Mikhail Aronovich Kupershmidt; Rakhil Natanovna Kupershmidt

Greetings and chat with Kupershmidt before the interview. Kerler explains that the team came looking for Jews from Bratslav and had hired a car and driver. Kupershmidt asks about their origin and mentions that a son and grandchildren are in Israel and that a daughter-in-law or relative married a doctor there. Kerler mentions his father's family origin, and Kerler then asks the couple to sit down for the interview.

Kerler explains how the team found them and mentions his own father's origin, which the catalogue does not say.

Formal interview begins with the date and Kupershmidt's name. He says he can still pray, having learned with a poor father about seventy years earlier, and Kerler asks him to repeat some of it. He remembers Hebrew Bible study (khumesh, gemara), and Kerler asks him to say the opening of Genesis. He then recalls that before the war Bratslav had a shoykhet, a rabbi and many learned men, and that after the killings few were left.

Adds a prompted attempt to recite the start of Genesis and a short note on the town's rabbi and shoykhet before the war.

Kupershmidt gives his Hebrew name as Moyshe ben Aaron and the name of his wife Rakhil ben Naftoli. He then gives his official Russian name and patronymic, Mikhail Aronovich, and says his own surname is Kupershmidt while his wife's maiden name was Reznik. Kerler asks about the wife's Russian patronymic and then about their address.

The catalogue's prewar Jewish life topic is not evident here; the passage is mostly names and address.

Kupershmidt says he was born in Bratslav and so was his wife, and that his parents and his grandfather Meir were also born there. He was not born in a house of his own but in a two-room dwelling on the lower floor. Kerler explains that the project collects Yiddish and memories of earlier life. Kupershmidt begins to say that what he lived through in the war would take three days to tell.

Includes Kerler's explanation of the project and Kupershmidt's introduction to his war experiences.

Kupershmidt describes seeing thousands of naked Jewish prisoners kept under German guard, and says memory of this must be passed on. He says his father was killed by the Germans in Bratslav, while his mother was evacuated and sent to the Pechera camp, where he says Romanians rather than Germans were in charge. He describes Germans taking young people to be shot and sons forced to load their parents onto trucks. Kerler then asks how he saved himself in Zhytomyr.

Adds the description of mass killings seen by Kupershmidt and his insistence on remembering them; the catalogue's evacuation of the mother is unclear in the transcript.

Kupershmidt explains that he was a driver, worked at a driving school before the war and was in the Finnish war. On returning he drove a military vehicle, was stopped by Germans when the war began and was identified as a Jew from his papers. He was taken to dig a pit and fled when Soviet prisoners mocked him, was recaptured and driven to Zhytomyr, and denied or admitted being Jewish at different moments. He describes the Jewish prisoners held naked in the camp, hiding in a barracks attic, and joining a non-Jewish work group of Tatars and Georgians. He was then taken to a prisoner camp in Rivne, where he feared recognition by someone from Bratslav and gave a false Ukrainian name.

Gives the order of events: the pit near Zhytomyr, the capture and driving to Zhytomyr, the naked Jewish prisoners, a work group of Tatars and Georgians, and a false name in Rivne.

Kupershmidt describes a non-Jewish forced labor group of about a hundred men that was released to the districts and warned to avoid Jews. He fled from this group and returned to Bratslav, where he worked in a garage for a German firm, with papers allowing him to move about, and drove a German to Vinnytsia. He used the driving to look for his family in the Bratslav ghetto. One day he found his wife, child and parents gone to the camp at Pechera, and he tried to get them food. He describes false documents and the camp under Romanians, flight to Mohyliv-Podilskyi, and being in its ghetto before his draft into the army.

Adds that he drove for a German firm, how he used the permit to look for his family, and the documents he used in the Romanian-run camp.

Kupershmidt recalls being drafted in Mohyliv-Podilskyi, where he drove a vehicle and served in the army for another year or so. After the war his wife died in 1947 and their son later died as well. He says relatives had papers to leave for America. Another relative went to Israel, a nephew named Naftoli who is known as Talia (?), who phones every week. Kupershmidt says he and his wife stayed alone, receive some support, and are cared for by the people around them.

Names the relative in Israel and says what he and his wife receive in support today; the transcript is unclear about the son who died.

Kupershmidt recalls surviving the grave, then answers Kerler's question about non-Jews who spoke Yiddish and says Jews and non-Jews lived together well before the war. He describes his father's work with horses and a cart, hauling loads, and gives his father's death as 1952 (as heard from INF2).

Adds the question of non-Jews speaking Yiddish and the father's death date.

Kupershmidt gives personal and family details. He was named after someone from Bratslav, his mother was a housewife who kept a cow, and he gives the names of his brothers and sister. Of six children, four grew up, and the family had lived in the town for generations.

Adds the naming of the siblings and that the family lived in the town for generations.

Kupershmidt remembers prewar Bratslav in answer to Kerler's questions. He lists the matchmakers, rabbis, study house, kloyz and synagogue, and says he attended Yiddish school for four years. He describes who prayed where, notes Hasidim in the kloyz, and says Hasidim came from Uman.

Adds the question of who prayed in the synagogue, kloyz and study house.

Kupershmidt says no Hasidim were left after the war; the last shochet was in a camp and his sons were killed. Many who returned from Russia died or emigrated, and he has not heard of mitnagdim. He then says his eldest brother was a Zionist who had Zionist friends, and that the authorities jailed Zionists.

Adds the shochet's fate and the arrest of Zionists.

Kupershmidt talks about prewar Sabbath at home, with his mother's blessing and the cholent kept warm. The conversation turns to Kerler's own background and where he and the others live, and Kupershmidt says Poles also killed Jews and speaks of the ghetto. The passage ends on an apology that is not clearly explained in the transcript.

Adds the chat about where the interviewers live and the remark about Poles and the ghetto.

Kupershmidt describes the current mood towards Jews in Ukraine as calm for now, but says Jewish graves in the fields have been desecrated. He says only about five Jewish families remain in Bratslav and that many Jews live with non-Jews, and he speaks of conflict among Jews. He also mentions a Hasidic man in Vinnytsia who runs a Jewish school and an old rabbi hidden in the area.

Adds the Jewish population today and the Hasidic school in Vinnytsia.

Kupershmidt and Kerler talk about a non-Jewish helper who understands Yiddish, and Kerler asks how to say that someone is a believing person. The interviewers explain the project, and Kerler begins questions with a Russian prompt. Kupershmidt chats about where the visitors are from and about the town of Medzhybizh.

Adds the explanation of the AHEYM project and the discussion of Medzhybizh.

Kupershmidt and Rakhil answer Kerler's dialectological questionnaire, with Katz asking for repetitions. Items include water, a later hour, near and nearer, cold, to run away, luck, and the words for a non-Jew and for breathing. Others include a book, a ship, a deaf person, fast, back, and a face. Kupershmidt also gives the local phrase for a stingy person (from Nemyriv rather than Haivoron).

Rakhil, born 1919, speaks of her family's fate in the war. Her mother and two sisters were in a camp and her mother brought them back, her father was shot, and she herself was evacuated to Kyrgyzstan. She remembers prewar Bratslav, its streets, her Ukrainian school, and her father, a learned man who taught her Hebrew words.

Adds the wartime fate of her parents and sisters, her evacuation to Kyrgyzstan, and her father's Hebrew teaching.

Rakhil answers questions about how holidays were celebrated before the war. Sabbath was a day of rest on which cooking was forbidden. She recalls the Passover seder at the house of her uncle, a rabbi, and the opening of the door for Elijah. The passage includes some confusion between speakers and a Russian-language stretch.

Adds the Sabbath rest and the detail of the open door at the seder.

Kupershmidt tries to recite the morning prayer at Kerler's request and recalls only a few words. He says he reads Yiddish a little and subscribes to a Jewish newspaper, and Kerler puts a few more terminology questions. Kerler asks to be shown the graves of the tsadikim, and Kupershmidt agrees but worries about the road.

Adds the request to be shown the graves of the tsadikim.

Kupershmidt takes leave of the team in Bratslav and gives directions to the field and the tsadik's grave. He points out former Jewish houses, a Jewish blacksmith named Rozenberg (?), the wartime ghetto and its camp, a visiting Hasid from Israel, and the old mill. Kerler and Katz then discuss the route to Uman and Rebbe Nakhman of Breslov, who was born in Medzhybizh. On arrival in Sharhorod they begin an interview with Yerikhman, who says he was born in 1939 and names his parents and his brothers, one of whom died in Moscow. He describes a relative with a non-Jewish wife who observes the Sabbath, the sale of the family house, and the Jewish town of about 7,000 where Yiddish was spoken, still with 3–4 thousand Jews until the 1990s. He recalls that only two or three Jews died in the war, accidentally, among them a deaf man shot by a German. He also says the ghetto held mostly women and children while the men were in the Red Army, and discusses the Pechora camp and who was killed there.

The transcript shows the end of Kupershmidt's Bratslav part and the talk with Yerikhman in Sharhorod, but not the footage the catalogue describes.