Golda Salamon

Brief chat among the team members, with a remark about how a word is said in Bessarabian Yiddish and the name Artur.

Travel from Oradea toward Sighet; the transcript is mostly garbled, with Russian talk and repeated recogniser loops. The voices appear to discuss the route and comment on a town said to resemble Kolomyia.

Mostly garbled; shows a Russian remark comparing a town to Kolomyia

The team meets the head of the Sighet Jewish community, who says he knows little Yiddish and speaks English and Romanian. Kerler and Lemster ask about the community and its centre and which language to use; they then ask whether the building is a Jewish house and which synagogue it is, and Kerler asks how many Jews live there today.

Shows language difficulty (Yiddish, English, Romanian) and questions about the Jewish house and synagogue

Marcus answers questions about the Sighet commune and the town, and the number of Jews today, but the transcript is largely garbled. Russian, Romanian and Yiddish fragments mix, and the team asks about looking at the synagogue and filming.

Mostly garbled; includes mention of the commune and filming plans

Chat with community members, then a visit to the synagogue with footage while the guide speaks. The transcript is very fragmentary, with repeated phrases and Russian and Romanian bits. A speaker remarks that Sighet was a Jewish town.

Little beyond the synagogue visit; a remark on Sighet as a Jewish town

Driving with Marcus, who speaks mostly English: he says Jews were about seventy percent (?) of the town's population before the war and points out Elie Wiesel's house. He says eight synagogues stood before the war and only one survived, four being destroyed during the Shoah under the Horthy regime, and explains this in English, which Kerler checks.

Gives the share of Jews before the war and the number of synagogues destroyed

The team arrives at Salamon's house; there is talk with Marcus about who came from the United States and from Israel, and then the greeting. Lemster and Kerler say they seek Yiddish speakers and ask whether she will talk, and she is hesitant about her Yiddish.

Salamon speaks about Jews in her neighbourhood today: there are few and many are of mixed descent, with one grandparent or a neighbour Jewish. Kerler tells her she will tell her story, and the speakers touch on an address.

The formal interview begins. Salamon says her father was a yeshiva student in Bratislava (as the transcript reads, 'Presburg'); the family spoke Yiddish, Hungarian and Romanian at home. She grew up with four brothers and three sisters.

The transcript gives three sisters, against two in the catalogue, and the languages spoken at home

Kerler elicits how Yiddish speakers say 'house' (shtub versus hoyz) for a Romanian word, while Salamon sits down, learns the interviewers' backgrounds, and says she spoke Romanian and Hungarian with earlier visitors. She agrees to speak Yiddish as at home. The catalogue's remarks on Auschwitz and her father's yeshiva do not appear in this stretch.

This stretch is mainly a word elicitation and setting up the interview, not family and Auschwitz

Salamon recalls her childhood and says she was born in this house, as was her mother. She gives her mother's name Beyle and her father's name Ezra Malik, her names Golda and her husband's name, and her birth in 1926. She had seven siblings (four brothers and three sisters); she alone survived and returned after the ghetto and Birkenau.

Gives parents' names, birth year and the fate of her siblings

Salamon tells of being liberated by the Americans at Mauthausen after more than a year in camp. She describes how the camp was to be blown up before liberation and how prisoners were held three days without water.

Asked about prewar life, Salamon says her family lived happily and had animals and land, and speaks of grandparents and Sabbath observance, with her father a yeshiva student. The children sang zemirot, which she later sang in the camp for extra food; she also did other jobs there, such as tending a block leader's hair and clothes. She describes roll call, the food and German women guards (or prisoners) with striped clothes, and recalls Yiddish songs from the theatre.

Salamon speaks about songs at home: zemirot, and her elder sister who danced and sang; on Sabbath afternoons her father examined the boys, who went to cheder. She describes her bedridden grandmother, who read a large tkhine and predicted the deportations; Kerler asks the grandmother's name and origin. She recalls Italian then Hungarian arrival, trains with Jews passing her garden toward Galicia, and the ghetto, where several families shared a house.

Gives the grandmother's name and origin, and the Hungarian arrival

Salamon speaks about prewar holidays, especially Passover with her father leading the seder and her brother stealing the afikoman. She tells how her sister married and wore a kerchief rather than cutting her hair, to her grandmothers' displeasure.

Passover seder customs and the dispute over hair-cutting; the grandfather's house is not clear

Salamon describes her own weddings after the war, held in the courtyard under a chupah, and compares them with prewar weddings with sheva brokhes and dancing. She mentions her husbands and their age differences, and tells how an aunt was not allowed to marry a lawyer deemed insufficiently observant, and was married to another man with whom she had six children.

Both of Salamon's postwar marriages and the aunt's story

Salamon speaks about relatives with many children and an uncle who was a journalist. She attended a Romanian school, then Hungarian after the Hungarians arrived. She had no children, with either husband.

Salamon speaks about an uncle who was a wedding jester and how it supplemented his income, and about women's work and dowries before the war. Asked about Purim, she describes the big Purim feast, baking, and sending of shalakhmones, and says there were performances she was too young to see.

Salamon briefly recalls the ghetto in 1944 and the trains of Jews. She then talks about Purim: masking, which she and her brothers did not do, the visits and verses recited on Purim, and Jews visiting a local official named Smug (?) at his house, where they were given food and drink.

Purim masking and the visit to the official Smug (?)

Salamon describes her return home to a house used as a stable and stripped of its contents. She says she returned hoping relatives had survived, and tells of the selection at Birkenau where she lost her mother and younger siblings, the tension with Polish Jewish prisoners, and forced labour in a commando with guard dogs. She describes the camp, its electric fence and the Arbeit-macht-Frei inscription, and says they marched to work with music.

Salamon says she returned in 1946 and describes the loss of faith among camp survivors in Jewish life after the war, who asked where God was; she also says some kept hope. Lemster asks about the reopening of schools.

Salamon recalls how, at about sixteen, she and around a dozen girls learned the Hebrew alphabet and months from a young tutor, since the boys attended cheder. She explains that her father examined the boys on Sabbath, and that there was a talmud torah but no yeshiva in Sighet. She speaks of her grandmother's wish for her granddaughter's wedding and of her older siblings, and names her brothers and her youngest sister. She also describes her parents' appearance in a photograph.

The catalogue's tutor and lesson are confirmed. The transcript adds her father's examination of the boys, her grandmother's wedding story and the siblings' names.

Salamon describes weekday meals before the war, such as milk, coffee and cornmeal porridge, and says meat was eaten only on Friday and Sabbath. The family kept four cows, and she tells how she learned to milk and to feed a calf after her marriage. She explains how she made gefilte fish and "false fish" from chicken, and answers Lemster's questions about the recipe and cooking time.

Adds the porridge breakfasts, the four cows, the recipe questions and the start of the cholent talk.

Salamon describes Sabbath food before the war: cholent carried to the baker's oven in a clay pot, kugel and a stuffed derma, and fruit compote. She and Kerler discuss the dialect words for these dishes and for stuffed cabbage, and she describes who sat where at the Friday table. She recalls her mother's challah baking and the separation of challah, and explains how meat is salted to make it kosher.

Adds the dialect discussion of dish names and the challah-baking customs.

Salamon talks about her grandparents, Esther and Yankl, and her grandfather's yeshiva study. Yankl was taken to Auschwitz, and he came from a village near Sighet (the name is unclear in the transcript). She describes her father telling the weekly Torah portion at the table and the absence of Yiddish theater and press in Sighet. She says she attended a Romanian school, while girls of the Beis Yaakov school learned in Yiddish. She explains that Hasidic visitors do not enter the Sephardic (?) synagogue, and that her two grandmothers were sisters.

Adds the grandparents' names and origins, the Beis Yaakov school and the absence of Yiddish press and theater.

Salamon describes how she lights Sabbath candles today and says only the blessing. She says her mother knew the old prayer and that she herself was not taught, because of the deportation. She explains why Jews left for Israel, recalls her visit there, including Bnei Brak, Jerusalem and Sukkot, and recalls how Sukkot supplies were once sent from Bucharest. Lemster asks about Christians who spoke Yiddish and about Jews who converted.

Adds the Sukkot supplies from Bucharest and the question about non-Jews who spoke Yiddish.

Salamon discusses who counts as Jewish in the small present-day community, the difficulty of forming a minyan and why Hasidim do not use the synagogue. She recalls the prewar rabbi Dantziger, the small prayer houses with cheder, and the old synagogue with its mikveh, which was demolished after the war. She says the community brought in a cantor for the holidays and her father would finish praying quickly to hear him. She also describes why Jews emigrated and her visit to Canada, where the children knew little Yiddish.

Adds the rabbi Dantziger, the mikveh and the Canada visit.

Lemster asks about Yiddish writers and theater. Salamon knows Sholem Aleichem's name and says a theater company visited Sighet, but she has read nothing by him. She says she can read Yiddish only partly, and that she has prayer books with Yiddish translation. She shows prayer books and a wedding photograph with her first husband and parents. Kerler asks about names in one prayer book, including a person from a village near Sighet (the name is unclear in the transcript).

Adds the wedding photograph and the prayer-book inscriptions.

Salamon answers terminology questions about a dybbuk and a golem. She says she cannot read a text for the interviewers because of her eyesight. She says few people come to the synagogue now and mentions Shimon Leichter, who can lead the prayers. Kerler asks her for words of old Yiddish songs and she cannot recall any. She mentions a song about rent money and a salt bath near Sighet, and says her acquaintance in America sends cassettes.

Adds the golem and dybbuk questions and the request for song texts.

Salamon says her mother sang Hungarian songs, and that her own theater experience was a Hungarian performance, as an uncle took her to the theater. She mentions that there was Yiddish theater before the war, although she never attended it. She names her mother's brothers and her father's brother, and her father's sisters. She also says prewar life was a beautiful dream and she found no one after the war.

Adds the Hungarian theater visit and the long list of uncles and aunts.

Salamon recalls that as a child she was not made to help much at home, because her mother let her sleep and said she would work enough once married. She says her parents were first cousins who married for love without a matchmaker. She explains that the children of two sisters could marry, and that the home was peaceful. Kerler thanks her for the long interview.

Adds her parents' marriage without a matchmaker.

The interview closes and the talk moves to Salamon's house and garden, where she recalls her brothers, the railway visible beyond the garden, and the large cow stable. She says her first husband kept horses and wagons, and she describes the summer kitchen and winter kitchen and how many rooms the house has. Kerler also asks about photographing the yard.

Adds the outbuildings, the horses and the railway view.