Not online: the recording is held by the project and is not on Media Collections Online, YouTube or archive.org. Everything below is a paraphrase of a machine transcript, the weaker of this site's two transcript layers — see how it was made.
Recording made in Munkach on 26 May 2012 with an elderly woman (index: Ilda / Simon) who talks about her family and her wartime experiences. She recounts hiding during the German occupation, the Munkach ghetto, deportation to a factory in the Sudeten region, the return home, and her father's synagogue in Munkach. Toward the end Kerler asks about the town's Jewish families and about her age at marriage, then whether she remembers songs. A second woman and another voice join in the conversation. Second half of a recording made in Munkach on 26 May 2012 with the couple the index names Ilda and Simon. Kerler interviews them in Yiddish, with a few Hungarian and Russian asides. It covers her memories of songs and her father's fiddle, health and their life in America, a wealthy neighbour who hid the family's valuables during the war, how the husband's name was said in Yiddish and Russian, and post-war kosher meat in Munkach. It ends with Purim memories, arrangements to meet again the next day, and a Hungarian exchange about Budapest.
Opening chat about the informant's sons, one of whom has a furniture factory linked to Germany, and one of whom lives in Budapest. She mentions the family's emigration to America and her birthplace in the Rosvigovo/Arasvig district of Munkach. Discussion on whether that area belongs to the town.
She recounts the German occupation: hiding in a cellar with her sister, sister-in-law and a child, with help from her father's worker, and the Munkach ghetto. She describes the role of neighbours and Hungarians in helping the Germans and the deportation to a factory in the Sudeten region. There the director, Dr Schumann, treated the deportees well, and she describes the factory work and the arrival of the Russians.
She describes the journey home through Ostrava, the Czech lands and Budapest, and finding the family's hidden gold and furniture. A Jewish officer helped; nine siblings survived (four sisters and two brothers). She tells of her brother Shmuel Leib, who died after being beaten, and her father's business and factory.
She speaks about her father's charity and the Munkach synagogue, which her son keeps up, and her father's role in building the synagogue in Rosvigovo, which has a Jewish library. Jews made up about 80 percent of the town's population before the war. Discussion with Kerler about an old man, Hersh (?), whose brothers Mendi and Hemi had died, and the Russian takeover of the gymnasium pupils.
She recalls staying many years under Soviet rule, about fourteen years, when emigration was forbidden and some Jews escaped over the border. Kerler asks about the Kleinbart family, with a synagogue near the main synagogue. She says her son plans to hold an event in the synagogue, with a rich New York rebbe, in July.
Kerler asks her name; she names her father Adolf, and says her grandfather lived to 103. They discuss a film showing the welcome of a rebbe at the railway station, the wedding of Chaim Luze's daughter (?) and a grandchild who visits the cemetery every year. They talk about the grave of a person said to have written a commentary, with the cemetery being rearranged and three graves moved.
She recalls her grandfather, who ran an inn and drove a coach, and how she waited at the window for him to give her fifty cents for ice cream. Kerler asks how ice cream was called in Hungarian and Yiddish, and the women discuss the Russian and Polish words.
She talks about her illness (diabetes) and about her children, especially the sons in New York and their language use, since Yiddish was spoken at home while at school they spoke Ukrainian. They mention the sons' ages (34 and 24) and the marriage of the younger one. Kerler asks how old she was at the start of the war and when she married, which the women work out (the year 1947 is mentioned, as is marriage to a cousin through her mother's sister with the rebbe's permission). He then asks whether she remembers any songs.
The woman says she remembers all the old songs and had a good voice as a girl, so friends asked her to sing. Her father taught himself the fiddle, and on Saturday evenings the children sat and listened. She mentions a prewar gramophone with Yiddish records and a song book her sister brought from America. She also names songs by Karadi Katalin (?) and a Jewish singer who performed in Hungarian. Kerler asks about the comedian Zoldik (?).
The woman talks about her nerves, doctors and tablets, and her heart operation, which took four hours. She says they have good children. Kerler asks when they came to America, and the husband answers with years that include 1978. The exact figures are unclear.
She says life was best at home in Munkach. They still must be in America to help their son, and she mentions a village where fifty workers were employed. She speaks of a brother's daughter in New Jersey and relatives in Israel. The husband says a brother left for Palestine in 1935, before the state existed.
Kerler asks about Jewish holidays at her father's house before the war. She says her childhood with her parents was her best time and that she remembers it well, including where she hid. Her husband talks about working under the Russians and not receiving a pension. Kerler asks what the Yiddish and Hungarian names were for his home village, which sounds like Rosvigov (?).
She tells about a wealthy childless neighbour (named something like Jamnitskula, unclear), the third house from theirs. The neighbour's husband, a Budapest official, had been sent as deputy mayor to Munkach. She loved the children as her own. She had a fine garden, two servants and clever white dogs that fetched shopping in a basket. Her father paid her 1,200 crowns. Kerler asks the neighbour's name.
She says the neighbour hid her father and mother and their bundles, in the cellar and among the potatoes, and returned everything afterwards. The woman recalls requisitions by the Hungarians and Germans. Her father hid gold in a tin chamber under wood, her brother found it after the war, and the family lived from it. She says they had good Hungarian neighbours and some good antisemites. She also tells of a man with five sons whose wife went blind.
Kerler asks what the husband was called in Yiddish and in Russian. The answer is Shimon Barukh in Yiddish and Simon in English. She mentions his nickname, which sounds like Boni (?). She then recalls that she and two sisters left for a place she calls Tshekhai (?), that the border was closed, and that she stayed with her brother and Meir. She says she was very young, and Kerler suggests she was 18. A man who went to America before the war came home, married, and was taken to a camp, but the lines do not make clear which of them this was.
They talk about their children and grandchildren, whose numbers are unclear, and about four uncles in America who visited. The couple say holidays at their parents' homes were observed kosher. S3 adds that people from Munkach used to come to ask whether something was kosher.
Kerler asks about a Jew in the 1960s who arranged kosher meat by buying a calf and engaging a slaughterer. The woman recalls a calf secretly slaughtered in a cellar after the war. The man's name escapes her and she says he died in Israel. She and Kerler then recall Weinberger, Kleinbard (?) and a man called Shlomo Batche (?). One of them was an engineer in a confectionery. They place houses near the synagogue, the Jewish street and the mikveh. Kerler says the man's sons live in Belgium and Israel and his daughter in Chicago.
She talks about blood pressure and health, and the transcript here is partly garbled. Kerler arranges to come back the next day after morning prayers if she feels better, and she says she rises late.
Kerler asks about Purim in her childhood, and she says she remembers little. She recalls going to her aunts and uncle as a child and has forgotten the Purim play text. Kerler asks about going from house to house for money. The husband says he studied in a yeshiva at his aunt's place in Nyirik Hazer (?), in Kisvarda, and in Russia.
They discuss tablets, blood pressure and doctors, partly in Russian, and plan to meet again the next day. Kerler asks about a parting formula. He gives three reasons for the interview: to remember the prewar time, to enjoy the holiday, and to remember the Purim play. S3 offers him a room on the third floor.
They talk about whether someone understands Yiddish. A man who knows Hungarian is said to come from Budapest. The conversation turns to Hungarian, with a lot of speech in Hungarian. They mention Hungarian actors who performed in Hungarian with a violin in a local hall, and an invitation to visit Pest for performances.