The third part of the tape includes a formal interview with Liza Lvovna Milchenko, nee Bondar. Milchenko, who was born in 1936 in Balta, talks about her life before the war and her family. Her father, born in Orël, worked at a furniture factory as a guard. Her mother was born in Rezina. She grew up with a brother and remembers her happy childhood. Milchenko then talks about her life during the war. Her father was drafted into the army in 1941. She explains how Jews were forced into the ghetto.
From the machine transcript
Milchenko tells of her childhood before the war, when she was six. Her father was a guard at a furniture factory, the family lived well, and she had a brother three years older. Her father was drafted in 1941 and disappeared at the front. The Germans beat them, and the Jews were put in the ghetto. Some talk about the language of the interview is mixed in.
The transcript adds the flow into the ghetto and her remark that she is understood only in Yiddish.
Milchenko talks about Jewish life after the war. She remembers how people danced on the street in the evenings in the 1950s/60s. Milchenko then talks about her life and the beatings in the Balta ghetto. Her mother was sent to forced labor. Her brother Fime frequently snuck out of the ghetto to beg for food in the town center. She then talks about her family.
From the machine transcript
Milchenko remembers that after the war people sat outside in the evenings, singing and dancing, in the 1950s. She says those years were better than today. She describes the beatings and the Balta ghetto: her mother was sent to work and her brother slipped out to beg bread and was beaten. She names her parents, her father from Orël, her mother from Rezina, and says they spoke Yiddish.
Milchenko talks about her life after World War II. She mopped floors and carried water in exchange for food. Milchenko explains that her brother enlisted in Horlivka and their mother moved with him, but she stayed in Balta and finished seven years of school. Milchenko continues that she was too young to work, but was able to help out at the orphanage. At the age of 17, she began working at the sewing factory and worked there for forty years.
From the machine transcript
Milchenko recalls the years just after the war. She carried water and washed floors for food, and her mother and brother went to Horlivka while she stayed in Balta and spent six years in the orphanage. She finished seven classes and then helped with the children for food. At seventeen she began work as a seamstress at the sewing factory, making jackets and uniforms.
The transcript adds the six years in the orphanage and that the Jewish children there spoke Russian among themselves.
Milchenko talks about life today and her family. Her brother lives in Balta. She raised two children. Her mother worked as a cleaner in a store after the war. She then talks about life during the war in the Balta ghetto, where thirty families were confined. She remembers that when the Germans came back near the end of the war, they executed twenty-seven of the families that had been confined in the ghetto; only three survived. Her mother told her about how when she was a child, the family managed to flee the massacre. She also remembers the story of how the Jewish men in town were gathered into a barn near the railway station and burned to death. She says that the blood of Jewish children was used for the German hospital.
From the machine transcript
Milchenko speaks of her life today, her brother in Balta who speaks Yiddish, and her children, a daughter and a son in Mykolaiv. She tells about the ghetto in Balta, with about thirty families: at the end of the war the Germans shot twenty-seven of them and three survived. She also tells of Jews burned at the railway station and of children's blood being taken for the German hospital. Her mother cleaned shops after the war and died of illness.
The transcript adds a Jewish wedding she attended in Israel and talk about the best years after the war.
Milchenko talks about food customs for holidays.
From the machine transcript
Milchenko talks about Jewish holiday food that her mother made, such as strudel and potato dishes, and what she herself makes for Passover. Kerler and Lemster ask about foods and their Yiddish names, such as pancakes and tatshiklekh (?).
Milchenko discusses holiday celebrations and talks about her family, in particular her mother. She then talks about life today.
From the machine transcript
Milchenko speaks about her mother, who spoke Russian at markets and Yiddish at home. Lemster asks how certain words are said in Yiddish; she says she has forgotten some, and she names the cemetery. She describes asking her late mother in prayer for health for people and for her children. A second woman remarks on how few Jews remain. Milchenko says her mother attended a four-class Yiddish school before the war, and mentions the synagogue.
Includes Lemster's questions on individual Yiddish words and her mother's four-class Yiddish schooling.
Milchenko talks about postwar Jewish life, and about the closing of the synagogue after the war. According to her, the kosher butcher worked until the 1980s in Balta. He slaughtered chickens and would also circumcise children in the early years after the war. Milchenko then talks about life today and her family. She explains that she was afraid to arrange a circumcision for her son, who was born in 1957. Milchenko has family in Israel.
From the machine transcript
Milchenko says the synagogue was taken away after the war, while a shoykhet continued to work in Balta. The second woman adds that he slaughtered chickens and that boys were circumcised after the war. Milchenko cannot recall his name, and Lemster asks about Jewish teachers and doctors and about eating veal. She has grandchildren, and one grandchild lives in Beer Sheva in Israel. She says she was afraid to have her son circumcised, though others did so under the Soviets, and Kerler asks about relatives in Israel.
Adds the shoykhet's name being forgotten, the question about eating veal, and the grandchild in Beer Sheva.
Klimenko talks about life today. She moved into her apartment when she was thirty years old, together with her son and mother.
From the machine transcript
The women speak about aging and the dwindling number of Jews in town. The second woman says she was given a room in a communal apartment at thirty, where she lived with her mother and son. Both thank Kerler and Lemster for visiting and for speaking Yiddish with them, and Kerler says they came because they were told Jews lived there.
Shows the housing story is told by the second woman and ends with thanks to the interviewers.
