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 recording of Geller in Zhitomir, 27 May 2015, the first of three consecutive files. It is a loose conversation with Kerler and a second voice about his children and grandchildren abroad, emigration, Yiddish and other languages, and prices and money today. It ends with Geller's account of his parents' family in Pyatka (Piatka?) and a grandfather's mill and business.
Chat about the languages the family speaks, with a grandson's English, Russian and Ukrainian. Geller says he has seven grandchildren, living in Kiev, Kazan, elsewhere in Russia and Jerusalem, and mentions the town Malin (Maladamin?), where Kerler's father died. Kerler has brought vitamins, and they discuss a relative, Leyzer, who is leaving with his family, apparently for Israel.
Geller speaks of thanking God, going to the synagogue twice a day, and a new prayer building. He tells how a younger brother and a nephew left Chernobyl and the army around 1989–90, how letters were exchanged, and how a relative was told to claim restitution for a house lost in evacuation. He recalls a woman refusing to help because Jews were receiving German compensation and he had hidden in pits in the war.
Geller compares his Yiddish with Hungarian Jews' Yiddish and with Pyatka (Piatka?) Yiddish, recalling a story about a word used in Pyatka and Zhitomir (Zhitomir) speech. He mentions Vilna and Polish Jews and sayings about Poles. He recalls meeting Hungarian Jews in 1944(?) and that his father-in-law was held in Budapest. He adds that under Stalin one could not speak openly.
Answers questions about his home language: his parents spoke Yiddish, and his children speak Yiddish, with his son in Kazan among Tatars. He speaks of a Georgian Jew who built a synagogue in Israel and of his granddaughter, who speaks English better than Russian, studies in Kiev, scored high on exams and spent three weeks in London. S2 comments on English as a useful language.
Asked about life in Zhitomir today, Geller says it has become much worse over the years. He cites the dollar exchange rate and prices, S2 mentions bank interest, and Geller advises being content with what one has. He adds that young men come from America and Israel, and that weddings are held by the rabbi.
Kerler asks about Pyatka (Piatka?), and Geller describes its distance from Berdichev and the nearby sugar factory at Karavintse (?), where his father worked. He recounts his parents' marriage as cousins, his grandfather's mill, his mother's education, and his father's wish to attend yeshiva until the First World War and post-1917 pogroms and bands. The stretch also covers his grandfather Mordechai's army meat contract and a childless decade ending with a visit to a rebbe.