Bukovina Directories

1936 Czernowitz Directory
The Czernowitz Directory for the Year 1936 (Courtesy of the Czernowitz Regional Archives) has been released on http://czernowitz.blogspot.com/.

More than 33,000 "new" addresses are available for download! The Romanization of Bukovina, which took place during the interwar period of the 20th century, had a very negative impact on the accuracy of the directory. An incredible number of typing errors, dozens of variants for the same name, occupation or street and the generally low editorial quality made it quite hard to obtain a reliable result. However it's a valuable data source, as it is - as far as is known - the very last directory edition for Czernowitz before WW2.

The following explanation makes the listing useful and searchable and was obtained from the above mentioned website:


 * Surnames: The diversity of spelling for the names may cause difficulties, for example "Schwarzmann" could be listed as "Schwarzman" or "Svartman" or any other variation. Romanian diacritics have not been used, so please keep looking for different spellings.
 * Given names: The same problem applies to the given names, for example "Schloime" became "Sloime", "Elias" became "Ilie", "Mechel" became "Mihai", etc. Again, Romanian diacritics have not been used, so please keep looking for different spellings.
 * Occupations: Romanian Occupation Definitions - English Translations were made available on the JewishGen website and are available to downlad from this website. JewishGen notes "Some of these [occupation definitions] are archaic or obscure terms, no longer current. Romanian diacritics have not been used. Please note that the Romanian terms have been entered exactly as the clerks wrote them in [1936]. They are therefore subject to any mis-spellings, etc., that they might have used at that time…".
 * Streets: This column differentiates between (ro./en./ger.) cale = avenue = Chaussee, drum = way = Weg, fundatura = dead end street = Sackgasse, piata = place = Platz, poteca = pathway = Pfad, strada = street = Straße [Gasse].
 * Addresses: In order to make the listing searchable, the street names were made consistent by using the Czernowitz Street Index and each street was assigned a number. These numbers now show in the directory for quick reference. Czernowitz Street Index is available for download from the website.