00:00–00:45
Before the interview, Kerler and the informant sort out a small bench for the recorder operator and a thank-you exchange, partly in Hungarian and English.
Later expeditions, 2012–2018 › 2015 Expedition
AHEYM-2015-005 · Réti, Béla
Debrecen (Debretsin in the project's index)
2015-05-17
25 min · 9 stretches · 2 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
Audio recording made in Debrecen on 17 May 2015, the first day of the expedition, with Réti, an elderly Yiddish speaker who lives in a Hungarian town near Debrecen. Kerler begins with a few remarks to the recorder and then asks about the Jewish community of Debrecen today. After that the talk covers Réti's father and his yeshiva study, deportation to Auschwitz, return home in 1945, his Hasidic childhood, and a Purim play about Joseph that his brother acted in. The transcript is noisy and several place names are uncertain.
Stretches
00:45–05:31
Kerler gives the date and purpose of the expedition, then asks about the Jewish community of Debrecen today. Réti says antisemites are also present, that there are over four hundred Jewish students, mostly from Israel and not religious, and that perhaps four to six hundred Jews live in Debrecen. They discuss the rabbi, the Chabad presence (Lubavitch), a weekday minyan, and who still speaks Yiddish, including Shamadi (?). Réti says he is the only man who keeps kosher in his town.
05:16–07:21
Réti speaks of relatives abroad who visit rarely, a nephew in America and in Israel who is very religious, and of the divan being handed over. He also tells of his father, a great Talmud scholar with his own study house and mikveh, who learned late into the night and rose at three.
07:21–09:23
Kerler asks what Réti remembers of his studies with his father. Réti names three yeshivas he attended, among them Balkai (?), Baraki (?) and Yarmad (?), and says he was taken to Auschwitz from the yeshiva. The transcript for the Gemara passage is unclear.
09:23–11:58
Réti answers questions on liberation by the Americans in Austria and a stay in a hospital before going home. His brother had been with other brothers, and he himself was alone. After 1945 he worked as a revizor (controller) near a town 20 km from Debrecen.
11:30–14:46
Réti recalls the cold reception on his return in 1945, when neighbours had taken the family property and a peasant lived in part of the house. He also describes his brother's wartime work as a coachman, and his own forced labour in Auschwitz building factories in the mountains and aircraft hangars.
14:46–17:59
Réti states that he moved to Debrecen in 1995 (?). He then recalls his childhood: thirty Jewish Hasidic families in his town and visiting rebbes. He had nine brothers and three sisters, and only three brothers survived the war. His brother was a shoykhet.
17:45–21:45
Réti talks about trips to Budapest and the Orthodox synagogue there, today's minyan and young people, and Hasidic visitors from abroad in Soviet times. Kerler asks about the old Jewish cemetery, which was fenced in, and the victims buried there. Réti says he was the last Jew in his town.
21:45–24:56
Réti recalls his brother who played Joseph in the Purim play about Joseph (Yosef hatsadik), named Shloyme Yosef. He recites the brothers' lines about throwing Joseph into the pit, in which Shimen and Reuven speak. The play lasted two hours and was performed village after village, including in Nyíregyháza.
Questions about words
- 03:09How do you say it in Hungarian? — the Hungarian name of the place or name mentioned
- 24:20What was Nyíregyháza called in Yiddish? — a Yiddish name for the town