Later expeditions, 2012–2018 › 2013 Expedition

AHEYM-2013-020 · Oradea

Oradea (Nagyvarad in the project's index) 2013-05-16 11 min · 4 stretches · 2 questions about words Yiddish 97%

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.

Summary

A woman from Sighet (Máramarossziget) is recorded in Nagyvárad on 2013-05-16; the index gives no name. This is a camera file from a longer session. Kerler asks her to retell in Yiddish her wedding story, which she began in Hungarian. She then talks about shopping trips to Slotvina (?) in Czech times, a Soviet soldiers' raid on a ball, a Yiddish theater visit, and the Jewish town.

Stretches

00:00–03:09

After a Hungarian opening, Kerler asks the woman to retell her wedding story in Yiddish. She says she married on 1 September 1945 and had trouble finding a dress and shoes. The civil ceremony was at the registry office (primărie) and the chuppah followed the next day, as the war with Japan ended. It was held in a restaurant, with a party of about 120 people and a Gypsy band that played and danced all night. She says she lived with her husband for 65 (or 56) years.

04:32–07:45

She says that after her return Slotvina was already under the Soviet Union. She was in Sighet in 1948 (?). She describes a winter ball where Russian soldiers arriving by train burst in, ate the buffet and wrecked the party. Going out at night was then dangerous because soldiers robbed people. She mentions a man who dealt in gold and was killed and robbed. Kerler also asks how to say 'train' (zug).

07:45–10:40

Kerler asks for a song from Sighet and whether people danced or sang there. She says not much was sung in Yiddish, but she remembers a visiting actress, whose name sounds like Sidi Tal (?), and a Yiddish theater to which all the Jews went before the war. She also recalls a travelling singer with his wife who visited when she was a child. Sighet was a large Jewish town, half Jewish, and the Hungarians drove the Jews out. She ends with remarks on the present crisis and hard times.

Questions about words

  • 05:39
    ווי אזוי זאגט מען? באן, צוג — the Yiddish word for 'train'
  • 07:45
    עפעס א לידל פון סיגעט — a song sung in Sighet