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.
Kerler interviews an elderly man in Debrecen on 15 May 2013. He is named in the opening as Frand Borukh Roiz (name spelling uncertain), born in Rahatsh (Rahó?), and the index gives no name. The first file of the session covers the Jewish community in Debrecen today, the Kosover rebbe's visits and divan, the yeshiva years up to the 1944 deportation, Purim customs and the Joseph play, his family and the foods and customs of home. It ends with questions about Yiddish and Hebrew, books at home and his work after the war.
Kerler opens the 2013 season of interviews with the informant, born in Rahatsh. They talk about the Jewish community in Debrecen today: who comes to services, who speaks Yiddish, the departure of the rabbi, and the Chabad emissary. Hasidim now come only rarely, though they used to come more often.
Kerler asks about a divan on which the Kosover rebbe slept in the family home, and which is now in Jerusalem. The informant says the Kosover rebbe came once a year on a Sabbath at varying times, and that the village had about 20 families, 20 km from Ukraine. He says he was the last Jew there when he moved to Debrecen around the 1990s. He recalls the deportation to Auschwitz and says he gave the divan to hasidim, who took it to Canada and then Israel.
The informant describes the yeshiva he attended from age 12 until 1944, when the students were deported. The place name is unclear. He mentions a Tasher rebbe and a Wolf Ginster (?) with a tallis factory and twelve children. About 200 students studied together, and the 'khazer bokher' reviewed the Gemara with them. He also mentions his birthday, his recent two weeks in hospital and the singing of Hungarian songs at the yeshiva.
The informant recites or sings a plaintive Yiddish text in the voice of a Jew pleading with heaven, with a Shema Yisroel refrain. Kerler asks whether the yeshiva students used to sing this.
Kerler asks about Purim. The informant describes a comic Purim kiddush over wine, the brandy and wine drunk, and a Jew who went from village to village with a straw rope collecting money. Children dressed up and sang a rhymed song about Moshe's tall bride that he must telephone from behind; the informant repeats it at Kerler's request. He also gives a short refrain about being given money.
Kerler asks about Purim theatre. The informant describes the Joseph play, performed by Jews who went from village to village, with the text copied out by hand. Jacob and his twelve sons appear in it, and the informant's brother Yosef played Joseph. He recites some lines, and Kerler asks about the scene at Rachel's grave. The play was performed almost every year in the ten years before the war.
The informant talks about his father: a great scholar and wealthy man with fields and his own beit midrash, mikveh and shoykhet, who rose in the night to study. A Hasidic type is distinguished from the 'strameyl' and 'biber hat' Jews, some of them Sephardic (?). He had six brothers and three sisters.
Kerler asks for the names of the informant's brothers and sisters. Brothers named include Chaim, Yeshaya, Israel, Yosef and Shiel Eizer, and sisters include Esther Sheindl and Rivka. The informant says he has one name, Boruch. Only he and Yosef survived the war, and Kerler asks about a photograph of Yosef. He describes his mother as a wig-wearing housewife who ran a room for poor guests next to the beit midrash. The family name Roiz is discussed, and the mother's maiden name is asked about but not clearly answered.
Kerler asks about foods for the holidays. For Hanukkah the informant mentions doughnuts and Kerler asks about latkes. For Passover he mentions grated-potato dishes, matzo-meal dumplings in soup and flamelekh (?). He also describes Sabbath fish, a kugel and cholent. On Shavuot there were cheese kreplach.
Kerler asks whether the informant knows the word erdepl for potato, and whether it is Yiddish or Hebrew. The informant says it is Yiddish, that Hebrew is older, and that Yiddish derives from German.
Kerler asks whether Yiddish papers or books were read at home. The informant says only Hungarian newspapers were read, and that his father and the family spoke only Yiddish at home. Books in the holy tongue, such as the Gemara, were translated into Yiddish. The mother read the tsene-rene, and the father made shoes.
Kerler asks when the informant last spoke with Perl in New York and offers to have her call him. The informant recalls the Hungarian 'Shabbes goy' Berti, who spoke some Yiddish. Kerler then asks what he did after the war, and the informant says he worked for the government as a 'revizor' (auditor).