі, фіги, дактилі і міґдали. Морелі, трускавки, морви, піґви, цитрини і помаранчі. Цинамон, паприка, коляндра і бібкове листя. Кава з чоколядою в філіжанці. Келішок і канапка. The book Felix Austria by Sofia Andrukhovych, set at the turn of the 19th and 20th ...

"With great pleasure I immersed into the streets, which I had previously passed without notice; I examined the buildings, every courtyard, gazed at the windows and the flowerpots on the windowsills, as though I were trying to find at least some trace of the old Lviv, that vanished world, which will never return, beacuse neither will return those who left it...all that is left is stone, and everything else  —  the people, language, culture  —  has disappeared and become but a dream." (Yuriy Vynnychuk from his book Tango of Death ) *** "З особливою насолодою я пірнав у вулички, які раніше проминав, не зупиняючи на них погляду, оглядав будинки, кожне подвір'я, дивився на вікна й на вазонки на підвіконнях, мовби намагаючись відшукати бодай слід старого Львова, того зниклого світу, який уже ніколи не повернеться, бо не повернуться й ті, хто його покинув...залишився тільки камінь, а все інше  —  люди, мова, культура  —  усе це зникло і стало сном."...