Preparing for Munkacs - Some Resources

With another week and a half until our trip, I am trying to learn more about the Munkacs area. There are a few interesting resources on the web.

• The US Holocaust Memorial Museum (USHMM) has an online  Holocaust Encyclopedia with a few articles about Munkacs.

• Yad Vashem has a rich  online exhibition about the history of Jewish settlement in Munkacs (in Hebrew).

• The Israeli Association of Carpatho Ruthenians has a rich website (in Hebrew).
• Final Presentations of the Journey into Jewish Heritage Delegation to Carpatho Rus 

• In the 1930's the American film company, "March of Time", made a short newsreel about the Jews of Carpatho Rus. It contains sections about the court of the Munkacser Rebbe, R' Chaim Elazar Shapira, his daughter, Chaya Frima Rivka's regal wedding to Rabbi Baruch Yehoshua Yerachmiel Rabinowitz, local Jewish vendors and artisans, Cheder students studying, Zionist youth group members dancing the Hora to a Chasidic tune and Zionist Hebrew school students singing Hatikva.

• I"m also reading the autobiography of David Ben David, a member of the original Kfar Etzion. David was born and raised in a village in Carpatho Rus. In his story, he gives vivid accounts of growing up, studying in cheders and Yeshivot in the area and eventually joining Bnei Akiva and coming via illegal Aliyah to Eretz Yisrael. The reader is swept along into David's story, truly experiencing life in Carpatho Rus during the 1920's - 30's.

.