Adolf Smajovics

Smajovics describes meeting two elderly Yiddish speakers in America and talks about visiting his sister in Queens and his daughter in Miami, including Passover there. Kerler also talks about his own life in America and Israel, and a short exchange about the recording and papers follows. The beginning is partly garbled.

Kerler's remarks about his own life in Moscow, Israel and Indiana, and Passover in Miami.

The formal interview begins. Smajovics says he lived in Velyka Kopanya, ten kilometers from Vynohradiv, gives his birth year as 1922, his Hungarian and Yiddish names and the nickname Bumi, and names a man from Debrecen with Maramureş parents. He explains that his mother was an orphan, and that his father, a field worker who broke in horses, was killed by them in 1926, leaving four children.

The question about names and the nickname Bumi, and a mention of a Debrecen man who speaks Yiddish.

Smajovics says his father was a field worker. He went away to learn blacksmithing and was in Budapest when the war began. He came home in the summer of 1943 and was called up that October into a labor battalion.

Smajovics describes his labor battalion service, working as a locksmith with German tools. After the Germans arrived in 1944 he was taken to Ercsi on the Danube to dig trenches. He tells of a conversation in Czech with a German soldier whose sister was in a concentration camp. He describes the Soviet crossing of the Danube and his liberation in December 1944.

The catalogue's 'peddler' detail is not clear in the transcript.

Smajovics describes liberation near Ercsi, about 120 km from Budapest, and the journey back to the Carpathians with two other boys. He recalls meeting Soviet officers, including Jewish ones, and being offered a place in the Czech army. He tells how his sister returned and how he took up work as a blacksmith. The coming of the kolkhozy, his move to Vynohradiv and his jobs there (a factory, a small furniture factory, warehouses, a garage) are covered, with the 1960s mentioned, and his move to Budapest in 1978 when he bought a flat. He mentions his two daughters and his pension.

The meeting with Jewish officers and the Czech army offer.

Smajovics talks about his education. He began cheder at four, following his older brother. He learned to pray early and was taught by the dayan, then celebrated his bar mitzvah in Adar. He then attended the local yeshiva until about 1938. He also says his grandfather was not a Hasidic man.

The bar mitzvah preparation and the grandfather's non-Hasidic outlook.

Smajovics says about sixty families lived in Velyka Kopanya and that it had a large synagogue. He left his studies in 1938 at the time of the Czech mobilization, at around sixteen and a half, and took over the field work and driving for the household. Then the war came.

The Czech mobilization of 1938 as the reason he left his studies.

Smajovics tells how he met his wife at a wedding in the winter of 1945. He recounts how he found his brother Mordechai in Israel and first visited him in 1982 after forty years. He describes his nervousness on the flight and his nephew who served in the army. His brother's descendants, visits to Israel and the death of his wife are mentioned, and Kerler states the date for the recording.

The wedding where he met his wife and the nephew's military service.

Smajovics answers questions about his parents. His father was a field worker and his mother was Golde, and both were from Velyka Kopanya. He names his father's birth year as 1897, his sister Beyle in Brooklyn, and his paternal grandparents Moshe and Motl. His grandmother Motl was deported to Auschwitz and came from Oylak (?), 25 km away.

Details of the grandparents' names and the grandmother's deportation.

Smajovics tells how, in the Hungarian labor battalion, he met an older man in a camp who turned out to be a relative of his grandmother. Kerler asks him to describe how his father was killed by young horses in 1926, and he does so.

The meeting with the relative.

Smajovics recalls his grandmother's charity in giving shelter and food to the poor, and tells of a man who remembered her. He talks about a loan he and his wife made, collecting money, and Kerler asks about Yiddish and Hebrew terms for money and for non-Jews and a few other words. He describes the Miami building full of Jews where Carpathian relatives gather at Passover. He also recalls the expulsion from Spain, and visits to Israel.

Kerler's elicitation of money and Hebrew-origin vocabulary.

Smajovics gives a saying about stealing under the Russians. Kerler asks about Talmud study, and Smajovics recalls cheder, his grandfather's non-Hasidic style, and learning prayers by heart under examination by the teacher. He tells of a childhood friend he met again in Israel, a farmer who studies in the study house, and of their visit.

The childhood friend in Israel.

Answering Kerler's questions, Smajovics says he went to cheder from age four and to the Czech school from four and a half until 1936, and kept to cheder until 1938. He describes learning to write and reckon, and working in the fields after the 1938 mobilization. He started his blacksmith apprenticeship at seventeen in 1939 and worked until 1942.

The Czech mobilization of 1938 and his work in the fields.

Smajovics speaks about the late 1930s, when he worked at shoeing horses, and mentions the arrival of Polish refugees. He says he could not speak Hungarian at that point, but learned it in the forced labor battalion from Hungarian boys.

Learning Hungarian in the labor battalion.

Smajovics recalls his cheder teachers and an older student in the cheder, and how a teacher was addressed. He answers Kerler's questions on whether non-Jews converted to Judaism, on rebbes who came to the village and on an early rebbe who emigrated to Palestine, including disputes in a nearby town about rebbes. He mentions Rebbe Meir, who gave sermons, and a teacher of girls.

A rebbe who emigrated to Palestine, disputes over rebbes in a nearby town and the Sapinka rebbe in Seliš (?) are also mentioned.

Smajovics says non-Jews who knew Yiddish lived nearby, and that Jews spoke Hungarian or a different Yiddish so as not to be understood. He gives his parents' birth years as asked and says that the region had no yeshiva of its own, so boys were sent to yeshivot in Seliš, Khust, Mukachevo and Slovakia. He describes the big cheder with outside boys who ate at different homes, and the age limit of 13 or 14 for studying there.

Also gives the parents' birth years and the term for bar mitzvah.

Smajovics describes how cheder boys earned a little money before Passover by working at the communal matzo baking, as water, flour or wheel workers. He mentions matzo for poor large families and a communal collector. A word for secret deliveries of food is discussed, as is a term for a healer or miracle-worker.

Smajovics talks about a rabbinical court case in his hometown against two men, and about the hardship for their wives and children. He recalls Red Cross parcels, and that the Czech teacher decided which children received clothing and books. He tells how the boys gave concerts and recitations to raise money and went on a trip to the forest paid for from the funds, with milk brought for poor children.

The passage turns to the school's charity and children's concerts in prewar life rather than 'life today' as the catalogue says.

Smajovics talks about the prayer books he used and says that his village synagogue was Ashkenazic. He tells how a Sephardic-style service in Israel (with his brother) and a stay in Tokaj, with an American Jew who objected to his Torah reading, differed from his own practice. He compares the Sephardic and Ashkenazic ways of saying kaddish, and then recites kaddish at Kerler's request, with the transcript largely garbled for the recitation.

Smajovics finishes reciting kaddish and talks about his present prayer practice. He attends a Reform-style synagogue (Teleki Jud?) in Budapest, where he says kaddish after each service. He says his own rabbi tried to organize weekday minyanim, and Kerler asks whether a Jew in Tokaj speaks Yiddish and whether he remembers Sabbath songs.

Kaddish recitation is followed by the account of his synagogue in Budapest.

Smajovics briefly says that he has not taken part in the Sabbath-end gatherings since the war, and Kerler asks about holiday songs and Hanukkah songs. He then sings a Yiddish song about a son and his mother's worries over money and love, in which the girl has a rich suitor. Kerler has him repeat the song line by line, and they discuss an unknown word in it, glossed as 'critique' or 'send away' (?). A second woman joins in the song.

The song is performed and discussed in detail with Kerler, and a second woman joins in.

Smajovics sings a Yiddish song about a couple on a stroll who talk about marriage, in which the man declines the proposal after the woman's teasing. Kerler has him repeat the text line by line and asks about words like 'speculate' and 'mock', and the second woman helps with the lines. He then sings the whole song through again.

Smajovics says he sang with his friends on Sabbath afternoons, learned Hungarian songs from his Hungarian master without knowing the words, and remembers little of them. He describes Purim in the village: baking 'kindlekh' with honey (a dough with honey cut into pieces), Purim plays by children and older boys, and collecting money for the poor with a sack. Kerler asks about words for these customs.

The passage also covers collecting for the poor and the term 'kindlekh' for Purim pastry.

Smajovics speaks about Hanukkah doughnuts (pontshkes) both before the war in his village and in Israel, where he bought them at a bakery in Jerusalem. He says that latkes were not made in his village and that potatoes were called krumpirn there, with other words discussed for them.

Kerler also asks about words for potato and a related term.

Smajovics answers questions about the word for attic and for a bridge, and describes Passover food (matzo with milk, dumplings, kugel), before saying that a woman in a restaurant recognised him as a Carpathian Jew by his Yiddish for the seder. He says that few Yiddish speakers remain in the area and that his daughters can understand but do not speak it. He says that he taught his grandson in America bar mitzvah, and that the grandson is now religious and 31 and unmarried.

Contains the dialectological questions, Passover, the daughters' Yiddish and the grandson's bar mitzvah preparation.

Smajovics answers a question about the word for 'sick' and then describes his time in Budapest, where before the war he worked for nine months in 1942 (?) and lodged with an old Carpathian Jew who spoke Yiddish. He says that he settled in Budapest in 1978, with his daughter having come earlier, that the move was difficult, and that he met a friend from cheder again.

Starts with a dialect question, and also covers his friend and the hard move in 1978.

Smajovics answers dialectological questions from Kerler. They cover greetings and replies, polite phrases (please, thank you, 'be so good'), expressions for luck or bad luck, and the words for house and for belly.

Smajovics answers dialectological questionnaire items put by Kerler. They cover words for foods and household objects (porridge, mouse, windowpane, wall), colours, adverbs of time and degree, sentences to translate, religious terms, parts of the body, kinship words and forms like 'this/that'. He also gives the words for apostasy and for a wealthy man, the comparative forms, and numerals. He says which words he knows from his town and which only from other speakers, Poles, Russians or Hungarians.

Gives details on which words he knows from Chernivtsi usage, Polish, Russian and Hungarian.

Smajovics offers to sing a song and performs it more than once, with Kerler asking him to repeat it line by line so he can write down the words. It is a humorous song about Aunt Pesl in a lane of the shtetl and a rabbi found with her. In between Kerler asks about the meanings of terms such as dybbuk and golem.

Includes questions on the meaning of dybbuk and golem, and repeated performances of the song so Kerler can transcribe it.

Smajovics talks about language use in the Soviet Union after the war. He and others spoke Ukrainian at work, Yiddish at home, and many Jews' children could not speak Yiddish. His own children, though, learned Hungarian from newspapers he ordered, and his daughter could work as she could read, write and speak the language. Kerler then asks for another song.

Smajovics sings the song "Papirosn", about an orphan selling cigarettes in the cold. Kerler asks about other songs; Smajovics says he has forgotten some and recalls a song about a fire on the hearth in winter. He mentions the boys of his village, of whom he is the only one still living, and a friend in Brooklyn he sees on visits. He begins another song about a faithful hasid.

Mentions the group of boys from his village and a friend he visits in Brooklyn.

Smajovics sings a comic Yiddish song in which the speaker vows to be a faithful hasid, with a hot mikveh in summer, a silk kaftan and a shtreimel, and shaking at prayer to entertain the rebbe. Kerler asks him to repeat the lines slowly so they can be written down, and asks about their sense. Smajovics sings the whole song several times.

Kerler concludes the interview, thanks Smajovics, and asks about reading Hungarian and Russian. He says the team's colleagues have arrived.