Iakob (Yakub, Yankev-Shamshen) Davidovich; Pnina (Perl) Davidovich; Ruti Moskovich

Kerler states the date and place of the recording and asks how Iași is said in Yiddish. The speakers discuss the Bukovinian and Iași pronunciations, and Kerler announces that they will talk about prewar life in Siret and then briefly about Botoșani.

The passage also covers Kerler's announcement of the interview plan (Siret, then Botoșani).

Davidovich gives his birth date, with Kerler checking the year, and then tells of the deportation of his family from Siret in 1941 to Transnistria. They were held in several places, among them Pavlovka, Bershad, Obodovka and Pishchana, until 1945. In Pavlovka about 2,500 Jews were held in a pig farm, with starvation and typhus; he says nobody shot or beat them, but Ukrainian bandits came at night to kill and search for gold. His father went out looking for work, got a job making soap for a Romanian lessee near Pishchana, and brought the family there.

The transcript adds the Ukrainian bandits' night attacks, the lessee who hired the father, and the father's teaching a local man the trade.

Davidovich says the family returned to Romania in 1945 and stayed about three months in Siret. His father had no work there, so they moved to Botoșani (as the name is heard), where he again made soap. Davidovich then studied in Iași and at the university. Kerler asks about songs in the Bershad ghetto, and Davidovich says nobody sang there and that the family stayed only a few months.

The transcript adds Kerler's questions about songs in Bershad.

Davidovich talks about his mother's father, the melamed Meir Hersh Shekhter (name as heard), and his wife Golda. The grandfather taught small children and older boys Hebrew, and gave lessons in Latin and Greek to students preparing for medical studies. He describes how the old people left behind in Siret at the deportation, eight in all, some blind, were murdered by legionnaires, beheaded and buried in sand. He also tells of his other grandfather, who visited a daughter in America in the 1930s and came back because he could not keep kosher there, and who died in a trench on the march. A large monument now stands in the Siret cemetery.

The transcript adds the second grandfather's trip to America, the murder of the old Jews left in Siret, and the monument.

Davidovich recalls his prewar childhood: he attended cheder, where his grandfather was the melamed, and about two years of Romanian school until 1941. In Pishchana, in the ghetto, his father had him study religious texts several times a week with the local ritual slaughterer. Kerler confirms the point, and Davidovich says that otherwise no studying was possible in Transnistria.

The transcript adds the Romanian school, and that the study in Pishchana was with a shoykhet arranged by his father.

Davidovich says he returned from Transnistria at age 13 and was placed in the first class, knowing no Romanian but having learned Russian there. He knew some German from his mother, who was born in Siret and went to school in Austria-Hungary. Kerler asks about her name and work: Dvoyre (?) Shekhter, a housewife. Ruti confirms, and Kerler remarks that the twin siblings were together and spoke Yiddish.

The transcript adds the languages he knew after the return, his mother's name and occupation, and the twin sister.

Ruti recalls the aftermath of the Transnistria years: only two families with children came back to Siret, and she remembers the dead being carried out on a cart. She describes a woman's body in a trench and two dead children. She then tells how a German doctor in Pishchana, when she was six or seven, took a liking to her and wanted to take her to Germany. Her parents hid her, he threatened them, and the Russians arrived before he could act. Davidovich adds details, and Kerler says the whole town knew the story.

The passage is mostly Ruti's wartime memories (the German doctor, corpses) rather than postwar Siret life, with Iakob adding details.

Ruti and Davidovich answer questions about which language was spoken at home and recall that German was forbidden to them in Transnistria. Kerler asks about Volhynia place names, and Davidovich talks about his wish to visit Obodovka, Pavlovka and Pishchana; they discuss Bershad and a song Kerler recorded. They then retell their father's jokes and sayings: that a Jew is beaten twice, the rebbe who divides a sack of nuts, the woman who comes to the rebbe about her husband, and a joke about queueing. There is also a story about a synagogue and a shop selling yeast.

The transcript adds recollections of the father's jokes and sayings as well as the language question.

Kerler puts dialectological questions about forms of address, the singular and plural forms of 'you' and the corresponding verb forms. Davidovich explains the plural forms and illustrates greetings, and then a joke about greetings, hard to follow in the transcript, is told. They mention that the father was fond of telling jokes, and Kerler mentions making a recording.

The transcript shows questions on the singular and plural forms of 'you', and the joke on greetings is only partly intelligible.

Davidovich says his father led the family seder with a fine singing voice and that he recorded it on cassette. Asked about Jewish life after the war, he says he was not in Siret but in Botoșani (as the name is heard), where the organizations included Bnei Akiva, Gordonia and others. Pnina says they sang many songs, held literary evenings and studied Zionism and hakhshara.

The passage opens with the father's seder singing and a recording of it.

Pnina gives her maiden name Albrecht, her father Haim's and mother's names and her brother Baruch, and says her father was a Zionist from Frumușica who taught them Hebrew. She is a pediatrician. When she was in her fourth year at the faculty her father was arrested, and she was expelled from the faculty. Ruti and Iakob explain their Hebrew and Yiddish names (Rukhl-Leye, Yankl Shimshn), the names of their parents and grandparents and the added name Alter. The talk moves to religious and civil weddings and mixed marriages in Israel.

The transcript adds the names of grandparents, the added name Alter, and the discussion of weddings and mixed marriages.

Kerler asks about the Jewish population of Moldova and Romania; a figure of about fifteen thousand is mentioned. He then asks whether they remember children's songs or other songs. The interviewees say they know many Yiddish and cantorial songs and keep them on a computer, and a father's good singing is mentioned.

opens with a question about how many Jews live in Moldova and Romania; the singing is Yiddish and cantorial songs kept on a computer

Davidovich says she was born in Frumușiţa(?), and that her father was a teacher at a Jewish school in Odobești. In 1940 the family visited her grandparents and could not return because the war began. Her father was taken to Botoșani and then to forced labor in Edineț(?). She, her mother and her grandmother were evacuated to Botoșani, left on an empty field, and took shelter with Jewish families, among them the Leibovich family. She also tells how her grandfather was attacked and robbed on the road in 1941, and died of his injuries in a hospital in Iași.

adds the grandfather's attack and death in Iași, and her father's forced labor and return

The speakers discuss schooling after the war in Botoșani. The school was called a Jewish school but taught in Romanian, and the father taught there. They mention private tutors for Hebrew and Jewish subjects and two hours a week of Yiddish in the Romanian schools. Kerler asks about Yiddish literature and authors they read, and Itsik Manger's recorded Megillah is mentioned. The passage ends with his question about Purim after the war.

adds Kerler's questions about Yiddish literature and authors, and the Itsik Manger cassette

Asked about Purim after the war, the speakers recall hard times and hunger in 1945–46, with Purim treats made at home but no old-style Jewish life. At Kerler's request Iakob tells a story about his parents in Iași. They were given a flat in a block where all the doors looked alike, and his mother once tried the wrong door and met a neighbor. A passage on the word for a stove tile or similar (kakvele) also occurs. The story then turns to his mother's sister in Palestine.

adds Iakob's anecdote about the identical doors in the apartment block

Iakob finishes the story about his mother and the postcard from her sister, and the interviewers and interviewees laugh. This closes the interview.