Edmund Hirsch

Walking toward Hirsch's home, the speakers talk about Hungary and Romania and about Luduș. Hirsch gives his birth year as 1924 and mentions studying at the gymnasium. Part of the exchange is in Hungarian, and the passage is fragmentary.

The formal interview starts with Hirsch giving personal information. Luduș lay about forty kilometers from Târgu Mureș. In 1941 it was a small town with about 600 Jews, a synagogue, a rabbi and a Talmud Torah. No Jews remain there today, and the last one died about two years earlier. He also mentions friends who were in Transnistria and says he himself was in several camps.

adds the town's institutions (rabbi, Talmud Torah) and the fact that no Jews remain

Hirsch speaks of being held in various camps in Romania from 1941 until the Soviet army liberated the area in 1944. He says his parents and sister left for Israel in 1960. He had a brother who was imprisoned as a political prisoner and died in August 1944, apparently of lung problems. He then begins to give his own name and the family name Hirsch.

adds that the brother died in prison in 1944, which the catalogue gives only as an arrest

Hirsch gives his Yiddish name, Khayim Aryeh, son of Avraham, and his Romanian name, Edmund Hirsch. He attended cheder, a four-class Romanian-language Jewish school, and a Talmud Torah for two years. He then spent three years at the gymnasium in Târgu Mureș, until Jews were expelled from it. He ties this to Antonescu's fascism and antisemitism, and mentions that Jews were rounded up and taken to a camp in Turda.

Hirsch describes Jews being taken from Turda to a labor camp until the Red Army arrived in August 1944. He mentions the fascist government, the Iași pogrom and deportations to Transnistria, saying that only a minority returned. Kerler then asks about his father, who was named Avraham.

Hirsch talks about his family. His father came from a village near Luduș and was a grain merchant. His mother, Sarah, was a housewife. His parents and sister went to Israel in 1960, and the sister died some years ago. He had two siblings, his mother came from a family of twelve children and his father's family was smaller, and he remembers his grandfathers' long lives. He also says Luduș had about 600 Jews, one rabbi and two shoykhets, and that the synagogue was blown up after the war.

adds his parents' occupations, the two shoykhets and the destruction of the synagogue

Hirsch discusses antisemitism under communism and today, calling it a paradox that it exists where almost no Jews remain. He says his son lives in Israel, apparently since 1987. He explains that his mother tongue was Hungarian and Yiddish was also spoken at home, and that the town was split between Hungarian and Romanian speakers. He studied in cheder in Yiddish and recalls Jews from the villages being concentrated in a ghetto in Luduș.

adds the ghetto concentration of village Jews in Luduș

Hirsch describes Jews from the villages being gathered in Luduș and then taken to a camp in Turda. He then recounts forced labor in a stone quarry near Constanța in Dobruja until the Soviet troops came in August 1944. He says every Jew could write a novel, and mentions his mother's work as a nurse with the Red Army and relatives who perished. He recalls Romanian soldiers returning from Odesa who told openly of killing about 15,000 Jews, mentions a recent visit to Odesa, and talks about Auschwitz and his parents' whereabouts during the war.

adds the Turda camp, the Odesa soldiers' account, his mother's service and relatives lost

Hirsch speaks about the later war years, after Stalingrad, when the Romanian authorities treated Jews somewhat better. In a partly Hungarian-language account, a young man tells of being locked up with about ten other Jewish youths, with a minyan, as punishment, to be sent to Transnistria. They were released when an order sent officers to the front, which he calls great luck. He also says Botoșani Jews were not deported because they paid the authorities.

adds the rescue story of the ten young men and the bribery explanation

Hirsch mentions a pogrom after the war in what the transcript seems to give as Dorohoi, and shootings at its cemetery. He turns back to Luduș and describes its single synagogue with a beit midrash, and its morning and afternoon prayers and Sabbath services. He also speaks of the Jewish cemetery there, with about two thousand gravestones, which survived intact, and of his brother's grave.

adds the Luduș synagogue and cemetery details

Hirsch speaks about contemporary Jewish life in Dej, where a few Jews die each year. He worked for about fifteen years as secretary of the Jewish communities of Dej and Bistrița. He also mentions the labor camps and survivors' return. Kerler then asks him to say more about Luduș before they move on to Dej.

Hirsch says he settled in Dej in 1960 and speaks about his brother Iosif Hirsch, who was a radio technician. The brother was arrested as a political prisoner for building an illegal radio station with two Romanian colleagues and was sentenced to twelve years of hard labor. He was beaten, lost his health and returned home sick with tuberculosis, and died soon after. Hirsch also says Dej had about 4,000 Jews before the war and about a thousand at most afterward.

adds the brother's occupation and the Dej population figures

Hirsch recalls his cheder, with a teacher named Kaufman (?), and the Jewish school, cheder and Talmud Torah housed in a single building in Luduș. He gives the town's population as about four thousand, half Hungarian and half Romanian, with about 600 Jews and some Roma, and touches on Romanian history. He mentions the Jewish pupils' gatherings, the rabbi, and a kosher restaurant in Târgu Mureș. He names the shoykhet (Mendel Berg (?)), says there was no yeshiva, and speaks about uncles and relatives named Berkovits. He ends with the distances from Luduș to Dej, Cluj and Turda.

adds the population structure and the Târgu Mureș lyceum and kosher restaurant

Hirsch describes the Dej synagogue, which was not dynamited, because a quarter of poor people lived around it. He says that before the war a Jewish quarter and a Jewish street stood about fifty meters from the synagogue. Part of the account, in Hungarian, says that blowing it up would have destroyed the surrounding houses.

Kerler and Hirsch discuss Jewish cemeteries and what they were called in Luduș (beys-oylem, beys-khayim, or euphemisms such as a 'good place'). They also discuss the sharp decline in the town's Jewish population and the Jewish graves left behind. Kerler then asks whether Hirsch remembers any Yiddish songs from Luduș.

The passage deals with the Luduș cemeteries, their Yiddish names and the Jewish population decline, and ends with a question about Yiddish songs.

Hirsch recalls that the Yiddish actress Sidi Tal performed twice in Luduș in the early 1930s, when he was about ten. He describes a wealthy Jew, named as Aron Moritz, who owned buildings, a restaurant or café and a theater hall with a stage. Plays were given in Hungarian and Romanian, and Moritz later emigrated to Palestine. Kerler ends by asking about Hirsch's work after the war.

Names the wealthy man as Aron Moritz and mentions the theater hall, the Hungarian and Romanian plays and his emigration.

Kerler asks Hirsch about his work after the war, but the answer is unclear in the transcript, apart from Hungarian remarks about Romanian business. Kerler then asks what he remembers from cheder, prayers and melodies, and Hirsch speaks of a Modzhitz-style melody (?), the cantor and the shoykhet. He says the synagogue stayed open after the war, while Communist Party members opposed it and came to the services at Rosh Hashanah.

The transcript shows only a question about work after the war, with no clear answer; the passage is mainly about prayer, melodies and party opposition to the synagogue.

Hirsch describes postwar religious life under communism: party members checked the services, and about ten percent of the Jews who were Communists attended on the High Holidays. He says the Great Synagogue was used for prayer until about 1990, and mentions that some Jewish men died every month. Kerler then asks what brought him to Dej after the war and whether Jews returned to Luduș. Hirsch answers that the work brought him, and that few came back to Luduș.

Adds what brought him to Dej (work) and the question of Jews returning to Luduș.

Hirsch talks about the years after the war: Jews returning to Luduș and settling in Turda, Cluj and elsewhere, and the 23 August 1944 armistice. He recalls that many Jews emigrated to Israel and that his parents left in 1960, and talks about Romania being neither communist nor capitalist, with poor people and the postwar growth of industry. Kerler then asks about his family's religiosity, and Hirsch answers that his father was religious but modern, not Hasidic.

Covers returnees, emigration to Israel, the parents' departure and views on postwar and present-day Romania.

Hirsch talks about his family: his religious but modern father studied at a yeshiva in Oradea. Hirsch says he worked as a translator and speaks German, Romanian and Hungarian, and learned French at the lyceum. He explains that his wife's mother tongue is Romanian, with some Hungarian. Much of the passage, partly in Hungarian, is about Hungarian history and language in Transylvania, Cluj and the Hungarian university. It closes with a question about non-Jews in Luduș who spoke Yiddish.

Adds his language skills and work as a translator, and the long discussion of Hungarian and Romanian language and history in Transylvania.

Hirsch speaks about prewar Luduș, including non-Jewish workers whose parents spoke Yiddish, and about holidays. He recalls the matzo factory and new clothes at Passover, the closed shops at Yom Kippur, and being taken by his father to the early-morning selihot services. He then discusses the Yiddish word for the Mureș river, the changing of Jewish family names, and a saying about birth and loss. He finally describes the seder, where he asked the four questions, the afikoman, and the Hebrew reading of the Haggadah.

Adds the matzo factory, the river-name question, the name changes and the Haggadah reading in Hebrew.

Hirsch reflects on the future of Jewish life in Romania, in Yiddish with Hungarian asides, then describes Luduș before the war. He lists Jewish shoemakers, tailors and bakers, says there was much poverty and many children, and names a wealthy wine dealer, Heller Moshe, along with Aron Moritz. He speaks of Jewish pubs and drinking at the seder, and of poor Jews in the villages. He also mentions bochers from villages being fed in Jewish homes on assigned days, poor people eating maize porridge, and pellagra.

Adds the wine trade, poor village Jews, the practice of feeding students on assigned days, and pellagra from maize porridge.

Hirsch describes his family as semi-modern and recalls fears of the evil eye and the custom of quenching coals. He says Passover play-acting of the four questions and card-playing at Hanukkah were not practised, though children played with the dreidel. He explains that on Purim only children took part, with no purim-shpil, and that a honey pastry (called something like kindli, ?) was made. Costumes were not customary because of antisemitism. The passage ends with the beginning of a discussion of Tisha B'Av and what children did.

Adds evil-eye beliefs, the absence of Passover play-acting and card-playing, Purim costumes and antisemitism, and a closing discussion of Tisha B'Av.

Hirsch talks about food customs around Yom Kippur, especially the large meal on Erev Yom Kippur and the children's fear of eating. Kerler asks about the family's dishes, and they discuss a dough dish and what it was called. The passage ends as Kerler turns to gefilte fish.

Kerler's questions about dish names and the dough dish.

Hirsch and Kerler discuss gefilte fish and "false fish" (made when there was no fish), and whether the fish was sweet or salted. They discuss a Passover potato dish, sweet pastry and bundlekh, then the dishes for each weekday, including the weekly soup with meat on market day and Sabbath cholent. Many dish names are garbled.

The weekday-by-weekday menu including bundlekh, market-day soup and noodles.

Hirsch answers questions about cultural terminology, such as a golem, the word for a church or synagogue, and the term for havdalah. He names wealthy Jewish landowners and says rich Jews built the synagogue in Luduș. He also mentions the town's four churches and the Jewish community's social life.

Questions on a golem and the word for a church, plus prewar Luduș with its wealthy landowners and churches.

Hirsch talks about the decline of the Jewish population in Luduș after the war, from several hundred Jews to a couple of hundred around 1960 (?). He says his cousins had left for Israel by 1948, and Kerler asks where he lived in between. The passage ends with Kerler asking about a memory remedy before thanking him for his help.

The talk about memory loss and a memory remedy, and Kerler's closing thanks.