Veniamin Iakovlevich Geller; an unidentified interviewee; Lazar Eilovich Burshtein

Informal talk among several people before the interview. An older man says he must go home and offers a short interview or a visit to his home, and Kerler agrees to come to him. He mentions a short story about a Jewish farmer.

Kerler asks the unidentified man where he grew up. He mentions his parents leaving for farm work and a Jewish collective farm in the Kherson area (?). The rest is arranging a later meeting, with Russian talk about a phone that does not work, an address and Geller's name.

The passage also contains arranging of contact details and Geller is named.

Informal chat among the people present, with Geller and a second man. They discuss life today, women, accents, Yiddish speakers, Lithuanian Jews and Hasidim, and a man named Naftali. It ends with arrangements about who is coming in the evening and Geller's name and birthplace, and Kerler turns to the interview.

Includes talk of Yiddish accents and Lithuanian Jews, and ends with the start of the interview.

Geller gives his name and the names of his parents and grandparents. He was one of five children, one of whom died as a small child in the famine of 1932–33. His eldest brother was a pilot in the war against Japan, and his youngest brother and a sister live elsewhere. His father's family was from Khazhin and his mother's from the shtetl.

Geller describes the shtetl in the 1930s: artisans were gathered into cooperatives and many left for Kyiv, Zhytomyr and Odesa to find work. The Yiddish school closed, and he studied in a Ukrainian school. He also mentions his mother's ability to write Yiddish and his father's work in a sugar factory when the famine began.

Adds Geller's mother's Yiddish literacy and father's sugar-factory work.

Geller says where the shtetl lies near Berdychiv and Chudniv, and Kerler asks how its name is pronounced. During the famine his father went to Dnipropetrovsk to earn money. His grandfather in Zhytomyr, a carpenter, took the family there in 1936 as orphans after his father's death.

Includes a question about how the shtetl's name is pronounced and the grandfather's role.

Geller talks about his technical school studies and the start of the war in 1941. The Germans entered Zhytomyr on 7 July, and his family was evacuated toward Kazan. He was drafted in 1942 and wounded three times, the last time in Latvia near Riga. He spent half a year in hospital in Kalinin, where a doctor who knew his family helped save his legs.

Geller recalls returning to Zhytomyr after the war, finding neighbors in the family home, and rebuilding his life. He married in 1949 and was married for 48 years. He talks about his daughter, son and grandchildren, one of whom works in the Jewish school, and a great-grandchild.

Geller recalls the Jews who stayed behind in the shtetl in 1941 and were killed by a few Germans and local policemen. After the war a list of victims was compiled and a monument put up. He still has the list, and says some families went to Israel and America.

Mentions the list of victims and monument.

Geller describes the synagogue, prayer house and Itzik the crooked (der krimer), who served as helper and caretaker. He recalls the Jewish director of the Ukrainian school who had children throw stones at worshippers, and talks about childhood friends, one killed by the Germans. He also speaks of non-Jewish classmates, Passover matzo given to them, and non-Jews who spoke Yiddish, then answers questions on the use of Yiddish at home.

Adds the school director who threw stones, non-Jewish classmates and Yiddish at home.

Opens with talk of a Jewish newspaper from Israel and a Yiddish paper in America, and of sending letters abroad. Geller says his mother taught him a little Yiddish reading and writing while he went to a Ukrainian school. Kerler asks about his mother and puts a few word questions. Geller also mentions the Sabbath kiddush and havdalah and the rabbis in town.

The catalogue label omits the schooling and the first word questions.

Geller discusses the Joint's aid and how people get help, and compares it with the war years. He says Polish Jews fled to the Soviet Union, and mentions his invalid's pension. Kerler asks about an idiom and some Russian-influenced words. Geller then begins an anecdote about a prosecutor and a tailor.

Also covers the Joint and an idiom question, and ends with the start of the tailor story.

Geller tells an anecdote about a prosecutor and a tailor who lived in the same house, with the tailor working for the state. Kerler tries to steer him back to the questionnaire.

Word questions on Yiddish forms such as breathing, a roadside inn and a courtyard. Geller says his Yiddish is plain and differs from that of Vilna and Poltava. They discuss streets of only Jews or only gentiles, and burial and funerals as a mitzvah. The passage also covers the minyan, kaddish, and ages, and ends with a courtroom anecdote.

Adds the talk about Jewish and gentile streets, burial as a mitzvah and the courtroom anecdote.

Questions on a word connected with the prophet Elijah and the opening of the door at the seder. Geller explains Passover pancakes made from matzo meal and potatoes, and the oven needed to bake them. Kerler and Katz also ask about Hanukkah latkes, buckwheat latkes, and goose cracklings.

Also covers Hanukkah latkes and the Elijah door custom.

Geller talks about Hanukkah goose cracklings and about those unwilling versus unable to observe, then describes baking matzo himself. He explains the roles of the rollers, the kneader, the perforator and the person who puts the matzo in the oven (the "shiber"). He distinguishes hand matzo from machine matzo, and says matzo was baked in Soviet times near an old synagogue. The passage ends with Kerler asking a few further word questions.

Adds the roles at the matzo oven and baking under Soviet conditions.

Word questions on forms such as "everything", with proverbs and sayings about the poor man and about being laughed at. Katz and Geller compare Yiddish and Polish words for cheese, "one and a half", and building a house. They also touch on a half matzo hidden at the seder, on documents, and on a riddle-like saying.

Adds the proverbs, the afikoman question and the building word.

Geller recalls going to the bathhouse with his grandfather on Friday before the Sabbath, the Uman bathhouse, and going afterward to the synagogue and making kiddush. He also mentions the women's mikveh. Kerler asks where the word for the bathhouse comes from and how people say "thank you".

Adds the Uman bathhouse and a word question at the end.

Kerler and Katz ask word questions, among them a word about the bride-price (?), words for the attic and for "grandmother", and a sour-sweet meat dish. Geller adds a Russian proverb about staying close to people, which he also renders in Yiddish. He says his Yiddish is the same in Piatka and in Kamianets-Podilskyi.

Adds the grandmother and attic words and the sour-sweet meat dish.

Geller answers dialect questions from Kerler and Katz, with comments from others present. Items include words for hair, a window pane, the word for 'give' and 'take' with differences among local speakers, the word for the person who hears, standing at prayer, and an expression about a child's birth. They also discuss whether the word for 'son' was used in Pyatka.

Geller tells a short anecdote about a mother sending a child to the shop to buy packets of tobacco (?), a story used to bring out dialect forms. Kerler then asks how the word for 'sun' is said and what verb is used for its shining.

The anecdote about the shop purchase.

Geller and those present look at a map for Pyatka and nearby places, naming a river and towns such as Berdichev and Chernyakhov (?). The talk becomes informal: what to eat, interrupted by Russian side remarks, the cassette recordings and a son's anniversary celebration. The interviewers promise to send cassettes of Yiddish songs and arrange the next meeting.

The talk of cassettes and food.

The team arranges a time to meet and speaks about copying, then Kerler opens the interview with Burshtein and asks his name and date of birth. Burshtein gives his Yiddish name Lozer or Leyzer and his father's name, Yoyel, and the Russian and Polish forms. He says he was born in 1929 in Govrove and lived there until the war began in 1939. He describes his childhood: kheyder, Polish school and a father who was a tailor.

Burshtein talks about his father's trade as a men's tailor and about Jewish life in Govrove, which was safe under Piłsudski and became worse after his death under Rydz-Śmigły. He recalls antisemitic boycotts, signs telling people not to buy from Jews, and a Polish baker's window caricature of a Jew in a prayer shawl.

Burshtein recalls people gathering at the school director's apartment to hear the radio and learning of Hitler's speeches and what was happening to Jews in Germany. Jews who had come from Germany told them of the situation and sang Yiddish songs in the streets. He listened to the songs as a small child who started kheyder at six.

Burshtein explains how a music teacher at the Zhytomyr Hesed learned that he knows Yiddish songs, and he wrote them out in Yiddish in her book. He is often invited to sing at the Hesed. He then takes up songs sung by Jews from Germany who came to the town, and begins to sing a song about a poor refugee, after Kerler asks whether they were Polish Jews returning from Germany.

Burshtein sings a Yiddish song about a poor refugee who has lost his luck and become a street singer. He says he knows many songs from Poland, including love songs. He then describes the prewar synagogues: the shoemakers and tailors each had their own prayer house, and there was one big synagogue where the kheyder boys would go.

Burshtein recalls that a Polish teacher pulled him by his sidelocks out of the classroom, and that the Jewish children were helpless. Kerler asks about the school, which was the Polish state school. He says the Poles were not friends, that leaflets called for killing Jews, and that Poles told Jewish parents they were spared only out of pity for the children. He mentions an uncle in Łomża and the family's life up to the outbreak of war in 1939.

Burshtein tells of the start of the war in 1939: Poles shooting from the roofs, the family's week of praying in the prayer house under bombing, and his father's decision to leave by night for an aunt's town about thirty kilometres away. He describes the flight past Polish cavalry, being taken in by Jewish families, then German roundups of Jews onto the square, when he was ten and escaped a soldier. His father and brothers were taken, his older brother was missing for days, and Germans threw bread to Polish prisoners while another photographed them. In the aunt's town a Jewish shoemaker negotiated with German officers for the family's safety.

Burshtein sings a song he composed about leaving his hometown Goworowo and the longing for it, then a song of hope. Kerler asks about Hebrew songs; Burshtein says there was no Hebrew singing in cheder and mentions Sabbath and liturgical chants. He then sings Yiddish songs from Polish childhood about a wedding, an orphan child, love, hope of going to the Land of Israel, and a prisoner's return, with remarks on how they were sung.

Also includes talk about cheder, Sabbath chants and a song on the future State of Israel.

Kerler asks whether the songs had words. Burshtein explains that many were wordless tunes sung in company, though most he remembers had words, and he hums one. Both say they are tired and Kerler thanks him to end the interview.

After the break, the camera turns to a second man, who talks about Yiddish newspapers in Kyiv and the Soviet Yiddish magazine, which he used to read. He mentions a Polish-born cantor with a good voice and Burshtein's talent for singing. Kerler asks him questions in Yiddish.

The second man sings a children's song about learning the Hebrew letters. He then chats with Kerler about sayings and Kerler puts terminology questions to him. Kerler asks about the wedding entertainer (badkhn) and the master of ceremonies; the man mentions the rabbi, the engagement contract and a term for the one who leads the wedding. He also reflects on history and storytelling.

He talks about prayer in Zhytomyr today: how the gabbai and cantor lead the service, and the prayer book he received. An American rabbi, Samuel Plotkin(?), brought him his first tallit and prayer book in the 1990s and opened synagogues in Berdychiv and Zhytomyr. He prefers his old prayer book. Kerler asks about the phrase 'mother's prayer book' and whether women taught prayer instead of cheder.

He recalls childhood in Ukraine as a time of constant fear, with fear of Whites and Reds, kolkhoz, war, and price rises. He then compares life today with the Soviet period: his pension, the price of bread, and paying for medical care. He mentions the Jewish charity (Hesed) that provides meals.