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.
Audio track of a session with Rosa Sternberg, an elderly woman in Chernovits (Chernivtsi), 22 May 2015. It opens with Kerler reading aloud a Yiddish text with a hard-of-hearing woman and a second woman, then consists almost entirely of the informant's singing and reciting of songs, interspersed with brief recollections: school songs, Purim, Hanukkah and Passover songs, Russian and Ukrainian songs, a hakhshara song, a song about Belz, and the Jewish film Dybbuk. Recording with Rosa Sternberg in Chernovits, 22 May 2015 (audio track). This stretch is largely an extended performance by the interviewee: she sings and recites songs, rhymes and humorous pieces, tells anecdotes, and talks about her son in America. It then turns to Kerler asking for songs and anecdotes, and a long exchange with a younger woman about marrying off a Jewish bachelor from Germany, ending with Kerler needing to leave.
Kerler reads aloud a Yiddish essay text about yesterday, today and tomorrow, and about the Yiddish theatre, with the informant and a second woman, who says she does not follow the language. They discuss who can read Yiddish script and print, and Kerler asks whether the informant could read Yiddish before the war.
The informant sings a children's song about childhood years, a song about a sick child and his mother's lullaby, and a song beginning with a white flower (Kerler asks if it is 'Mayne vayse blum'). She also sings a song about a green cousin and Columbus's land.
Kerler asks where she learned the song about the cousin. She says she was born under the Romanians in 1924 and attended a Romanian school with Yiddish lessons, where a teacher named Yanever (?) taught singing and she sang at concerts. She calls the song an American song about Columbus.
She recites and sings Purim songs, a song for going from house to house (kalyade) with children, and a Hanukkah song about the father distributing Hanukkah money. Kerler asks whether these were performed at school, and she says they come from the teacher Yanever, with a Russian-language stretch inserted.
She gives the teacher's name as Sruel (?) Yanever and tells a long story of a tsar/emperor and a bride, performed as a school play. Kerler asks whether it was in Russian, and she says people spoke Russian, Romanian and Yiddish. She recalls the school in Khotin, where Romanian, Russian, Jewish and Moldovan children studied, and says her brother married a girl from Novoselitsa.
Asked about Passover, she sings a Passover children's song and describes the seder, the cup for Elijah, and the Haggadah. She then recalls Soviet-era persecution of religion, when prayer books were confiscated and burned, services were held in secret, matzo was baked in a hut in the woods, and the oven was doused with water by an official. Packages from Israel, a concert, and the ban on celebrating the ninth of May follow.
Talk of Ukrainian television and concerts leads her to sing Russian and Ukrainian songs (for example about a steppe and a dying soldier, and a song about horses), with Kerler asking whether she knows 'Mikhatenestye mayne (?)'. She says she also has songs in Russian that can be translated into Yiddish.
Kerler asks about a Romanian song. She instead tells an anecdote about a rabbi who had a dog and a young female companion, Sarahke, and the neighbour who taught the dog to speak.
She sings a campfire song and a long hakhshara/kibbutz song about training in kibbutz hakhshara, mother's questions and hard conditions such as burnt porridge and sleeping with two halutsim. Kerler remarks that they learned how to become a goy. She follows with a song about margaritkelekh and a girl in the woods.
She sings a song about the little town of Belz and her childhood there, and then a song, adapted in the camp, about the lost house and town: where are the street, the house, the mill, the village. The song ends with 'they shot', that all is only a dream. Kerler asks when it was sung.
Kerler asks when the Belz song was sung. A second woman is said to have sung part of it. She then sings a Ukrainian song about a girl whose mother would not let her go, and sings another about a woman in a camp, a mother and a piece of bread.
Kerler asks whether she ever saw a Yiddish film, such as the Dybbuk. She says few were shown, that the Jews were shot, and that she saw a film once in the cinema as a child before the war.
She sings a song about a poor woman and a bridegroom who went to war and did not return ('send me a ray'), followed by Russian songs, including one about a photograph and 'Tumbalalayka', partly in Russian and partly in Yiddish.
The interviewee sings Russian and Ukrainian songs, including a Tumbalalaika-type song with Russian words. Kerler asks her to tell anecdotes, and she starts a joke about a woman at a health resort.
She finishes a humorous anecdote about a telegram announcing a mother's death. Kerler asks about songs once sung there, and she recalls a song about black cherries and a dance with a Jewish song sung in the clubs. She declines to tell more anecdotes.
Kerler asks about Simchat Torah, and she answers that it is a joyful festival of dancing with the Torah. She sings songs about a little room and the grandmother and grandfather, learned in the family, and mentions photographs and a visiting delegation.
Kerler says they need a song they do not yet know, and the interviewee asks his age. She sings a song about Odessa and humorous songs about dowries and brides. She asks about his travel to Zhitomir, and they talk about his illness and her fear of death. Kerler asks about the prayer Modeh ani.
She sings songs, including a rosh-khodesh blessing (?) and songs about courtship and waiting for a bride. She also sings a song about a wedding dress, with some Russian. Kerler asks what other tunes her father taught her.
She talks about a television programme and her son, who lives in New York. She tells how he held a seder in an American Jewish nursing home, including the four questions, matzo balls and singing. Kerler asks about the evil eye and the coal-throwing remedy for it, and whether her son speaks Yiddish.
The interviewee tries to match the younger woman, S2, with a Jewish bachelor. S2 says she is 38, unmarried and lives in Budapest. The talk covers dowries, giving rings, the wedding and the prospects of an English teacher. She also recites or sings humorous rhymes and a comic song about a poor man in America, and about a wedding that goes wrong.
She repeats the song about the grandmother and grandfather and talks about photographs. She and Kerler discuss finding a Jewish bride for a bachelor working in Germany as a dentist. She recalls her own wedding, with a ring bought at the market, and the fear her mother felt in the camp. Kerler asks for one more song, and then he says he has to leave.