WHERE'S CHUDNOV? — Sharon Mark Cohen

Chudnov is a quiet town in the center of Ukraine and the heart of our family. My father (1911 - 1997) was born in the small, once heavily Jewish populated shtetl, in 1911. The area is visible on the map in the central-western portion of the country, about a 40-minute drive southwest of Zytomyr (Zhitomer).

Known for its abundant greenery, my cousins throughout the century memorialized their homeland of Chudnov. See the commentary written by Cousin Raya, in my blog post, Our Family Chain Is Falling Apart, The Links Are Rolling Away, dated March 29, 2022, in which she states that “Chudnov was originally built on the left bank of the Teperovka River.”

Seeking to confirm that Chudnov was in the Pale of Settlement when my father was born there, I reached out to my cousin Alexey, Raya’s grandson, my resource for everything “Chudnov” and more. On February 8, 2022, Alexey, born and raised in Ukraine, now living in Germany, wrote, ”Chudnov is still Chudnov (in Russian language). As soon the Ukraine is independent now - all topographical names in the Ukraine are in Ukrainian language now. So it is officially Chudniv. UA vs RU difference: There is ‘i’ instead of ‘o.’ It used to be in some period of time ‘Chudnov-Volynsk’ and may be the railway station is still ‘Chudnov-Volynsk.’"

Furthermore, “It was the Pale of Settlement till 1917,” he went on, “Yes - Chudnov is too small to talk specifically about it, talking about the Pale of Settlement. If - than it will be talked about Zhitomir or Berdichev - the next big towns - or about Volhynia (Volyn) - the region where Chudnov belongs to…

“See the map of the Pale of Settlement in attachment.
I have marked Chudnov's place for you.” Note the variation of city names as they are spelled on this map and the map on the cover page of this blog post.

Alexey concluded, “The Pale of Settlement - was a region in Russian empire where the Jews were allowed to live.” As presented in the letters that my aunt saved, our family lived in poverty, and my grandparents and other relatives who were fortunate to make it to the United States sent money back home. My brother Stu, curious about the worth of a dollar, which some of the letters thanked my grandparents for sending, looked it up on the internet. He found that after 100 years, the value of that dollar is worth $14.75.

At the start of the Russian invasion in 2022, a cousin living in Chudnov was trapped there with her daughter and disabled aunt. A final surviving resident of Chudnov with any Jewish ancestry, Tanya, a happy devoted mother, and caretaker niece, was once again stopped in her tracks. Faced with more trials and tribulations than anyone should have to endure in a lifetime, Tanya, in her latest challenge, was presented with the threat of expulsion, or worse.

A nurse, with a calling for helping others, Tanya was raised by her widowed mother at the home of my 2nd cousin, her Jewish grandfather, and his non-Jewish wife. Tanya’s grandfather wrote to me on June 20, 2004, mentioning his daughter, the lone sibling of Tanya’s father, “…our daughter Sveta is an invalid, she cannot talk or hear.” For the complete contents of the letter, see my blog post, Our Cousins, Our Heroes, dated March 22, 2022.

Svetlana “Sveta” Fishman with her niece Tanya as a baby in the carriage

Tanya’s father died at age 24, when she was two. I was told that his premature death was caused by the effects of the poisonous chemical leak at Chernobyl.

Tanya with her parents, her father ailing

Tombstone of Valentine Fishman (1968-1992) Chudnov, Ukraine

After marrying at age 22, young Tanya became a mother 15 months later. The next day, instead of celebrating the 24th birthday of her husband, she was mourning his death in a car accident. That tragedy occurred on the way home from the hospital after the birth of their daughter.

I only began communicating with Tanya on October 26, 2020. That introduction happened with the ease of Instant Messenger and Google Translate. It felt surreal to see her membership from Chudnov appear on our Chudnov Children Facebook Group. Having a letter from Tanya’s paternal grandfather was helpful. His only sibling Polina emigrated with her family from Chudnov in 1991. I developed a very close relationship with my newfound cousin during the fifteen years she lived in Maryland.

When I requested that all my cousins who immigrated to America since 1990 tell me their stories of survival, Polina wrote that she was born in Chudnov. Summing up her recap, she offered that the war broke out on June 22, 1941, when Polina left Chudnov with her brother, parents, and her father's mother. Her mother's mother was already deceased. Her mother's father stayed in Chudnov and was killed there. The rest of the family went to the area of Ural, Russia, to the city of Chelyabinsk. In 1946 they returned to Chudnov. Five thousand Jews had been killed in Chudnov. Polina came to live in Owings Mills, Maryland, in October 1991. While living in Chudnov, she taught history and home economics.

Tanya wrote from her home in Chudnov on March 14, 2022, “I hope the war is over and we don't have to leave. It is very difficult and painful to leave your home...” On Mar 17, 2022, 5:49 PM, Tanya added, "I am very happy that so many people have contacted me and want to help. For me it is very nice and unexpected. I used to think that I had very few relatives, but now I learned that [I have] many. Thank you for your help and support.”

One hundred years of the history of Chudnov flooded my mind. History is repeating itself, and our family in Chudnov again finds themselves desperately needing help from family abroad. My thoughts drifted back to my unfamiliar Yiddish-speaking great-grandparents working together to raise their family of seven children with all the hopes and dreams of any new parents.

Within the past year, I was fortunate beyond belief. Help from some angels, namely Igor Lekhtman and my cousin Alexey Portnoy, both with roots in Chudnov and proficiency in the language, expanded my records. The birth records of my father, from 1911 in Chudnov, written in Russian and Yiddish, are now part of my files. See my blog post of September 7, 2021, at sharonmarkcohen.com, Incredulous.

Most recently added to that by Igor are the October 30, 1863 marriage records from Chudnov of my father's paternal grandparents. My Great-grandparents Moishe Muravin, registered in Ulanov as Moshko Morovin, age 18, son of Gets Morovin, wed Rukhlya Temnogorod, registered in Chudnov at age 19, as the daughter of Yevel Temnogorod. That brings me to over a 175-year family history in Chudnov. See Seek and Ye Shall Find: Uncovering Jewish Marriage Records From the Old Country, by Sharon Mark Cohen, The Jewish Link, August 4, 2022.

Bolstering the information already found in my blog post at sharonmarkcohen.com, The Legacy of the Six Weinerman Sisters, dated July 26, 2022, Igor sent the marriage records of Rose Temnogorod Weinerman, the sister of my Great-grandparents Rachel Leah and Yehuda Hersh Temnogorod. Risya (Rose) Temnogorod, daughter of Yolik - Yevel=Joel) married Itsek-Ber son of Avrum-Gershko Vajnerman (Weinerman). The bride was 20, and the groom was 21. They married July 29, 1868, in Chudnov. In this case, Vajnerman and Temnogorod are both recorded as registered in Chudnov.

Around the same time that Tanya and I connected, a mutual cousin in Russia who hails from Tanya’s branch of our family reached out to me via my website at sharonmarkcohen.com. Of the two cousins, the one in Russia was a great-granddaughter of Eida, who was a sister of my grandfather. Tanya’s aunt Sveta in Chudnov also was Grandaunt Eida’s great-granddaughter. Whereas Tanya, a generation down, was Eida’s great-great-granddaughter.

Eida died of natural causes in 1933. She was portrayed as “by no means wealthy.” Yet, she was the most well-off of the four sisters in the family of seven. Again, see my blog post, Our Cousins, Our Heroes, dated March 22, 2022.

As noted, after evacuating Chudnov during WWII, Tanya’s branch of Eida’s family returned to our ancestral shtetl after the war. Jewish life in Chudnov faded long ago. Any continuing direct family connection with Chudnov depends on Tanya.

After reading, Here We Go Again, May 17, 2022, a part of this 18-part series on my family from Chudnov, Ukraine, Cousin Erika from California wrote to reflect upon her 1997 trip to Chudnov. For two days, she and her husband stayed with our cousins, the Fishmans. Erika offered, “Thank you for taking so much of your time to share…I remember all of them well! We had a night on the town [with] Tanya’s mother. Tanya was a beautiful, sweet little girl. I want to say she was the only one who spoke a little English!

“The familial relationships are very complicated…I do not know how you keep it all straight! But all these new discoveries must keep you going! Like solving a mystery or a puzzle!

“…Ukrainians are very strong and resilient, but how long can they last? From reading the letters in your last blog and from seeing firsthand when we visited so long ago, we are very lucky that our family left Ukraine when they did. Thankful to be born in America…”

Where’s Chudnov? It’s where life began and hangs in the balance for the Temnogorod/Muravin/a family tree.

Eyda (Eida) Muravina Kaya Fan Chart
Five generations going back from Tanya’s great-great-grandmother, my Grandaunt Eyda (“Eida”) Muravina Kaya
Since the recently released revision lists and other records show that Eida, her grandfather, and her great-grandfather were born in Chudnov, it appears that our ancestry in Chudnov goes way back. With my three cousins living there now, the only break from our family members residing in Chudnov was during part of WWII

Thank you for taking the time to read the series I’ve lovingly, yet painstakingly, written about my paternal ancestry from Chudnov, Ukraine. Your kind words and comments, whether written below my blog posts or sent directly to me in emails, are very much appreciated. They warmed my broken heart.

A crowning moment came from my cousin in Sochi, Russia. She so warmly wrote, “Sharon, I continue to admire and wonder at your articles. How did you put everything together? How much effort and time...How much of your soul is invested...And after all, you communicate with everyone, you know everything about everyone. It's such a wealth. Not everyone is given to be as rich as you. I'm glad to be a part of this story.”

This addendum brings the series about my paternal ancestry in Chudnov, Ukraine to a total of 18 posts. Quite fittingly, 18=l’chaim, meaning, to life!

My brother Al and Aunt Fannie at Cousin Barbara Nadel’s bat mitzvah celebration
Encino, California
November 1982
Thankful that Aunt Fannie saved the letters from our ancestors and that Al suggested I submit my articles to the Jewish Link when they were a new publication, kickstarting my career as a journalist

For a verbal recap of the series, visit www.wdvrfm.org and check the archived radio interview at The World of Work on June 3, 2022, or simply go to sharonmarkcohen.com and click on “interviews.” You’ll find a link to my June 3, 2022 radio interview and others.