Later expeditions, 2012–2018 › 2013 Expedition

AHEYM-2013-108 · Baia Mare

Baia Mare (Baia Mare / Siget in the project's index) 2013-05-20 11 min · 4 stretches · 2 questions about words Yiddish 80% Hungarian 20%

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 10-minute camera file from a longer session in Baia Mare / Sighet (Siget), 2013-05-20, with an elderly woman at home. She talks about being housebound, the near-absence of Jews in Sighet and the emigration of Jewish families because of their children. Kerler asks about visitors, old Yiddish songs and Purim plays, and cross-border travel. A second voice joins in, and a few passages are in Hungarian.

Stretches

00:00–03:28

The woman says she hardly goes anywhere and no longer goes to the synagogue because she can barely walk. Few Jews come to services, mostly non-Jews or people with a Jewish spouse or grandparent. Jews from Sighet have left for Israel, England and America, and she has no children. Visitors seldom come and mostly phone. The last line is a Hungarian rendering of this.

03:33–05:27

A short stretch with some Hungarian and unclear speech, then Kerler passes on greetings from a woman they visited at her birthday. The informant says she is younger than that woman and that they remember each other. She explains that she once went out but now has no strength and nobody Jewish to meet.

05:27–07:44

The informant says she does not attend synagogue because there is no Jewish community, and Jews left mainly because of their children. Kerler asks whether people used to cross the border often, apparently to Solotvyno (Salatvine). She answers that a passport is needed and that acquaintances can arrange it, which leads to a talk about languages in the room: S2 understands Yiddish and the informant remembers it.

07:35–10:40

Kerler asks about Jewish songs once sung in Sighet and a piece of a Purim play; she says it is long gone and she has forgotten it. She notes that there are few Jews in Sighet and elsewhere, perhaps more in Oradea (Varad). Many returned to Sighet after the war but left because of their children's futures and the lack of Jewish marriage partners. She did not want to go abroad and says she was born here.

Questions about words

  • 07:35
    Did people used to sing many Yiddish songs here once? — whether Yiddish songs were once sung in the town
  • 07:58
    Some piece of a Purim play? — a fragment of a Purim play