Frida Isakovna Pecherskaia

Pecherskaia and the team try the dishes she has prepared. She speaks about her son, who lives in a new district of Tul'chyn, and about relatives in Israel and America, including half-sisters whose city she does not know. She describes going to Pechera every year at Rosh Hashanah, where her family lies, and being photographed and interviewed there. She names her family and gives her name, maiden name and birth year; her father Yosif worked as a coachman or carter. She had four siblings, including her brother Hershl, killed in the army at seventeen, and her sisters Shele and Rivele, who died in Pechera. She gives a long account of Pechera: her mother killed with shovels, her sisters' deaths, her escape and recapture, the German camp in Bratslav with its killings in the forest, and hiding in a pit and with a Polish woman until the partisans came. After the war she worked at a brewery in Bratslav and married in 1945. She talks about her husband Shune, her stepfather, her children and grandchildren, and a daughter in Israel. She recalls prewar Bratslav, a field wedding, her grandfather and prayer, Passover, the Bratslav tsadik's grave, and the hunger of 1933. She also talks about Tul'chyn after the war, her fasting, Passover matzo and gefilte fish.

Beyond the catalogue's outline, it covers the Bratslav German camp, schooling, the shoykhet, Passover matzo and gefilte fish.

Kerler asks about Palestine and Israel; Pecherskaia talks about violence there and about her daughter's life in Israel. She recalls a visit to a small town, probably Bat Yam or Beit Shean (the name is unclear in the transcript), where she saw a river and the countryside, and says it was the only place she visited. She describes the ultra-Orthodox neighbours, their large families, and how the state pays them.

The catalogue does not mention her views on the Orthodox neighbours in Israel or her visit to a small town there.

Pecherskaia says she remembers no Yiddish or Gentile songs and thinks only of her children. She reflects on how hard it is to be a Jew and recounts a recent incident at an office in which she was insulted as a Jew; she says she no longer goes out and her son buys what she needs. She mentions that many Jews have left the building where she lives. She and Kerler then wish each other health and talk about Kerler's children, and Kerler starts to look for a photograph.

The catalogue does not mention the exchange about Kerler's own family, or her answer that she remembers no songs.

Pecherskaia shows Kerler photographs, apparently from Israel and America, including a photograph album her son-in-law made for her and a picture of her husband. She mentions her husband's death and gravestone, and says she married in 1945 when she was very poor. She names three half-sisters who share a father but not a mother and are in America, one of whom phoned her. She also mentions a visit to Vinnytsia where she had six operations, and says life is a dream.

The catalogue does not mention the six operations in Vinnytsia.