Following some leads, I spoke with a woman named Rita Hollinger, who lives in Israel. She is the representative of Bukovina Jewish World Union - Sereth. Her maiden name is Kraft, a common name in Sereth records. She gave some interesting information. She said all men from Sereth and the surrounding villages went into military service in 1914. Her mother took all the children to Vienna, and returned after the war in 1918. This seems to be a common practice as all families fled to the western parts of Austria. Rita was born in Sereth in 1925. The former Jews of Sereth have written a book in Hebrew called “Sereth Shelanu”, or Our Sereth, of which I now have a copy. She mentioned firstly, that the pronunciation of the town is O-prish-SHEYN-ee, and Max’s family name would have been pronounced Tzukerman. There was one remaining Jew in Sereth who died in 2002. During the Nazi invasion, Rita was sent to the Jurin ghetto with Abraham Pariser, and his sons. The sons returned to Sereth after the war, before moving to Israel. She also led me to the apparently only living grandchild of Abraham Pariser.

I spoke with Karol (Katriel) Pariser. He was born in Czernowitz, to Abraham’s son Zeev (Wolf) Wilhelm Pariser. He was one of five boys and one girl born to Abraham Pariser. Three of the boys were Martin (Moju), Zeev Wilhem (Wili), and Max and the girl was named Gina. Katriel told me his grandfather left Oprischeny and went to Sereth when he got married. We can assume he got married in his early 20s, so he would have left Oprischeny when Max was still young. Katriel did not know of anyone named Zuckerman. He and everyone else had no recollection of Julius Pariser, born in Oprischeny, and educated in Sereth.

Rita also gave me the name of Feiwisch Herman, who was one of the writers of Our Sereth. He told me that there was nobody named Zuckerman in Sereth (in the 1930s), and there were no Jews at all from Oprischeny who came to Sereth. They would most likely have gone to the city of Czernowitz. He did tell me of the reference in the book to a Hugo Zuckermann. He was a writer, and a student with Abraham Pariser in Czernowitz. Hugo Zuckermann died in the First World War.

Also in the book, it says that Sereth was the commercial and administrative centre for twenty surrounding villages. Included in the list is Opriseni. Also mentioned is a 1930 (Romanian) census, which shows a Jewish population of 15 in Opriseni (57 in the neighbouring Treblecea). There is also a list of the names appearing on the memorial wall in the Holon cemetery (a suburb of Tel Aviv), of the victims from Sereth who died in Transnistria. Among the names is Babzi and Shmuel Zuckerman.

Feiwish also passed me along to Haim (Karl) Reicher. He was born in 1924 in Sereth. He in fact was in Oprischeny. While fleeing the invading Russian army at the end of WWII, he was captured just outside his hometown of Sereth, and imprisoned in the local town, Oprischeny. He spent two nights there, and said there is nothing to say about the town. He said that no Jews from Oprischeny came to Sereth.

I then tried calling the Czernowitz representative of the Buvovina Jewish World Union to see if they had any information about Oprischeny or the Zuckermans. Andi Rosengarden had never heard of the town, or anybody with that name from the city. He then led me to the headquarters, and the president, Jula Weiner. The Bukovina World Jews Union, based in Tel Aviv has an office with a library full of books on Jews in Bukovina. They also publish a monthly newspaper in German. They agreed to publish my search, and have claimed they have had great success this way. So we may hear news in the future {ad published in May 2004 edition}. He also mentioned that Toronto had a Jewish Bukovinian Society for decades, but has recently ceased to exist. He did tell me the name of a family from Czernowitz who live at Bayview and Steeles.

After contacting Yad VaShem in Jerusalem, they did a search of their database for any names of victims from Opriseni. Only those names will appear when a family member has filled out a Page of Testimony and submitted it to Yad Vashem. The database came up with the following names:
Fisel Glenzer (Glanzer), born in 1883 in Cacia?, Bukovina, place of residence Opriseni, Bukovina, married to Bella Glanzer (maiden name Kroner), born in Opriseni, children Yosef and Frada. Fisel, Yosef and Frada died in Krizhopol, Vinnista, Ukraine in 1942. (This was a Ghetto 100km from Vinnista). Bella died in the Ukraine in 1943. Frada was 17 (born 1925) and Yosef was 15 (born 1927). Fisel was an upholsterer by profession. Their nationality is listed as “Czernowitz”. The information was submitted in 1956 by Mordechai Glantzer, son of Fisel. Mordechai Glantzer also submitted a page for Wolf Glanzer, son of Fisel and Berta (Shneider), born in 1906 in Opriseni, lived in Opriseni. Wolf was a salesman by profession, and married to Chaya Glanzer. They had a daughter Malka, who died at age 8 in the Ukraine in 1942 (born 1934). Wolf died in Mogilev Podolski, Vinntsa, Ukraine in 1943. (This was a transit camp for expelled Bukovinian Jews).

A separate page was submitted for Isaac Weissbrod, born 1907 in Opriseni, resident of Mihaileni, Dorohoi, Moldavia, died 1941 in Mohilev Pololsk, Vinnitsa, Ukraine.

We therefore now know three more names of the Oprischeny Jews, Glanzer, Kroner, and Weissbrod, to go with Zuckermann, Pariser, Wider, and Grosser.

From these records, I looked for the name Glanzer in Israel, and found there were very few, so I tried calling some. I spoke with Esther Glanzer, who I found out is the widow of Zvi Glanzer, son of Mordechai Glanzer, who filled out the forms. She said that while she was born in Israel, she remembers her husband mentioning the village of Oprischeny. He also gave video testimony to Yad Va’shem. She then gave me the name of Raphael Tadmor, who was Mordechai Glanzer’s stepson. He was born in Czernowitz in 1936 and moved to Israel in 1946. He explained that the Jews of Czernowitz who came under Soviet rule following the war fled across the border to Romania, as the Soviets did not allow emigration, but Romania did. He also said that any of the generation who grew up in Oprischeny had died. He said he would check with an aunt of his for any other information. He said that Gusta (Marco) Glanzer was actually born in Opriseni in 1928, moved to Czernowitz at age six, and then at age 16 (1945) moved to Israel after the war. She however has absolutely no recollection of Opriseni or any other family that came from there.

Through a tip, a called the Jewish Agency in Israel which has a Bureau of Missing Relatives to see if they have any Zuckerman’s on record who emigrated from Oprischeny. Unfortunately, the department was recently closed, and all records were transferred to the Central Zionist Archives. I sent a query by mail, but they said because of the volume of requests, it would be up to a year to receive an answer.

I then decided to try a different route, instead of Jews who had left the region, I’d see if there were any non-Jewish families who had lived there for generations, who might remember the Zuckermann family.
Through the Chernivtsy (Chernowitz) synagogue, I contacted the local Jewish aid society, Shushana-Hesed. They forwarded my request by mail to the town, and waited for a response, which seems not to be coming.

I then seemed to catch a break. I found an article on the web from a Bucharest newspaper that wrote a story, in Romanian, about the village of Opriseni. From the article I took a few of the old family names mentioned, such as Biletchi, Birau, and Pitul, and hoped I could somehow contact them. Through international directory assistance, I actually got the phone numbers.

With the help of someone from the Toronto Russian Jewish Community Centre, we called the modern village of Opryseny. This is what we found out -
After trying a few numbers, we finally spoke with Rodina Dmitrienvna, because in addition to Ukrainian, she speaks Russian, Romanian and French, and teaches languages at the school. She told us a little bit about the village today, which has a population of 2,000, which is the same population as a hundred years ago when Zaida was born there. The village is very small, as addresses do not include house numbers, and everyone in the village knows everybody else. She was very proud Opryseny, as a picturesque and hospitable place. She said the town is 585 years old, and was according to legend, first settled by Polish soldiers who encamped there, as Oprizh in Polish means army encampment. After World War II, Ukraine actually changed the name of the village to Dubovka, and the town just a few years ago, decided to change it back to its historical name. When I enquired if the Opr in the name may mean oak, she said no, but interestingly, Dub in Dubova does means oak tree in Ukrainian.

She mentioned that all families live in houses, there is a village church, shops, and a “cultural center” for any and all gatherings. The village is surrounded by forests, and there are two rivers flowing through the village, the Kotivetz and the Oprishanka.

I enquired if she knew of the Zuckerman family. She asked her father, who was born in 1927, but he had no recollection of the name. The family spoke Romanian to each other, which shows even after fifty years in Ukraine, they hold on to their Romanian ethnicity. She also pointed out they are less than five kilometres from the Romanian border. Rodina immediately said the Zuckermans must be a Jewish family. However, anti-Semitism can’t be that bad, as she invited all of the descendents of one of their own native sons, to come and visit the village, take pictures and meet the locals. She extended the invitation five more times.

She then offered to ask around the village elders to see if anyone remembers the Zuckerman family. She also gave us the number of the town hall, which holds all the records, and may hold old birth records.

A final note not yet cleared up. I came across what might be the most concrete piece of evidence of Max’s family. GenAmi, a French Jewish genealogical website lists every Jewish emigrant who passed through Brussels on their way to their new countries. Under the listing I found this amazing entry:
ZUCKERMANN (Opriseni* 1897/Stryy 1909/Hamburg 1900)

I wrote to the site owner asking for information about what this exactly means (is 1897 the date of birth or arrival in Brussels), and after many follow ups, never received a response. Is this concrete evidence that one of Max’s siblings emigrated without his knowledge?

Hopefully in the future a few more details from these sources will come through and clarify even more about the Zuckermans’ time in Bukovina.