Simha Chaimovic

Greeting and setup: Kerler introduces a colleague who understands Yiddish, the participants settle on seating, and Kerler explains that the expedition has come from America and is working in Košice. He asks how Košice is said in Yiddish.

Chaimovic names his hometown Hanušovce and mentions its yeshiva, whose rabbi had five sons who became rabbis. He says the synagogue was burned on the eve of Yom Kippur in 1938 by Germans or local nationalists. He gives the village population as nine hundred, with about fifty Jewish families, and says a servant spoke Yiddish. He answers Kerler's questions about the town's location, 60 km from Košice, near Prešov and Vranov, and about the border.

adds the question of Yiddish-speaking non-Jews and the town's location and distance

Chaimovic gives personal information and talks about his family. His father was an entrepreneur who dealt in timber from the forests and ran a sawmill. There were six sons and one daughter, and he names the brothers and his mother Hanna. He gives his birth year as 1922 and the years of his parents' birth. He tells how his father lost a hand while fishing, and says the sons were taught to pray and read the Torah. His parents came from places in what is now Ukraine near Khust, which he names as Shandorova and a town that seems to be Monastyrets (?).

adds his brothers' names and the story of his father's lost hand

Chaimovic talks about his childhood: his family was not rich and not poor, and he went to cheder from age five and to state school from seven. He describes what he learned at home, such as the morning prayer and blessings. He played with non-Jewish children in Slovak, and S2 explains a Slovak word for a ball game.

Chaimovic describes the Sabbath at home before the war: his mother baked three challahs, kiddush, and zemirot, and he gives details of cholent and other Sabbath dishes. He sings a little of the table songs and talks about his mother's workload and the fourth meal. His mother made fish on Sabbath, including false fish, and he answers Kerler's questions about terms for the dishes. He also mentions the fasts and the nine days without meat.

adds the dish terminology and the fasts and nine days without meat

Chaimovic describes Hoshana Rabba customs and the cheese-filled dough he calls deltlekh (?). He names his cheder teachers and the Etz Chaim cheder in Prešov, where he went at ten to twelve. He then says Prešov had four synagogues, including an orthodox one and a Sephardic one, and explains the Sephardic prayer rite.

adds Hoshana Rabba and the synagogues of Prešov

Chaimovic says his mother would travel to the Spinka rebbe in Mukachevo with kvitlekh, requests for health or exemption from military service. He answers Kerler's questions about folk healing: pouring out coals, cupping, leeches, and the Slovak currency used in the cupping rite. Kerler also asks how long he stayed in Prešov.

adds the cupping and leech remedies

Chaimovic says that after three years in Prešov he studied at the yeshiva in Hanušovce, 65 km from Košice. He describes Prešov as a Jewish city of six to seven thousand Jews, mentions its rabbis and its Hasidic synagogues, and talks about a rabbi's dispute. He explains the expression for a good Jew, and Kerler asks whether he remembers a Hasidic melody.

adds the rabbis and Hasidic synagogues of Prešov and the explanation of the term for a good Jew

Chaimovic speaks about the Košice rabbi, who comes from Israel, is intelligent and organizes Hanukkah events, and says only two people in Košice speak Yiddish. He then recalls Prešov, where he had no relatives and ate each day at a different family's table. He says visiting preachers (magidim) came to town.

adds the visiting preachers

Chaimovic says his mother read the Yiddish Tsene-rene on Sabbath to women. He says he studied at the Hanušovce yeshiva with about sixty to seventy students and a rabbi who inspected them. He gives the town's Jewish population as 1,200, tells how it is said in Yiddish, and answers questions about newspapers, Hungarian, the term ba'al shem, and a wooden synagogue.

adds the questions about the press, ba'al shem and the Yiddish name of the town

Chaimovic describes religious life around Hanušovce before the war: the Selichot service, people walking from villages to form a minyan, and the synagogue in Hanušovce. He lists shuls and mikvehs in the nearby villages, including Bystré, Vyšný Žipov (?) and Sol', and notes that the Vranov synagogue was destroyed. Kerler asks the Slovak name of Sol' and then for a prayer.

Chaimovic chants Lekha Dodi at Kerler's request. Kerler offers to send him a cassette, and he talks about how his brothers took turns leading prayers and how his father immersed in a stream on Sabbath. Kerler and S2 discuss the Slovak and Yiddish words for stream and lake.

adds the talk about the stream and the cassette

Chaimovic describes Hanukkah customs before the war: the menorah, the dreidel made of wood, and the letters on it with their meanings, which S2 helps with. He says only Maoz Tsur was sung, and he knows no Yiddish songs but names Ernest Klein, a Yiddish speaker in Košice aged 93, and offers to phone him.

The talk concerns arranging contact with the rabbi and with Ernest Klein, including phone numbers and a time to visit. Chaimovic offers the interviewers food, which they decline. S2 speaks on the phone in another language.

Chaimovic talks about Rosh Hashanah prayer and building the sukkah, and about Purim customs: shalakhmones and fragments of a Purim play. He says the Joseph play was performed, lasting two or three hours, and that Jewish children acted in plays at Hanukkah and Purim in a large cheder room in Prešov. He also tells of four shochtim in Prešov who served as cantors.

adds the Joseph play, the Hanukkah plays and the cantor-shochtim

Chaimovic talks briefly about prewar Jewish weddings: Jewish weddings with beautiful huppot and a marshalik, and the mitzvah dance. The rest of the passage is Kerler, S2 and S3 working to reach someone by phone, who is said to speak Slovak and Hungarian, and who may be deaf (?).

Kerler and Chaimovic discuss another man present who refuses to speak Yiddish or sing old songs; the speech is partly in Polish and largely garbled. Kerler then turns to Hanukkah and asks what kind of theater was played.

The passage is mostly about a man who will not speak Yiddish, not community members as such.

Chaimovic recalls Hanukkah games with paper and printed Yiddish booklets from Poland. Kerler asks about plays and customs at weddings, about a game, and about dancing.

Kerler's questions on other games and wedding dancing.

Chaimovic describes Jewish inns with Gypsy musicians where people drank and danced. He tells of Passover preparations: home baking of matzo in household ovens two weeks before the holiday, shmura matzo and matzo for the pious, Passover foods and cakes, borscht from beets, and chremslach, with a recipe. Kerler asks for the names of terms and dishes, and the passage ends with a question about who spoke Yiddish in Prešov.

The passage includes elicitation of food terms such as potato names and latkes.

Chaimovic speaks about languages in Prešov, where Hasidim spoke Yiddish and others German or Hungarian. Kerler asks about coded Hebrew-based words, a baptized priest of Jewish origin, and gentile converts to Judaism, which Chaimovic describes briefly. Kerler also elicits dialect usage and then asks him to tell where he lived before the war.

Dialect word elicitation by Kerler is mixed in.

Chaimovic recalls being caught and sent to the Sered' camp in 1944, where he saw Germans shoot the Prešov rabbi, named Katz. He names Prešov and another town as places he knew, then recalls Košice as a place with good people who invited the poor to Sabbath meals.

Includes his recollections of Košice's Jewish hospitality.

Chaimovic says he visited Munkács and other Transcarpathian towns after the war, and Kerler asks about a rabbi of Munkács. He speaks about Jewish trades in Prešov, the Maccabi sport club and Zionist youth groups such as Shomrim, Betar, Mizrachi and Agudah. He says he was a member of Mizrachi, where they sang and danced.

Chaimovic recalls a Mizrachi song, dancing the hora and learning some Hebrew. Kerler then asks terminology questions: dybbuk, the difference between rabbi and rebbe, Hasidim, Galician and Lithuanian Jews, and a Prešov cemetery. They also touch on Lithuanian Yiddish, folk tales and a comic character.

Adds the Hebrew learning and Kerler's terminology questions.

Chaimovic tells the legend of the Golem of Prague, who was made from clay, protected the Jews and lies in the synagogue attic, as he heard it long ago. Kerler then puts dialectological questions about words for attic, ceiling and floor; Chaimovic gives Slovak equivalents.

Kerler asks about baked goods and sweets. Chaimovic names bread, challah, cakes, egg kichel and kugel, and offers honey cake.

Chaimovic says he worked in the forests, taking over and recording the wood the workers prepared, for his father. He says that until 1938 things were better and then troubles began. Kerler asks about a song and then asks him to tell about the war years.

Chaimovic describes the restrictions and the star under the Germans and Hungarians and the camps at Sered' and Nováky; he says he was caught in September and held at Sered' until March 1945, then was sent on. He recalls shootings there, including a man saved by tallit and tefillin, the shooting of the Prešov rabbi and other cruelty, and nightmares that follow. His three brothers and a sister did not return; he tells of escaping from the police into the forest and of a Yom Kippur hiding in the woods with his mother.

Adds the Bardejov survivor, Yom Kippur flight into the forest and lost siblings.

Chaimovic recalls the Russians' arrival at Terezín, his escape over a wall and journey home with horses. Only his mother and some brothers returned; others stayed lost. The family had lost everything and began working again. Kerler asks for the best time he remembers; he names the time before 1938, with the Mizrachi.

Chaimovic and Kerler discuss the term for a Wirtshaus (inn) in German and Slovak, and a joke figure, Soldier Schweik. Chaimovic then recalls working 32 years (?) in a shop with a hundred twenty employees, where he was the only Jew, and the antisemitism he met. He says he was jailed for two weeks after a false accusation and made Kiddush at home on his release.

Kerler asks Chaimovic to recite Kiddush; he and others present recite Kiddush and other prayers, including a memorial prayer, with garbled text. Passover songs and a melody are mentioned. Chaimovic says he lives alone, is ill with swollen legs, and Kerler wishes him health and mentions his own age.

Chaimovic says he has no children and no relatives in Slovakia; the children of his brother live in Israel. Kerler mentions the rabbi Yosi Stein and the few Yiddish speakers there, and talks of other very old Yiddish speakers interviewed in Ukraine and Romania. At the end Chaimovic gives his address to be written down.

Adds Kerler's remarks about other Yiddish speakers interviewed and the address exchange.