Later expeditions, 2012–2018 › 2013 Expedition

AHEYM-2013-053 · Baia Mare

Baia Mare 2013-05-19 11 min · 5 stretches · 1 questions about words Yiddish 100%

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

Mid-session file of an interview in Baia Mare (2013-05-19) with a man born in 1935, who is interviewed by Kerler at the Jewish community office. He gives biographical details, recalls his wartime deportation as a child to Transnistria and the camp in a former kolkhoz, then talks about his parents, his father's carpentry and his mother's tailoring. The file ends with his university years and work in a mining town, after Kerler asks about the town's changed name.

Stretches

00:00–01:46

Opening identification of the man: he is named after his grandfather and gives his birth year as 1935. They are at the Baia Mare Jewish community (Comunitatea Evreilor), and he has lived there since 1959. He mentions a university nickname and says he left Bârlad (?) at 18 to study in Bucharest in 1953.

after the war Personal informationSchooling · Baia Mare, Bucharest, Barchan (?)

01:46–03:38

Kerler asks about the town and the synagogues, and a speaker mentions that every street had a shul. The informant recalls Passover 1944 in Transnistria, where he was deported with his mother. His father was in a labour company and did not know of them, and his mother's friends from Sutshave (?) and Bershad invited them for the holidays. He also had typhus as a child, and the route is mentioned through the Kasovets forest to Mogilev.

during the war DeportationGhettoCamps and forced laborFamily historyPassover · Transnistria, Mogilev, Bershad (?), Sutshave (?)

03:22–06:22

Talk about Transnistria: Mogilev, Atak and Bessarabia, and Kerler's visits to Sharhorod (Shargorod). Both discuss the large Jewish cemetery there and the camp in a former kolkhoz. They say it was easy to kill a Jew in that period, and mention food made from mushrooms. The informant also says he has been in Russia and Ukraine.

during the war GhettoCamps and forced laborMass killingsFoodMemorials and commemoration · Sharhorod, Mogilev, Atak (?), Bessarabia, Volhynia, Ukraine, Russia

06:05–08:19

Kerler returns to the informant's childhood. He had a sister, Pese, who died in Shargorod (?), and his mother was Khane Rive. His father was a carpenter who also worked with furniture and had his own workshop with two other workers. His mother was a tailor and homemaker, and did some repairing of clothes in Shargorod.

before the warduring the war Family historyWork and tradesChildhood · Shargorod (?)

08:16–10:40

Kerler asks about the four questions at the Passover seder and a comic extra question about a pot and a shoe, which the informant did not know. They then turn to his studies: he finished the faculty in 1958 and worked from 1959 with Russians in uranium mining at a town named after Petru Groza (?). Kerler asks about the town's name and the politician it was named after.

Questions about words

  • 08:20
    Do you remember a comic question asked at Passover, about why a pot has a hole and a shoe has a hole? — whether he knows a humorous extra question at the seder