Penia Nukhovich Golfeld

The interview with Golfeld begins, and Kerler introduces him. Golfeld, born in Tul'chyn, gives his mother's name as Eydye and his father's as Nakhum, who went to war and did not return. His mother was left with three children, and he mentions the arrival of the Germans in 1941.

Adds the parents' names and the father's absence at the front.

Golfeld recalls how the Jews of Tul'chyn were gathered after the Germans' arrival and driven to a disinfection in a bathhouse. They were kept in school no. 2 and then driven out in groups in the rain and winter of 1941, spending a night in a kolkhoz stable, where the first people died. He was nine or ten years old and was driven with his mother some thirty kilometres to the Pechera camp. The camp is a former sanatorium with a gate and bare plank beds.

Adds the kolkhoz stable, a doctor's name, and the thirty-kilometre march.

Golfeld describes the starvation, cold and shooting in the Pechera camp, where Jews were killed by guards for going to the river. He tells of Germans taking inmates to forced labor and killing small children. He recalls Ukrainians throwing food over a fence, eating raw beets, falling ill with fever and walking long distances through the villages in winter.

Adds the killing of children and the food thrown over the fence.

Golfeld recalls leaving the camp to find food in the villages. In Chechelnyk he met a rebbe (whether Hasidic or a teacher he does not know) who took him in for a service and gave him alms. He then tells how a Ukrainian, Mishka Kotsap (?), hid the Tul'chyn Torah scroll and brought it into the Pechera camp. His mother, who could read Hebrew, is mentioned, and Golfeld praises the man.

Adds the Ukrainian rescuer's name and the mother's ability to read Hebrew.

Golfeld speaks about his mother's piety, which the police also respected. She gathered Jews at home for prayer on holidays and had copied out a prayer book in Hebrew. He gives his mother's name as Eydye and her father's as Mordkhe, and starts to speak of other family.

Adds the maternal grandfather's name and a word for 'pious'.

Golfeld talks about religious life after the war: services held secretly in a private house for a fee, out of fear of the authorities, and matzo baked in secret. The young did not attend and the old people urged them to learn from them.

Also mentions fear of the authorities and the young not attending.

Golfeld recalls an old man, Leybish Kishke (?), teaching him the Hebrew alphabet privately, and then attending a Russian school. He remarks that nobody wanted the Yiddish school, and that his son later studied at a polytechnic institute after the Yiddish schools were closed.

Names the private teacher and mentions his son's studies.

Answering Kerler, Golfeld recalls the rebbe Yosef Pinkevich (?) of Chechelnyk, who gave him money and shoes and collected charity for him. He then tells of walking long distances while fleeing from Pechora, falling into a pit, and being pulled out. A man whose words he reports gave him food, with talk of dumplings and a holiday, and he mentions a camp acquaintance.

Adds the pit episode and the rescuer's reaction.

Golfeld tells of meeting at Pechora a man from America who had been in the camp with him, and of later phone calls from him. Kerler then asks about his work after the war: he worked 49 years at a factory and raised a son, who studied at a polytechnic institute and now lives in Sverdlovsk. He discusses the cost of telephone calls and travel.

Adds the American survivor's visit and the cost of phone calls and travel.

Golfeld talks about his limited Hebrew schooling and childhood in Tul'chyn, which was happy before the war. He mentions the bandits and killings of Jews, and says Tul'chyn was somewhat better than elsewhere. Asked about the ghetto and Pechora camp, he says that rich people could buy their way out and that non-Jews saved many, expressing gratitude.

Golfeld speaks again of the Chechelnyk rebbe and of the town after the war, when no Jews remained and houses were wrecked and occupied by Gypsies. He mentions Jews remaining in Bershad' and a friend from there who writes in Yiddish. He tells how Leybish Kishke was killed by the Germans in 1941, which he saw himself, and what happened when the Germans entered Tul'chyn.

Adds Bershad' and a Yiddish-writing friend.

Golfeld tells of washing a German soldier's vehicle in the ghetto, in return for bread and other food, until his hands froze. He says the German spoke Russian and knew he was a Jew. He talks about the constant hunger and the struggle for food.

Golfeld mentions his army service of four years after the war in Kamchatka, where he was the only Jew, and his return to Tul'chyn to work. He recalls prewar holidays at his mother's home, including Passover, Yom Kippur and Shavuot, a holiday with red apples (Simchat Torah, with a flag), and potato pancakes.

Golfeld says his mother was from Tul'chyn and his father from Olhopil (?), and talks about the synagogue where she grew up. He once went to find his grandfather there but cannot recall his name.

Golfeld answers questions about cultural terms (dybbuk, golem), greetings and thanks, and says what he knows of Lithuanian Yiddish and Israeli speech. He insists that Yiddish is Yiddish and that his own Yiddish differs from Lithuanian.

Golfeld speaks about childhood language, with Yiddish at play and Russian at school, and about the many synagogues of Tul'chyn, with different trades having their own. He then answers a long run of questionnaire items: building and household words, body and colour words, adverbs of time and place, comparatives, animals, 'where are you from', adjectives of taste and illness, numbers, and terms for relatives. He translates Russian sentences into Yiddish with Kerler and the second person helping.

Adds the long run of questionnaire items and the translation work.

Golfeld talks about prewar Tul'chyn, with its Jewish-run shops and houses built on Turkish-style vaults. He continues with questionnaire items, including the words for 'everyone', as the speaker and S2 compare 'ale' and a variant, and also flowers, and sentences to translate.

Adds the dialect variants for 'all'.

Golfeld tells how, after taking a drug and falling into a deep sleep, a non-Jewish woman rolled eggs over him to heal him. This is followed by more questionnaire items, with Kerler asking for translations of Russian sentences, singular and plural forms, and number expressions. Kerler closes with thanks.

Adds the translation exercises and closing thanks.