BUCOVINE.com

The Matéi Visniec Interview with Bernard Brumberg; founder of the website Bucovine.com by Radio France international.

Matéi Visniec : How did you get the idea to found the site www.bucovine.com?

Bernard Brumberg : As one can see on the site, it is first a memorial to my father, Doctor Nathan Brumberg, originally from Cernauti, in Bucovina.

MV: Have you had this interest in Bucovina all your life?

BB: No, it is recent and it is linked to an identity crisis. I wanted to find my roots on the paternal side. But you know a great many of us are in this situation. I regularly receive requests for information and for searches to find traces of the families who came from Bucovina.

MV: But tell me, Mr. Brumberg, is this mostly an interest of the French, for these tracking searches, as you say?

BB: No, there are people of all nationalities who contact us. They are from the first, second and third generations and in general they have few facts: a year, a family name, a city of departure, sometimes badly spelled: for example, there are several spellings for Radauti, and there is often uncertainty. The few papers which they possess are in German, that came from their great father and great mother.

MV: I observe that the site is well developed and it touches little by little Romania as a whole.

BB: Yes, this seemed normal to me, on his identity papers, my father was Romanian by birth. It was obvious to me that the site must touch upon all Romania, a section I have set my heart on is the one on Romanian culture in past days, it really needs to go farther.

MV: I have remarked that there is a version in English and in Spanish.

BB: Yes, these two languages are spoken world-wide, they touch a great number of visitors and we have noticed many contacts and visits from Latin America for example.

MV: In what areas are you going to continue to enrich the site?

BB: I think that the site bucovine.com has reached its maturity, I am pleased in a good way by its popularity but, I have also one great regret.

When I created this site I also made it so that the sons and the daughters of Bucovinians everywhere are able to contact each other. For this I put a forum in place, a chat room. I notice that few of the Bucovinians show up there. They have a tendency instead to use the “contact” form, then it goes straight to me, when they could enter into a direct relationship between each other!

To continue to develop the site: to add new subjects, more on the painters, on the authors, on the cities, on the people, in order to reveal Romania as it is and not as it has been described: “There are many clichés that circulate” . . . and more interactivity. I take this opportunity to make an appeal to the diaspora to come forward.

MV :Thank you Mr. Bernard Brumberg