Frida Moiseyevna Pustilnik; Polina Ruvinovna Miaskovskaia

Kerler begins interviewing Pustilnik. She says she has a daughter and a son, who lives in Israel with five children, and names grandchildren. Her father, Moshe Vaysberg, was born in Yampil; her mother, Ester, née Pleyder, came from Yaruga, where Pustilnik says she still has a house. A half-sister, a woman who works as a kolkhoz chairwoman, is mentioned. Kerler says his wife's family is also from Yaruga.

names the grandchildren and her mother's birthplace

Pustilnik says Yaruga had many Jews and a Jewish kolkhoz, where her mother worked and later received a pension. She says her mother told her of the war, when they were held in the Sharapanivka ghetto and then in Pechora, a camp where many were burned.

Pustilnik gives her birth year, 1939 (?), and says she was born in Yampil. She recounts, as her mother told it, prewar life in Yaruga: not kosher, everyone working on the kolkhoz, a Jewish kolkhoz within a non-Jewish one, called Petrovsk and later Lenin. She describes its vineyards, wine, apples and peaches, and sunflower oil, wheat and bread. Kerler asks about a food, and she says she likes it.

Kerler recalls what was grown and eaten (wheat, peaches, maize porridge), and Pustilnik then speaks about her mother in the war, in the Pechera camp. A German soldier there helped them with food, and Kerler explains that the Romanians were the camp's masters. She then turns to the family's return after the war to a looted house, with a mother who was ill for years.

The passage starts with food and agricultural questions, then focuses on the German soldier and the postwar return.

Pustilnik describes the family's hardship after the war. As small children they sold items at the market, and she later trained at a technical college and worked in a sewing factory. She worked on the kolkhoz, took a passport and moved to Boryslav, where she lived in private lodgings. She mentions that her husband was from Yire and was crippled in a car accident.

Besides the move to Boryslav and the factory, she speaks of her husband's accident and of medals she was denied because she was Jewish.

Pustilnik names her siblings and says there were eight children before the war and six after. She gives their approximate birth years, and a few siblings live in Israel (Haifa among the places mentioned). One sister, Yeyde (?), was caught after hiding and killed, and Pustilnik describes the mother's cooking in the camp, with the boy who cried from hunger now living in Israel. Kerler asks about the river and the camp near Pechera.

The catalogue says one sibling did not survive; the transcript also shows the names and birth years of the others, and that the mother cooked in the camp.

Pustilnik describes the march on foot to the Pechera camp, where those who could not walk were shot. She mentions a small book of Jewish survivors, and Kerler notes that he has recorded people in Tulchyn who were in the camp. She tells how the pregnant mother and small children escaped from a Gentile who had been paid in wheat to take them. The father was in the Red Army, and the passage ends with the mother pregnant in 1942.

Along with the camp and march, the passage covers a book of survivors, Jews still in Tulchyn, and a Gentile who betrayed the family.

Pustilnik tells how the family slept on straw after the war and how Soviet soldiers threatened them, and how her mother shielded the children by lying over them. Her father, who never returned from the war, is known only through documents. A sister in Malyn (?) was unable to obtain the pension due to the family because of the father's death, and the pension was taken by a brother. Kerler asks what language they speak among themselves, and she answers that they speak Yiddish at home and the language of non-Jews outside.

The pension dispute and the language of the family are not in the catalogue sentence.

Pustilnik says her daughter speaks Yiddish and wants to go to Israel, while her son has lived in Israel for eighteen years and has forgotten the language. She never saw her father or a photograph of him; she mentions an aunt, Tabe, who helped them after the war, and describes her maternal grandfather Avrom, whose surname is unclear (Pleyder (?)), who worked in a kolkhoz. She says she studied in the village school and did well in mathematics.

The passage also covers language in the family, the grandfather who worked in the kolkhoz, and her own schooling.

Pustilnik says she went to a village school in winter and worked on the kolkhoz in summer. Kerler establishes that the Lenin kolkhoz in Yire (?) was Jewish, and that in Yampil the kolkhoz was named after Molotov. She says the family moved to Yampil after the war, and recalls a non-Jewish woman who spoke Yiddish well. She then describes how, on arriving in Boryslav, no one helped her and she lodged in private rooms.

The passage also covers a Yiddish-speaking neighbour and the move to Boryslav.

Pustilnik talks briefly about her life in Boryslav, saying they cook Jewish food, with fish on Fridays. Kerler then asks about Jews who prayed in the camp.

Pustilnik tells of Jews who prayed in the camp, and discusses the mezuzah on the door and her mother's and grandparents' ability to read Yiddish. She describes a brother in the ghetto and then the army, and the Weissmann family. A man called Pavel, who was reportedly friendly with the Romanians, was recognised and killed in Israel, and Kerler asks about the reason. She also mentions a sister who lived on a rich kolkhoz, and Kerler asks about the Razkin family (?).

Besides prayer in the camp, the passage covers a brother in the ghetto, the Weissmann family and a man killed in Israel.

Pustilnik describes her grandparents' house and her grandmother's many children. One was killed in the war, and the others survived, including three daughters. Kerler asks whether her mother sang Yiddish songs and whether she knows old songs.

Pustilnik recites, with Kerler prompting, a Yiddish song about a groom who wants to test his bride and a ladder, and says she cannot remember the rest. She then recites parts of "Papirosn" about a child selling cigarettes in the ghetto, with an orphan in the story; large parts are garbled.

Pustilnik talks about life today, saying there are no Jews left and no one to speak to. Her brother and sisters call from Israel and speak Yiddish, and she says she supports her son's children there. She says people were afraid to circumcise under the Soviets, and that she recites the groom song again without completing it. Kerler talks about the archive and about Yiddish speakers in Drohobych (?).

The passage also covers fear of circumcision in Soviet times, calls from Israel, and Yiddish speakers in Drohobych (?).

Pustilnik is asked what "mame-loshn" means. She recalls hunger after the war, with her mother walking on foot from Yampil to Malyn to buy soap and matches, and the children sold things at the market for bread. She remembers her sister's death in the cart.

The passage also contains a question about the term mame-loshn and a custom involving an egg in a glass.

Pustilnik tells how she met her husband, a handsome tall man from Yire (?), and gives the names of the brothers, who had the surname Volkovich. His mother had died in the ghetto, and a sister of Pustilnik who was a nurse had been his friend, after which she was matched with Pustilnik. The passage ends in the middle of the wedding story.

The catalogue mentions the wedding; the transcript ends before the wedding is described.

Opens with chat about the distance to Chicago, America and Israel. Pustilnik answers questions about candle-blessing at home and Soviet-era restrictions on religion. She recalls the family's hardship during and after the war, when they lived in Yampil (?) and her mother went to relatives in a village. She says the kolkhoz helped with bread and other food. She then talks about a grandson and his young family who are out of work.

Opens with talk of America and Israel and Soviet-era restrictions on candle blessing, and covers the grandson's unemployment.

Answers Kerler's questions about Jewish observance after the war. She mentions the memorial-day custom, a lamp burning day and night, and not knowing where her father lies. Of Purim there is little; for Passover she bakes her own matzo at home. She describes Jewish weddings after the war, with Yiddish music and songs, a wedding entertainer (?), and her grandson's groom's cap.

Also covers her father's death and unknown grave, and Yiddish music and songs at weddings.

Answers Kerler's questions about cultural terminology. She is asked about a dybbuk and a golem, and says she did not know the first. She gives words for funeral, cemetery and holy place. Kerler checks whether the words are Jewish or non-Jewish usage.

Answers questions from the dialectological questionnaire, with Kerler and, later, Lemster. Items include greetings and farewells, a sentence about whether someone will come, breathing, being ill, missing someone, running away, and terms for honest, believer, Christian and peasant. Near the end Lemster asks about a river and the Dniester (?), and she mentions that her trip to Israel was arranged through her role in an association of former child prisoners.

Talks with Lemster and Kerler about places she was taken to during the war, including Berlovka (?), and about now living in Boryslav with no one to talk Yiddish with. She mentions her poverty, her marriage in 1960 (?), and her two children, a daughter nearby and a son in Israel. She describes the son's family and his three children, a trip to Israel, and her work there as a massage therapist. She also says she took a grandson to a synagogue. The questioning then turns to a rabbi in her home village.

Adds her postwar marriage and children, the grandchildren, and a rabbi in her home village; the camp route is not clear.

Talks about the postwar family in her home village and about a rabbi there. She tells of her mother's encounter with the rabbi, set around a sister studying in Odessa and a relative. She describes her mother baking bread and praying while baking, and her brother cutting wood. Lemster and Kerler then ask about the words for room and house.

Ends with a short elicitation of the words for room and house.

Kerler and Lemster greet the woman in front of her home and introduce themselves. She gives her Yiddish name and he gives his, and they sit down and settle in. Kerler then asks where she is from.

The greeting includes talk about names and about whether she dances or sings.

The interview proper begins. She says her mother came from Yampil and her father from Chernivtsi (Kleyn-Chernovits?), that she herself was born and lived in Zigivke, and that she has lived in Boryslav for some thirty years. She names her father Ruvn, her mother Khayke and a grandfather David. Kerler and Lemster ask about her birth and about Jewish life in the shtetl.

The catalogue says she moved to Boryslav in the 1970s; the transcript supports about thirty years' residence there, and her birth in the shtetl is clearer than any year.

She talks about the war years in the shtetl. A gathering of Jews at the market square and where the family lived near the monastery and the market are mentioned, together with the dreadful life there. Lemster steers her back to Jewish life before the war and away from the non-Jews.

The ghetto itself is not clearly stated in the transcript; the passage turns on the street layout and a square.

She recalls going with her mother to the shoykhet for a chicken and running away as a child. She describes the long street of the shtetl, says she spoke Yiddish at home with her mother and father, and that she attended a Ukrainian rather than a Yiddish school. She names her parents' birthplaces again as Klein-Chernovits (?) and Yampil.

The shoykhet episode is not in the catalogue entry.

She comments on guests who speak Yiddish and on Jewishness shown in the face, and says she speaks Russian, Ukrainian and Yiddish. Asked about Purim, she remembers her mother baking hamentashn and that people sang Yiddish songs and danced in the synagogue; Lemster asks whether a Purim play was performed.

Includes the Purim play question and the song talk.

Asked for her official name, she says her mother gave her a Yiddish name (Pintse) while her passport name is Polina, and that her patronymic is derived from her father Ruvn. Kerler and Lemster ask for a Yiddish song, and she hesitates.

Adds the request for a song.

She explains a way her family prepared meat before the Sabbath, with washing, onions and a little vinegar. She gives her date of birth as 16 March 1930, and names her parents Ruvn and Khayke and her grandfathers David and Leyzer. She says her father was a tailor working in an artel who later went blind, and her mother also a tailor; she finished seven classes of a Ukrainian school.

Adds the grandparents' names and her schooling.

She describes the Jewish street near the monastery and a prayer house in the shtetl after the war, and thanks the interviewers for coming. She says she knows no Jewish story but recalls a song, and speaks about living among non-Jews and about killings of Jews at a place near the shtetl.

The catalogue's 'life during the war' rests on a few garbled lines about killings.

Kerler and Lemster put cultural-terminology questions and she answers some, including words for a golem and a fool and a sentence about a farmer. She gives blessings and wishes for long life, recalls an expression about growing older, and answers questions about spells and folk sayings. She replies that she knows no Yiddish way to say some of them, and mentions a woman who sold dreams.

Lemster asks about Hershl Ostropoler, and she says he was a merry man who made fun of people, adding that one should not mock anyone. She then speaks of a good Jew and of her shtetl as a Jewish town, and Lemster asks what her father sang.

The catalogue's 'life today' is only loosely supported.

She says her father the tailor sang while sewing, and Kerler and Lemster ask about the words of the song. She says Yiddish was understood by Ukrainian neighbours and tells how her father went blind and worked in an artel. She has two brothers and a sister, and mentions a husband Pavel and a daughter Adelke, and ends by saying she loves Jews.

Adds Pavel and Adelke, and talk about Yiddish among non-Jews.

She speaks about her marriage and a relative who lived with a non-Jew, and says how glad she is that the interviewers came. Kerler mentions a large cemetery in Łódź, and she repeats that she loves Jews.

Kerler and Lemster put questions from the dialectological questionnaire, asking for Yiddish equivalents of phrases and words such as greetings, honest person, peasant, to run away, quickly, tall, a well and a spring. She answers and mentions that her mother did not send her to a Yiddish school, so she was never taught to read Yiddish letters.

She recalls a small prayer house in her street before the war, and says she was a child and knew little of Jewish life. She names her father Ruvn, her mother Khayke and grandfathers David and Leyzer, and talks about a cat. Her companion INF2 speaks Russian and they drink a toast.

Adds the grandparents' names and the cat.