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.
Recording made in Dengeleg, 2015-05-18, with Helena Kain(?), an elderly Jewish woman who answers mostly in Hungarian, with a few Yiddish words. Kerler asks in Yiddish, and a second speaker helps by relaying questions in Hungarian and summarising her answers in English. The first part covers her family and name, deportation and return after the war, her marriage, childhood and cheder, languages and schooling, Passover and Purim customs, a few word questions, and later life in the village. Second half of an audio recording made in Dengeleg on 2015-05-18 with Helena Kain(?), an elderly Hungarian-speaking woman. It is conducted mostly in Hungarian, with Yiddish exchanges between Kerler and a second team member who translates for him. It covers travel to Satu Mare and Carei, her return home from Bergen-Belsen in 1945, and how she survived afterwards. It continues with a Hungarian-language exchange about Kerler's own family background, the village today, the Jewish occupations of the village, and the Baia Mare area. It ends with photographs and an address for sending them.
Kerler opens by naming the place, Dengeleg, a small town near Satmar, and the informant. She gives her parents as Rachel and Moshe, and says her father died in 1928 when she was five. She was deported with her mother. Five Jewish families, all related, lived in the village. She names her siblings with their birth years (Melech, Chaim, Beile, Leizer) and says she herself was born in 1923.
She returned to Dengeleg after the war. Her husband had come back earlier from a labor service in Ukraine, and she came back late, after Bergen-Belsen. Her husband was Chaim Kain, and the talk turns to his surname and her mother's family name. Kerler also raises permission to record, and the second speaker explains in Hungarian that the recording goes into a university archive and will not be broadcast.
She talks about her childhood and cheder, and about keeping the holidays and kosher slaughter today. Because slaughter is hard to arrange, the family goes to Oradea. She recalls the family's mixed shop and some land. She then tells how she met her husband in the weeks after returning from the camp in 1945. Relatives helped her travel to the village, and the couple considered going to Israel but stayed because of her husband's illness in the 1950s.
Questions about cheder: girls also attended, taught by young men from Sighet, and she can now write little. The family kept a kosher home with separate dishes, and she still bakes challah and prays on Friday evening. There was no synagogue or rabbi in the village, and prayer was held in the family house. Her two older brothers were talmudists who studied in yeshiva. The talk touches on Tasnad (?) and Margita (?), and Kerler asks the word for challah.
They discuss languages: Yiddish was spoken at home, children answered in Hungarian, and the older brothers attended Hungarian school before 1920. School was in Romanian between the wars, and Hungary ruled the area again after 1940. She remembers children's games and toys. A minyan was assembled for the holidays from neighbouring villages, sometimes by paying outsiders. The prayer house stood in their house, which was sold in the 1940s, and a house bought in Satmar was never moved into.
She recalls how matzo was prepared: the grain was cleaned separately, a room cleaned, the round matzo rolled out and baked in the oven. Wine came from a nearby village where Jewish families had vineyards. Potato flour and coffee with matzo are mentioned as Passover foods. She keeps separate Passover dishes today and gets matzo and Israeli wine from Satmar. Kerler asks about the name of the berches and about whether the mother did anything before baking.
She recalls Purim: the megillah reading, the sending of food portions (shalakhmones) and the money received, and the stamping at Haman's name. For Hanukkah children played with a dreidel, and the dish was cooked with fat rather than oil. She salted meat the old way and notes that few still know how. Kerler asks about the evening prayer of the Shema, and she says she still says it before sleeping, as she did even in the camp.
They talk about relatives in Israel, on the mother's side, and a brother who visits every year. A visit to Satmar is mentioned. Drinks are offered. Kerler then asks about words such as dybbuk, which she does not seem to know, and about the term for a ritual bath or a drink (garbled).
She says she likes sour things and prefers not to eat sweets, and the mezuzah is mentioned. Relations with the villagers are good, and she worked in the cooperative for thirty years. Her husband spoke Yiddish and studied in cheder and yeshiva at Margita (?). Milk was from their own animals and the village had few goats, mainly cows. They stayed in the village instead of moving to Satmar, where there was a yeshiva that was hard to reach in the past.
Helena Kain speaks about travel before and after the war: reaching Carei and Satu Mare by horse cart before the war, with buses only after it. She and her husband travelled to Bucharest several times, including for an operation in the 1950s. They also made monthly trips into Hungary to buy petrol, and she says they never went to Budapest and preferred Debrecen. Kerler asks whether they were ever in Ukraine.
She recalls her return home after the camps: she had longed to open the door of her house, and found no one there. She could not cry for six months, and came home in November 1945. Bergen-Belsen was liberated on 15 April and the journey back took a month. She says there was no help, only parcels and cigarettes that they exchanged for wagon places. Kerler and S2 briefly mention Kremenets in Poland in connection with someone's mother.
Kerler asks, through S2, about the happiest time of her life. She answers that she had no family, that work was good because it left no time to think, and that she thinks much more now. She would not want to be young again, and she marvels at what a person can endure, including a year of never having enough to eat. In the camp she promised herself that if she came home she would cook from the morning, which did not happen.
Kerler asks whether she remembers a song or prayer from earlier times. She mentions an uncle who, at Purim, got a little drunk and sang or said something. She then shows the siddur she prays from. Kerler asks about a Messiah song. The answers are only partly audible.
A relative's brother, who left for Israel in the 1980s, is discussed. He has two children and grandchildren, and may visit this year. She says she has been to Jerusalem, Tel Aviv and Haifa, where a cousin lived who has since died. Kerler thanks her and wishes her health, and she thanks them for the visit, saying she has aged much in the last two or three years.
She talks about the weather and offers refreshments. Asked about holiday customs, she says cheese pastry was not customary in their village, and that walnut branches were put up. She also mentions the sukkah and eating in it, but not sleeping there. Kerler then mentions a planned trip to a nearby place.
She asks about Kerler's background, and S2 explains in Hungarian. His mother was born in Moscow, went to Israel at twelve, and studied in England and America. She was of Polish origin, and her father was a Yiddish poet. Kerler remarks that it is the first time he hears his biography in Hungarian. S2 describes the American university team's work of recording stories from survivors and looking for informants. She reflects on how hard it is to know life before the war and how hard it is to be alone.
The talk turns to a relative's English husband and to whether the visitors need anything sent. The visitors are told the roads to Carei are bad. She explains the route from Dengeleg back by Petri (?) and Carei, and says Dengeleg once belonged to Petri (?).
They discuss poor roads in the area and in Ukraine. S2 asks what the Jews of the village did for a living. She mentions two tavern keepers and a man who bought eggs and had them taken in crates of straw by horse cart to Satu Mare, since people had little money and paid in eggs. She says life was hard and that she cannot imagine life without a washing machine.
S2 explains in English that one family member traded in eggs, and the Yiddish-speaking team members discuss the informant's postal address. Her address is Dengeleg, main street (strada principală), number 43. S2 asks about the Romanian name of the place, and the answer sounds like Dindesht (?).
She describes the village today as quiet and half empty, with many abandoned houses because the young have moved to the city. The cooperative and tavern have become a buffet, and many widows live there. Roma are numerous and live on child benefits, and she says those of her own village do not steal, unlike those in another. She also mentions the dog and noisy schoolchildren passing by.
She asks where S2 learned Hungarian, and S2 answers that he came from Pest. Talk follows about a professor at Oxford, a life being like a novel, and how hard it is to be alone and to accept one's lot.
They discuss food while travelling, and then the town called Baia Mare (?). She says she and her husband often went there, he had operations there in the 1950s and 1970s, and a cousin emigrated to America from there. She says the area belonged to it administratively, and that it is polluted from old mines, with poisoned water, many birth defects and illness. S2 explains in English that mining waste was covered over. She says there was little Jewish cultural life, with newspapers and theatre mostly in Carei and buses always full. Asked about Jews in other nearby towns, she says many lived in places around Marghita (?), Nagyvárad and elsewhere, but few now.
The recording ends with the group photographs and thanks, and Kerler thanks her in Hungarian. They agree to send the pictures to her, and she and S2 confirm her address and postal code (44).