Efraim Berkovich

Lemster asks Berkovich for his name and address. He gives his first name, Efraim, his surname, Berkovich, and a street name that is unclear in the transcript.

Berkovich gives his birth year, 1921, and talks about his parents. His father, who died in Auschwitz, was a carpenter. His mother, née Shteyner (?), did not work outside the home and had a large family. He did not know his grandfathers and barely remembers one grandmother, Betty. He is reluctant to say much more.

names his parents and a grandmother

Berkovich describes his father as a very pious man and talks about Passover at home, the seder and the youngest asking the questions. Asked about Sabbath, he mentions kosher meat, fish, and his mother lighting candles and baking challah herself.

Berkovich says there were seven children, himself the youngest, and names his brothers and sisters. He says all are dead: one died in the war, his sister Miriam in Auschwitz, one in Israel and one in America, as did his parents in Auschwitz.

Berkovich says he worked as a carpenter before and after the war. During the war he spent three years in forced labor camps in many places, including Germany, naming Buchenwald and Mauthausen.

Berkovich talks about his childhood schooling. He attended cheder until bar mitzvah, with a new teacher every half year, and studied Hebrew, Rashi and a little Gemara, in a room of about twenty children. He also attended a Talmud Torah for two or three years, in all about ten to thirteen years of study, then worked with his father as a carpenter. At the end Lemster mentions that he works in Jerusalem.

Berkovich describes Berehove as a different kind of town with Hasidim, Orthodox Jews and about seven thousand Jews. He belonged to the Zionist Hashomer Hatzair, whose meetings included singing and dancing. Asked about Yiddish, he did not read it but learned a little Hebrew in cheder. He does not recall using a Jewish library.

adds his language and reading habits and the library

Lemster asks about the war years, but Berkovich says everyone knows what happened. He married in 1945 after returning home to Berehove, where he says a few hundred Jewish families came back. He talks about a modest postwar Jewish wedding and remembers klezmers at prewar weddings, though he was too young to follow them.

Berkovich says that what his mother cooked on Sabbath included fish and a potato soup. He says his parents were very pious. He has a son, born in Berehove and circumcised there by a shochet.

Berkovich says he prays in the synagogue today, and that after the war he built its door, about fifty years ago. He says Hungarian was spoken at home, though his father spoke good Yiddish; he spoke Hungarian with his wife, his son speaks Yiddish and English, and his son attended a Hungarian school. Lemster explains the archive's purpose and urges him to tell his story in Yiddish.

adds the language spoken at home

Berkovich reflects that few are interested in Auschwitz and the camps, then describes Berehove as a Jewish town with some seven thousand Jews among about twenty thousand residents, and many synagogues, including the great synagogue. Asked about rebbes, he says his father was very pious and traveled to the Spinka rebbe, a wise tsadik, to ask questions, though Berkovich does not know the result of the visits. A Berehove rabbi is also mentioned.

adds a general account of Jewish life in Berehove, with its synagogues

Berkovich answers questions about terms, including his mother tongue (Hungarian) and the Yiddish for 'cemetery', which he has forgotten. Asked about the town's trades, he lists carpenters, tailors, shoemakers, barbers and wigmakers, and says some Hasidim sold lemonade and ice cream.

adds the trades and the terminology questions

Lemster takes Berkovich through a short word list: thank you, belly, window, glass, sour, cold, high, quick, near, goes, honest and believing, tooth, vodka and brandy. Berkovich often gives Yiddish or German forms and sometimes says he has forgotten them. Kerler and a second man speak at the end.

A second man (Hodinger, per the catalogue) joins and talks with Berkovich and Lemster about the Spinka rebbe. He says a tsadik whom people visited from Hungary for the festivals, with a gabbai and written petitions. Berkovich says he met a son of the rebbe in America, who asked whether he put on tefillin. He also mentions that his son lives in New Jersey, that he lives here with his seriously ill wife, and that he has been here for three years.

adds the meeting with the rebbe's son in America and his life today

Berkovich says he lives with his wife, who is ill and about eighty, while he is eighty-five (?). His son helps, and a sister lives nearby, also elderly. In America he worked thirty-five years in New Jersey as a builder on multi-story buildings. Lemster then brings the interview toward a close.

adds his work in America

Berkovich says he was once in Kyiv in Russia, where he worked as a carpenter for an exhibition. He mentions Jewish and non-Jewish colleagues. Lemster says he lives in Israel and mentions Russian-speaking help at home, a woman from Moldova. Berkovich talks about who pays, partly the Hesed. Kerler and the second man ask about the number of synagogues.

adds his travel to Kyiv and his helper from Moldova

A second man (Hodinger, per the catalogue) talks about prewar religious life in Berehove, including going to the Spinka rebbe on festivals and the Sabbath, and the father writing a petition for the gabbai. The recording is hard to follow, Kerler pauses to take notes, and the interview with Berkovich closes.