Maria (Manye) Yefimovna Leiderman; Shure (Yisroel) Obodovskii

The interviewers greet the couple and settle names and place names, including the Yiddish and Russian forms of the name of Birzula/Kotovs'k, and the distance to Pishchanka. Leiderman says she worked 37 years in a bank as bookkeeper and was born in 1928. She lived in Pishchanka until about six or seven, then the family moved to Rudnytsya. Obodovskii worked in construction, and the couple were evacuated to Siberia (Altai region, near Barnaul), though the transcript is unclear about the places.

Adds the discussion of the Yiddish and Russian names of Birzula/Kotovs'k.

Formal interview begins with Kerler's questions on place names and on the Yiddish dictionary Obodovskii owns and the Yiddish alphabet he learned. He gives his mother's name as Sore. The couple give their surnames: Leiderman, and Obodovskii, which he says is Polish and derives from Obodovka. His mother came from the village of Korytne near Balta, and his father's origin is the subject of further questions.

Adds the discussion of the surnames and of the Yiddish dictionary.

Lemster asks about the number of Jews and synagogues in Pishchanka, then about Leiderman's parents. Her father was from Obodovka (?), and her mother from Sobolivka (?), the villages named in the transcript. Obodovskii mentions a grandson who visited from abroad, which leads to talk of the laptop. He describes his father's limited schooling and his parents' work on a kolkhoz near Kotovs'k, in a village settled by Czech colonists, and the family's move to Kotovs'k in 1939.

Adds the grandson's visit and the laptop, and the Czech village near Kotovs'k.

Obodovskii recalls his schooling: he first attended a Ukrainian school in Kotovs'k with only Yiddish and was laughed at, then a Russian school in Siberia, and after the war a Russian school in Kotovs'k, which he completed after nine years. Leiderman says that until about seven she knew only Yiddish and nothing of Russian or Ukrainian. Lemster asks whether a synagogue existed in Kotovs'k.

Kerler and Lemster ask about religious life. Obodovskii says he never entered a synagogue and knows tefillin only from television. Leiderman says the family returned from evacuation in 1946 and that, in Kotovs'k after the war, older Jews gathered in private homes for a minyan, with candles and brandy. They also mention Pishchanka as a Jewish town with a synagogue where her father prayed.

Leiderman describes her mother as a seamstress who sewed for the family only. Obodovskii recalls his grandfather Khayim with a red beard, his grandmothers Anye and Gitl, and his paternal grandfather Yisroel, after whom he is named. He recounts the family's names, where the grandfather lived near Korytne, and that his grandfather ran a small shop in the NEP years. His maternal grandmother died around the Revolution. He then begins describing the 1941 departure from Kotovs'k in evacuation.

Adds the names of grandparents, relatives and the grandfathers' livelihoods.

Obodovskii recounts the wartime journey: leaving Kotovs'k in July 1941, going first to Voronezh province and then to the Altai region near Barnaul, where local Siberians took the evacuees into their homes without rent. He describes returning to Kotovs'k in 1944, with the town still bombed by German aircraft, and the dangers and nightly raids.

Adds the Voronezh stage and the bombing details.

Obodovskii says his father died in the war as a signalman in the Red Army and is buried in a mass grave in the Luhansk region; he had five brothers, one of whom died in 1939. He grew up with two sisters. In Siberia his mother worked in the fields, and he describes prices for bread and potatoes. A neighbor gave back some belongings but made a doorway into their house; in 1959 his mother bought a house near the market. He also names his sister who died in 1955, his brother Misha in Odessa, and his nephew.

Adds the father's death at the front, the neighbor taking over the house and the purchase of a new house in 1959.

Leiderman describes her siblings, a brother Lova and a sister Brane, and the brother's disappearance in the war. She says she worked in a military factory and was not allowed to leave, until a relative's invitation let the family return to Kotovs'k in 1946. The couple say they met in 1962. They speak of Yiddish at home and of the difficulty of speaking it, and Obodovskii discusses a Yiddish dictionary and Slavic and German words.

Adds the brother's disappearance in the army, the factory work and the discussion of Yiddish words and languages.

Leiderman tells of her sister, who finished Yiddish school in Pishchanka, and of her brother, who was refused entry to a medical school as a Jew. Obodovskii says he never heard antisemitic remarks from Russians or Moldovans on his building sites. He describes his work as a construction foreman, and the couple discuss the word for a Jewish and non-Jewish builder.

Adds the brother's refusal at medical school and the discussion on antisemitism.

Obodovskii recalls a line of a Yiddish song his grandfather sang, and speaks about his mother's brother Yozke, who served through the whole war, was in Japan and was decorated. They discuss the surname Kolker, a Russian poet of that name, the uncle's drinking and stereotypes about Jews who drink and fight.

Obodovskii sings and recalls a Yiddish children's song that his uncle used to sing, and says he cannot recall more. They discuss voices and the memory of tunes, and Leiderman remembers her father's songs. He also remembers his grandfather's Yiddish and Hebrew books and her father's death. Leiderman tells of her father's later life in Bershad, where he met an old man, and of Sabbath gatherings there.

Adds the visits to Bershad and the grandfather's Yiddish and Hebrew books.

The couple discuss Yiddish periodicals: Soviet journals such as Birobidzhaner Shtern, and current papers brought from Odessa and Moscow. Kerler and Lemster then ask about words in the questionnaire style, such as the forms for 'thank you' and 'mother and father', for which the informants give the words they remember. Lemster asks if they remember more songs or jokes.

Adds the discussion of Yiddish newspapers, and terms such as thanks and mother and father.

Obodovskii says that few Jews lived in Kotovs'k, that at home only Yiddish was spoken, and that he knows several languages. He mentions a small synagogue opened after the Germans left in 1944. They say there are no old Jews who gather now. They recall a kosher butcher after the war and an uncertainty about the rabbi. Obodovskii returns to his work as a builder, his pension and the house improvements he made himself.

Adds the shoykhet, the languages he knows, and the details of his house improvements.

Obodovskii talks about life today: his pension, a job with cement, and his opinions about Ukrainian politicians and about Hitler and the Jewish question.

Kerler and Lemster ask Leiderman about her early memories of Pishchanka. She describes her mother baking matzo with neighbors and her father leading the seder, with four cups of wine and the four questions. Obodovskii adds his own memories of Passover, including the exodus story, matzo baked in the desert, and his naming after his grandfather Yisroel.

Leiderman and Obodovskii speak about her mother's holiday cooking: gefilte fish, and her keeping geese and goats at home, with eggs and meat at Passover and a type of baked dish. Kerler asks about Purim food and the way Purim is named in different places, and mentions his Jerusalem visits.

Adds the exchange on Purim naming and food.

Obodovskii says that postwar Jewish holidays such as Purim and the anniversary of the Revolution were hardly marked, because food was scarce and few Jews lived in the courtyard. He says he disliked going to parades.

Obodovskii says that most of the old Jews of Kotovs'k have died and the young have left, so there is no one to talk to in Yiddish. He is asked about the word dibbuk (?) and other Yiddish terms he does not know, and says he knows colloquial Russian rather than literary language. He recalls speaking Yiddish with an acquaintance, and mentions his many books and journals left in a half of the house. They then discuss the Yiddish film about Jewish kolkhozes in Birobidzhan, which was shown at the stadium, and a visit by the singer Iosif Kobzon. He remembers the war starting as he finished third grade, with the rest of the answer running on into the next passage.

Adds the questions about Yiddish words, the Birobidzhan film and Kobzon's visit.

Obodovskii recalls his school years in Siberia during the war and a class excursion to the Kotovsky mausoleum in Kotovs'k, describing the body displayed under a glass lid with his decorations and a sabre. He tells how the mausoleum was damaged in the German occupation and later restored, and that it is now closed. He then speaks of Polish neighbors, two brothers, one of whom was a lieutenant at the front and the other who gave away partisans to the Germans. Asked by Lemster, he says antisemitism existed in Kotovs'k, though not in his construction brigade, which was international.

Adds the long account of the Kotovsky mausoleum and the Polish neighbors during the war.

Obodovskii describes his construction brigade after the war, made up of several nationalities, including Poles, a Moldovan and Russians, of whom only two remain alive. He recalls building the large Kotovs'k wine factory, the plentiful drinking on the job, and the kinds of wine they drank. The last exchange with Lemster and Kerler about the wines runs on into the next passage.

Kerler elicits Yiddish translations of Russian sentences, such as drinking glasses and singing many songs, and Obodovskii answers with Yiddish equivalents. He discusses his own nationality, saying he is Jewish although he speaks Yiddish poorly, and that his birth record from the 1930s places him in Bessarabia/Moldova, with the place name Tiraspol and Balta mentioned. Lemster asks about words such as the Yiddish for 'floor' and 'earth', and 'road', and Obodovskii explains a distinction between the floor inside the house and the earth outside.

Adds the personal birth record, with Bessarabia/Moldova and Tiraspol, and the Russian-to-Yiddish sentences.

Obodovskii talks about work after the war: he trained for a year in a fur-procurement organization, then worked as a buyer of pelts such as rabbit, and also took bookkeeping courses. He recalls a Jewish warehouse manager, Shmukler (?), and a non-Jewish co-worker from a village near Balta who spoke good Yiddish, which he had learned among the many Jews there. Leiderman or another woman adds that she knew a non-Jewish woman who spoke to her in Yiddish. Kerler and Lemster end by urging the couple to speak Yiddish to each other.

Adds the fur-buying and bookkeeping details and the two Yiddish-speaking non-Jews, a man and a woman.

A woman asks whether the other has been to a traditional Jewish wedding; she remembers one in Kotovs'k when her sister married, and the others ask about the chuppah and the custom of carrying a cake. They also ask about a wedding custom involving the mother (the word is unclear in the transcript) and dancing with the cake. A woman recalls dancing freylekhs herself, and Kerler thanks the couple to end the interview.

Adds the wedding details (chuppah, cake dance) and the closing thanks.

At the Vinnytsya community center a woman says that a concert is about to begin and that few young people there speak Yiddish. Kerler and Lemster explain their project of Yiddish interviews and look through their list of addresses for elderly Yiddish speakers with names such as Stinerman (?), Nesya Katz and Aron Khazin. They discuss whom to visit and which people may be too ill, mostly in Russian.

Adds the search for interviewees on the team's address list.

A woman tours the center in Russian, showing a photo exhibition of Jewish faces and explaining that people gather for events there. The team discusses possible interviewees, among them a 103-year-old woman born in Vinnytsya whose daughter worries about her health, and a woman of 78 from the Kurylivtsi district. They mention an earlier American interviewer from the Joint who sought people remembering a pogrom, and the film 'Nedopetaya pesnya' made in Sharhorod with Baba Fanya. They also speak of Nesya's singing at the concert.

Adds the plans for further interviews, the 103-year-old and the film made in Sharhorod.

The group talks about Nesya Katz, a nurse in the war, and looks at a photograph of her. They then explain other photographs on display: relatives from Baltic and Kharkiv, an elderly couple who lived together for 72 years, and a composer from Belentsy whose songs are sung in Ukraine. They also discuss the present community.

Adds the details of the other photographs and the composer.

The concert of the Vinnytsya Yiddish women's choir begins; hardly any speech is transcribed, only a few words from the audience.