Later expeditions, 2012–2018 › 2013 Expedition

AHEYM-2013-042 · Cluj-Napoca

Cluj-Napoca (Kloyzenburg in the project's index) 2013-05-17 11 min · 5 stretches · 4 questions about words Yiddish 98%

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

Camera file from the 2013 expedition in Kloyzenburg (Cluj), one of 23 consecutive files of a long session, with an elderly local man. He tells of a visiting rabbi whose voice made him laugh in the small synagogue, then answers Kerler's questions about Sabbath bread and cholent, Jewish-Christian relations and the mixed cemetery. The last part concerns his wartime service with the Romanian army in Transnistria.

Stretches

00:00–01:42

The man tells of a rabbi from a place the transcript renders as Pitshepalka (?) who came to the small synagogue and had a comical voice. The man was placed at the lectern, started laughing and lost his beard. Kerler recalls the same man, who died after an operation.

before the war Synagogue and prayerStories, humor and sayings · Pitshepalka (?)

01:42–02:24

They speak of the former Jewish hospital in town and what it was called, with some terms for it that are unclear in the transcript.

Questionnaire before the war Local Jewish historyCultural terminology · Kloyzenburg

02:06–04:59

Kerler asks what bread was baked for the Sabbath, and the man names a braided loaf. He explains that poor people got bread from the communal baker and that cholent pots were kept in a large oven and fetched on Saturday. He also describes the Sabbath goy who lit fires and lamps.

04:25–07:56

The man says that in Kloyzenburg, after the war, Jews and Christians lived on good terms and assimilated, with mixed marriages. He describes the newer mixed cemetery on a hill, set up with permission from a federation in Bucharest (?) for couples of whom one spouse is Jewish. Kerler asks for other words for a cemetery and for a gentile one, and the man gives a Hebrew-component expression and a Slavic-type word.

07:40–10:40

Kerler asks about his time in Transnistria, which the man puts at two or possibly four years under Hitler's regime. He says he met no other Jews there. He recalls carrying ammunition from the front toward Odessa with two horses and a cart, and mentions Russian rail gauge and other details that are unclear.

during the war World War II (general)Camps and forced laborArmy service · Transnistria, Odessa

Questions about words

  • 01:54
    What was the Jewish hospital called? — name for the Jewish hospital
  • 02:06
    What kind of bread was baked for the Sabbath, what was it called? — name of the Sabbath bread
  • 07:07
    Was there another word for a cemetery? — another word for a Jewish cemetery
  • 07:26
    Was there another word for a gentile cemetery? — word for a non-Jewish cemetery