Iosif Abramovich Kogan

The interviewee talks about her daughter and two grandchildren in America, who are not yet able to visit. Kerler and the interviewee compare distances in America and Ukraine and discuss the poor economic situation and prices in Ukraine today.

Also covers the economy in Ukraine and distances in America.

The interviewee tells of the war, in which she lost her father, mother and a young sister, and says some forty family members were killed. She speaks of her anger at God over the passing years and of her husband's help.

Adds her feelings toward God and the passing of time.

The speakers reflect on youth and aging, saying that in their young years there was no means to enjoy life; one tells of a conversation about this.

Kerler asks about Yiddish songs from before the war. Vaisman recalls that prewar life was hard: he was a child when his father died, and his mother, with a disabled sister, worked in a factory. Another voice adds that in her own home they lived well.

Adds the question about Yiddish songs and the mother's factory work.

The interviewee describes her prewar life as comfortable. She speaks of a relative's education, including institutes and a yeshiva in Warsaw, and says Hitler started on the Jews.

Adds the relative's education and a remark about Hitler.

The speakers discuss the German occupation. Some say wealthy people stayed in Berdychiv and thought gold would protect them, but the Germans took their money and killed them. Vaisman tells of evacuation and army service from 1943 to 1946, and the woman recalls her trip to Kharkiv with her mother at the start of the war and her father's Jewishness.

Adds Kharkiv and the comment about the wealthy remaining.

The interviewee tells of Jewish holidays kept at home and her father's knowledge of Jewish history, while Soviet rules kept them from synagogue. Asked about Purim, she says it was celebrated at home but there was no Purim play.

Adds the Purim question and her father's learning.

The interviewee tells of her schooling: her father sent her to a Russian school because Yiddish schools were expected to close. The speakers recall that Berdychiv was a Jewish town with over thirty thousand Jews, about seventy percent, and that a few Jewish schools existed. Today one sees almost no Jews on the street.

Adds Jewish population figures and the present-day absence of Jews.

The speakers describe Berdychiv today as a small town, with only some hundreds of Jews left, many having emigrated. Kerler asks whether they studied in cheder or Yiddish school and whether they read Yiddish books and newspapers.

Adds the numbers of Jews left and the emigration.

Kerler asks about Yiddish literature in school. The speakers mention reading Sholem Aleichem and say Yiddish literature was little taught, only Sholem Aleichem and Mendele being allowed. Kerler also asks about writers from Berdychiv, including Vasily Grossman.

Adds the questions about Yiddish writers from Berdychiv.

The interviewee tells of being in the Pioneers and Komsomol in his youth and what they were told.

Adds Komsomol and Pioneer membership.

The speakers recall that they knew little of Jewishness or the Berdychiv rebbe's grave, and compare the Soviet period with today, saying clothes are plentiful but money is lacking and pensions are small. They also talk about relatives in America and Israel, dental costs and the present situation in Ukraine and Israel.

Adds the rebbe's grave, relatives abroad and dental costs.

The team drives through Berdychiv in the van, filming the town and discussing directions in Yiddish and Russian.

Adds Russian-language talk about directions and shops.

On arrival in Tulchyn, Kerler introduces Lemster as a Yiddish poet and Shveibish discusses potential interviewees, including a woman who was in Pechora and others whom she no longer recalls, and visits to them.

Adds names of possible interviewees and the mention of Pechora.

Kerler and Shveibish discuss the word for a holiday, with Shveibish describing how they say it, and then consider potential interviewees, one a Pechora survivor from Bratslav. They exchange family names, and Shveibish says she can't read Russian well and explains the choice of Tulchyn for lodging.

Adds the holiday terminology and the surnames discussion.

Shveibish, who works for the Jewish old people's home in Vinnytsia, tells how she was deported to Pechora as a child, and says over sixty thousand lie there. She describes the monument, the fence she rebuilt with help from Vinnytsia, the Hesed and her family, and its upkeep. Lemster says he is from Bessarabia.

Adds the fence repair and the upkeep, and Lemster's origin.

The group drives to Kogan's apartment, with talk in Russian and Yiddish about directions and about homes in the centre of town; Shveibish describes the town and where the apartment is.

Adds talk about houses in the centre.

Kerler and Lemster are welcomed into Kogan's apartment and introduced; Kerler identifies Lemster as a Yiddish poet and Kogan by name.

Kogan speaks a poem about Deborah, the shochet's wife in the Bershad ghetto, and tells how many Jews were killed there. Kerler asks who Deborah was. He tells of his Bershad origins, the poems he wrote, and being taken into the army at seventeen.

Adds the poem recital and the explanation of Deborah's identity.

Kogan recalls being drafted at seventeen and sent to the front for two months, and speaks of antisemitism among soldiers and many Jews wounded.

Adds antisemitism in the army.

Kogan and Kerler discuss Deborah and her husband Gedalye, the cantor at the High Holidays; Kogan tells of refugees from Bessarabia, Bukovina and Hungary in the ghetto, and of Romanians murdering Jews in a pit near Bershad and forcing a German to dig it.

Adds the killings by Romanians and the cantor.

Kogan tells of the Jewish field in Bershad created with help from America, with a caretaker and a monument, and his last visit in 2003. He talks about his health and thanks the visitors, and Lemster asks him to say more.

Adds the Jewish field in Bershad and Kogan's health.

Kogan speaks of finishing seven classes in a Yiddish school in Bershad, of his teachers, and says that neither he nor his wife is from Tulchyn; she was from Zhabokrych (?).

Adds his wife's origin and his teachers.

Kogan tells how his wife survived hiding in a cellar in the war, and returns to his school years, where Russian, Ukrainian and German were taught, and of the Yiddish-speaking youth circle. He names the school director and a brother who later lived in America.

Adds the wife's survival in a cellar and the school director.

Kogan speaks of his brother, his service reaching Berlin, and a manuscript of poems that someone took and may have taken to Israel. Kerler asks about the title and a classmate named Zitser.

Adds the manuscript and a classmate named Zitser.

Kogan answers Kerler's questions on the poems in the manuscript and on the shochet Gedalye Shulman's family. He describes the Romanians driving Jews to Pishchanka, his escape from the ghetto with Israel Zitser's help, and hiding in an attic.

Adds the shochet's family and the hiding.

Kogan answers questions about the Bershad ghetto song Dos lagerl, mentioning a poor man who collected the dead on a cart. He recalls that many people died of hunger and a policeman once threatened to throw him into the river when he was seventeen. He sings Aheym, briderlekh, aheym and explains that he wrote it down on paper but hid the texts, fearing he would be accused of being a communist. He answers Kerler's and Lemster's questions about when and in what script he wrote his songs.

Also includes a recollection of a policeman threatening him and of hunger in the ghetto.

Kogan recites or sings the song Tsezeyt un tseshpreyt, about refugees from Bukovina, Bessarabia and Hungary driven into the Bershad ghetto, and then Aheym, briderlekh, aheym. Kerler and Lemster press him to separate texts he wrote himself from ones he copied, and he says some are his own. He recalls that a fire at his mother's house in Bershad destroyed writings and sings Dos lagerl, naming a man from the Lechetser family who collected the dead. He says he took the song "Zog nit keyn mol" from a book by a Yiddish writer, and Kerler names Sutzkever and Glik.

Adds that Kogan says he took another song from a book by a Yiddish writer (named as Sutzkever), and names a man from the Lechetser family.

Kogan offers drinks and says he does not drink, and speaks of acquaintances who wanted to see him. Kerler plays a recording of a woman from Chişinău who sang a song beginning like Tsezeyt un tseshpreyt, and Kogan notes it differs from his own songs. Kerler explains that variants of the Balanivka song were collected from some fifteen to nineteen people and that he wants to copy Kogan's texts. The talk includes good wishes that he and his wife keep Yiddish alive.

Adds that Kerler plays a video of another singer and explains the collection of variants of the Balanivka song.

Kogan talks about the writer Boris Zitser (?), who is now in Israel and who took his notebook of songs when he left; Kogan met him in 1944 after demobilization. He mentions the market in the ghetto, where Bessarabian Jews traded, and answers Lemster's question about a rabbi, saying the slaughterer was killed. He speaks about his late brother and his brother's son, and says he met his wife in Obodivka through his sister who lived there.

Adds Zitser, a brother and his son, and the ghetto market.

Kogan talks about his wife and her family from Zabokrych, where many were killed and she herself survived with great difficulty. He then speaks about his parents: his mother, a housewife, and his father, a prosperous merchant known as Abraham from the soap, who died in 1933 after eating with a Christian. His father had earlier been to America and his mother was his father's second wife. Kogan was about six or seven at the time.

Kogan answers questions about the Yiddish writers he read, naming Itzik Manger, Peretz Markish and Bialik, while Lemster and Kerler mention Samuel Halkin and David Hofstein. He says the songs he wrote were only about the occupation, not about love. He mentions that Kerler once presented his songs at a conference in Moscow and that he thought of writing to an editor in Kyiv, then reflects on his age.

Adds the Yiddish writers he read and Kerler's conference presentation.

Kogan describes his wedding in Obodivka, a Jewish one with musicians hired from Bershad and Yiddish songs. He sings part of an older song that he did not write. He then says that after the war a theater from Chernivtsi came and performed Sholem Aleichem, and Kerler begins to ask about Yiddish theater before the war.

Adds a Yiddish song sung at the wedding and a touring theater from Chernivtsi.

Kogan talks about the end of Yiddish schools and theater in the Stalin years and about the arrests of doctors. He recalls meeting Solomon Mikhoels in Bershad before the war, who asked about his songs. He describes Bershad as a Jewish town with a park where people strolled on the Sabbath. The conversation turns to Yiddish writers and books, with Kerler and Lemster naming Hershl Ostropoler, Polyanker and Glik and Kogan getting a book from the library.

Adds Stalin's persecution, a meeting with Mikhoels, and the writers discussed.

Answering Lemster, Kogan talks about Rosh Hashanah and other holidays in the Bershad ghetto. He says the synagogue was open under the Romanians, a slaughterer named Gedalye Shulman was killed by the Romanians, and Jews were driven with sticks. He describes secret matzo baking and weddings among Bukovinian and Bessarabian refugees, with a rabbi of sorts officiating. Lemster mentions that his mother was from Burlivka, and the two talk about Bessarabia and Bukovina.

Kerler offers to show Kogan a recording made in 2002 of him singing, and Kogan thanks the visitors. Kogan, joined by S2 and S3, then sings Dos lagerl again, naming the slaughterer's forest and the Lechetser family, and then Aheym, briderlekh, aheym. They talk about how long the ghetto lasted.

Adds that Kerler mentions an earlier 2002 recording of Kogan singing.

The interviewers close the formal interview and Kogan and his companion exchange thanks and good wishes. Kogan mentions a teacher or writer from the Yiddish school in Bershad, who also wrote songs, and asks that those who perished not be forgotten. Kerler asks about the writer Matvei Geizer from Bershad; Kogan says he is dead, buried on the Jewish cemetery, and mentions relatives in Israel.

Adds Matvei Geizer, a writer from Bershad, and relatives in Israel.

Answering Lemster and Kerler, Kogan says the best time of his life came after he returned from the army. He then declines a drink, saying that his hands shake.

Kerler asks about Bratslav Hasidim who used to come to Bershad, about the old synagogue and about Bershad prayer shawls. The speaker's replies, on seeing the shochet and going to the synagogue as a child, are only partly clear. The group then says goodbye.

The transcript shows mainly Kerler's questions, and a goodbye to the speaker and the others present.