Nash Holos Ukrainian Roots Radio

 

 

A few years ago, Marla Raucher Osborn discovered her Jewish roots in the western Ukrainian city of Rohatyn.



She and her husband have since left their home in California and relocated to Lviv, in western Ukraine, where they run an NGO called Rohatyn Jewish Heritage. This NGO, or non-government organization, is dedicated to restoring Rohatyn’s centuries-old Jewish heritage which was almost completely obliterated by the Nazis during the Holocaust.

It’s a daunting project. Of Rohatyn’s Jewish community which numbered in the tens of thousands before WWII, only a few remain today. Remnants of synagogues, cemeteries, and other visible symbols of this once thriving and vibrant community lie scattered across the area, buried in asphalt and concrete foundations, in forests and fields.

Marla has dedicated her life to finding and restoring as many of these remnants as she can. Recently, she kindly agreed to share her story with Nash Holos listeners.

Pawlina: So how did you end up starting this whole Rohatyn adventure? You and your husband do this, and this is kind of your life’s work now. How did you get started? What brought you to Rohatyn?

Marla: It's a good question. I like to say I was an accidental activist, because I didn’t go looking for it, it grabbed me. My Rohatyn grandmother, my father's mother was a very influential person in my life, and she passed away about 15 years ago. In 2008 while living in Paris, my husband said, "You know what? For our anniversary, let’s make a trip to Rohatyn, in fact let’s make our first trip to Ukraine." And we went. We went to Lviv, we rented a car, we drove in winter—it was February—to Rohatyn. We had no translator with us, no maps, no information where the Jewish sites were, where my grandmother had lived before she left with her parents and sister in 1914. And two hours later I couldn't wait to leave. By the time we got back to Paris I thought I had it, I’ve made that heritage trip, I never want to go back. But over the next couple of years the more I thought about it, and the more involved I got with a Rohatyn Jewish descendants group that was formed on the internet, the more I realized the problem was not Rohatyn, the problem was me. I hadn't gone prepared. So in 2011 we went back. We brought an interpreter with us, and from that very first visit in 2011, we were introduced to Mykailo Vorobetz. He took us the sites, and he showed us the Jewish headstones he had been accumulating. From there on out... there was no return. That was it.



Pawlina: Wow. You were hooked. So... but why? Your husband suggested it, why? Why Rohatyn?

Marla: Well a couple of reasons. Both of us have always been the family historians in our particular families. And it is worth pointing out my husband is not Jewish, but I tell people he is the most Jewish non-Jewish person you would meet. He is absolutely involved with this project 100%. But I was always very intrigued with my grandmother's family. And I’ve thought about this a lot because... the family had two aunts of my grandmother who had advanced degrees in the inter-war period when Rohatyn was Polish and I always found them very fascinating. They didn't have any children, they survived the Shoah, the Holocaust, because they left Rohatyn in the 1930's when there were restrictions starting to be imposed on Jews in certain professions; like doctors and teachers, etc. And I always was very intrigued by this side of my family. In some ways it was in part because there was so little I knew about that side of the family. In a way I think it’s symbolic of what Jewish heritage is like in western Ukraine, because it is very much about empty spaces,