Boltykh speaks about his mother's, Zhenia (Sheyndl) Boltykh, life during the war. She was imprisoned in ghettos in Transnistria until 1944.
From the machine transcript
Boltykh describes his mother's wartime ordeal. She was deported with her parents, her father died in Vertiujeni, and she was driven to Transnistria where she suffered. He gives scenes of shootings, of hunger, and of how she escaped being taken with other young girls. She was held in camp until 1944 and then returned to Briceni.
Boltykh talks about his mother's life after the war. She was born 1911 in Briceni. He then provides personal information and talks about his family.
From the machine transcript
Boltykh continues with his mother's return to Briceni, where her house was gone and neighbors would give back nothing. She married his father, who had come back from the war without a leg; his father died in the 1990s (?) and she then lived with Boltykh. Kerler asks for names and dates: his mother Zhenia (Sheyndl) née Shuster, born 1911, his father Avrom (Yankl), his own name Itsik, and that he has no siblings.
adds the mother's maiden name Shuster and the family names
Boltykh speaks about Jewish life after the war. He recalls private prayer services.
From the machine transcript
Asked by Kerler about Jewish life after the war, Boltykh says there was little. The big prayer house was broken up in the 1960s and turned into a cultural building. A few old Jews gathered privately to pray with one man who could read.
adds the demolition of the prayer house in the 1960s
Boltykh speaks about life today and his family. His relatives recorded his mother's biography in Yiddish.
From the machine transcript
Boltykh talks about his elderly mother's present illness and about a relative from America who wrote down the family tree and her whole story in Yiddish. He offers to send Kerler the manuscript. He also complains that life today is not good and everything is expensive.
adds the relative's recorded family tree and the complaints about prices
Boltykh speaks about life during the Soviet period and life today. He adresses private religious services after the war.
From the machine transcript
Boltykh compares Soviet times with today: shortage and affordability then, high prices and small pensions now, and a house that is cold in winter. He says about ten camp survivors remain in town. He recalls a man who prayed at home and organised yortsayt prayers, mentions that Berts has a Jewish community without a rabbi, and answers Kerler's questions about his Yiddish and the languages of his home.
adds the questions about his own Yiddish and the languages of his home
Boltykh speaks about his mother's education. She attended a Romanian school. He then speaks about Jewish life in Briceni before the war, as he recalls it from his mother's telling.
From the machine transcript
Boltykh says his mother attended a Romanian school but could pray in Yiddish from the siddur. Recalling her stories, he describes Jewish Briceni with many tradesmen's clubs and a Jewish hospital where the wealthy paid for the poor. A relative of hers crossed the border illegally to Palestine (?) and later lived near Washington. He also mentions robbers who attacked the rich before the war and the lack of rights for Jews afterwards.
adds the Jewish hospital, tradesmen's clubs and the relative who went abroad
Boltykh speaks about life after the war and antisemitism. He then talks about his family and provides personal information. His father was born in Lipcani.
From the machine transcript
Boltykh says his father was born in Lipcani and his mother in Briceni, and speaks briefly of Yiddish theater before the war, which did not survive it. A stretch of mainly Russian speech follows on his date of birth and patronymic, which Kerler notes down together with the date of the interview. He then turns to his father.
adds the Yiddish theater and the Russian exchange on dates of birth
Boltykh speaks about his father's life during the war. He was imprisoned into a ghetto in 1944 and then served in the Red Army in 1945. He was injured in Kaliningrad and lost his leg.
From the machine transcript
Boltykh recounts his father's war: he was taken to a camp from Lipcani in 1944, then conscripted to the Red Army front, wounded in the leg at Königsberg (Kaliningrad?) and lost the leg. He describes combat shooting from a tank and lived as a war invalid until his death.
Boltykh talks about how his mother observed the holidays before the war. He then talks about Purim celebrations, as well as other holidays, after the war.
From the machine transcript
Boltykh describes how his mother celebrated holidays: matzo and special food for the poor at Passover paid for by the rich, her separate Passover dishes and knife, gefilte fish, and Friday candle blessing. He mentions Purim visits with presents to neighbors, fasting, and a blessing from the rabbi of Bălți. He says his father could not pray while his mother was learned.
adds Passover practices and Friday-night candle blessing
Boltykh talks about his family and memorialization today.
From the machine transcript
Boltykh says that all his grandparents died in the camps. His mother's father had been a letter writer, an advocate of sorts, who foresaw the war; he was thrown into a grave at Vertiujeni. Boltykh describes the yearly visit to Vertiujeni on the memorial day, travelling with a group from Bălți, with a kaddish and a rabbi who leads the prayer there.
adds the grandfather's occupation and the yearly commemorative trip to Vertiujeni
Boltykh speaks about his mother's childhood and holiday celebration before the war.
From the machine transcript
Asked about his mother's childhood, Boltykh describes family gatherings at holidays in Novoselytsia. Lemster asks about her reading: she read Yiddish books, among them Sholem Aleichem. They discuss whether a Yiddish writer from Lipcani or Briceni, who left in the 1970s (?), was known, and a booklet of poems.
adds the discussion of Yiddish reading and a local writer
Boltykh speaks about the contemporary Jewish community.
From the machine transcript
A short exchange in which the interviewers decide to wrap up the interview, with a remark about a man in his eighties and a Russian aside about not losing time.
