Kolomyya(Kolomya in the project's index)2013-05-229 min · 4 stretchesYiddish 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
Camera file from a longer session recorded in Kolomya on 22 May 2013; the index gives no name for the interviewee. An elderly woman talks about her wartime work as a seamstress on a sewing machine and the people who sheltered her, sings a lively Yiddish song and a song about an orphan saying Kaddish, and Kerler then proposes a visit to the synagogue.
Stretches
00:00–03:46
The woman talks about a sewing machine that she says saved her, and about the many orders she had. She tells of visiting a woman's home and seeing a photograph on the wall of Stalin, Kalinin and another person. She names Bebe Abramovne (?), whose husband was an important official, and a friend and his wife who sheltered her. Kerler asks about the names and about whether they saved her life.
The woman sings a cheerful Yiddish song with the refrain about being together, drinking wine and being merry until the next day, with a short interjection from a second person.
After a brief exchange with Kerler about a song and about being photographed, the woman sings or recites a song about an orphan boy at the synagogue door who asks an old man to say Kaddish with him, because he has only a stone at his parents' grave in place of a father and mother. Kerler responds with a short remark.
The woman asks to sing another song. Kerler proposes going into the synagogue for a little while before going home, and says he will pay. A Russian phrase is heard, and Kerler then begins a new question about how something was reckoned.