00:00–01:00
The woman recites a rhyme that was said to children being looked after, and Kerler asks her to repeat it. S2 comments on the words, apparently a spoon for coffee, and the woman recalls Sabbath zemirot sung after the afternoon meal.
Later expeditions, 2012–2018 › 2013 Expedition
AHEYM-2013-115 · Baia Mare
Baia Mare (Baia Mare / Siget in the project's index)
2013-05-20
11 min · 6 stretches · 2 questions about words
Yiddish 85% Hungarian 15%
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 recounts her prewar Jewish childhood and early married life in a town in the Baia Mare/Siget area (2013-05-20, camera track; the index gives no name). She begins with a rhyme and Sabbath songs, then describes Passover preparations, baking, and meals, followed by Shavuot dairy food, kosher milk, and the mikveh. A second woman and Kerler comment and ask questions, with some Hungarian mixed in.
Stretches
01:00–03:44
She describes Passover in her childhood home: many Jews lived on the street, and the seder went on until one or two at night. Her mother baked large trays of matzo-like pieces in a heated oven because the family was big, and the children ate them cut into squares. She also recalls the hard work of the preparations and going first to the grandparents after synagogue.
03:44–05:56
She talks about Passover meals, including the soup and meat eaten before the holiday, and why fish was rarely served to the children, with a Hungarian aside. Later passages on what children were allowed to eat and on the spacing of children are largely unclear.
05:52–07:42
Kerler asks what was eaten on Shavuot and why. She says it was dairy, such as cheese-filled dumplings (kreplekh), potato soup with sour cream and potato dumplings. The talk turns to the word for the potato dumplings, which Kerler equates with the word for gnocchi. She also mentions noodles with cheese.
07:40–08:59
She explains that kosher milk came to her house from two cows she owned, because the milk of non-Jews was not bought. Passover dishes were kept in a big chest in the attic, and the women found Passover very hard. Her own household was less strict after she married, after the war.
08:59–10:40
The talk turns to the mikveh. A woman kept a register of who went there, and women came in from the villages. She says she went herself after her marriage, and that one night she came home very late, around midnight, so her husband did not know where she was. Kerler asks whether it was compulsory and why there were two attendants.
Questions about words
- 06:29What does shlishkes mean? — meaning of the word for the potato dumplings
- 07:09Is that gnocchi or not gnocchi? — whether shlishkes are the same as gnocchi