Second of two consecutive audio files from a session in Zhitomir on 27 May 2015 with Lazar Burshteyn and Fanye Stanovskaya (the index names both). It opens mid-conversation with an elderly woman who talks about Riga and Yiddish songs. A man then speaks, mostly in Russian, about Zhitomir's Jewish history, Bialik and the local artists. Kerler then questions Stanovskaya about her family, her wartime flight, her work, her languages and Yiddish in prewar Zhitomir. A good deal of the talk is crosstalk, side remarks and Russian, and much of it is hard to follow in the transcript.
00:00–07:03
A woman recalls a sister who died and a younger sister who remained in Riga. She describes her own stay in Riga, apparently in the 1960s–70s, where she went to a Jewish synagogue and sang Yiddish songs. She says life there was easier than in Zhitomir and that she took goods back from Riga. She discusses which languages she speaks, with Yiddish and Polish easier than Russian, and recalls a Polish man who came to the synagogue and told how he had rescued Jews in the war. She says the songs in a book are hers, and Kerler says he will cite it in his bibliography.
07:03–09:48
Warm greetings in Russian and Yiddish to Fanye, with remarks on her age (over 80). The group talks about where the visitors can be reached and about an address. A man talks about Zhitomir as the Jerusalem of Volhynia, and Kerler adds that Vinnitsa is the Jerusalem of Podolia. The man speaks in Russian of the city's Jewish history.
09:48–13:54
Kerler invites Fanye to sit down and talk. Photographs are offered as gifts to the visitors in Russian. The man talks in Russian and Yiddish about a radio broadcast on Chaim Nachman Bialik, with mentions of Zionism, philosophy and poetry and of Bialik's twenty years (?) in Zhitomir. Kerler states the date, 27 May 2015, and says he is in Zhitomir.
13:54–17:53
Kerler asks Fanye how she is called in Yiddish, and she gives Fayge, daughter of Srul, with the surname Stakhnovskaya. She says she was born and lived all her life in Zhitomir by the river Teterev. She recalls that at about twelve she fled the Germans from the bombing with her parents. She says she had one brother and has two children, and the exchange about who was in the family is somewhat confused.
17:50–20:51
Asked about her trade, Fanye says she worked in a printing works (?), and others say she carried 50-kilo cement bags, with 67 years of work mentioned in Russian. She says she speaks Yiddish with her mother and that her father spoke little Yiddish. Her brother left for America, and she does not know what he did or where he is.
20:51–23:45
A man tells in Russian of the first bomb on Zhitomir and the flight to the Stalingrad region, with hunger and swelling. Fanye also recalls hunger and potato peelings. Kerler asks for a Yiddish song. Fanye sings or recites the lines of a song about all drinking a little wine together, and some phrases about a wedding are repeated. A prayer-like plea for help and health follows.
23:45–26:05
A man speaks in Russian about a biblical blessing and about Yiddish. Kerler then asks about Fanye's parents. The surname Fayger is mentioned, her mother was Etl, née Matalovner (?), from Zhitomir, and her father's work is unclear. Fanye says there were very many Jews in Zhitomir before the war.
26:05–28:23
Kerler asks whether Yiddish was heard in the streets of prewar Zhitomir. Fanye says it was little spoken, that she spoke Yiddish with her mother, and that her father spoke it little but understood. Her father did not go to pray and her mother went to the synagogue on Tsidnever (?) street on holidays. The man says in Russian that Zhitomir was about forty percent Jewish and that about forty Jewish buildings could be reclaimed. Fanye says children in Zhitomir were not allowed to speak Yiddish in school.
28:23–30:37
There is a remark in Russian about underground Jewish study and a mention of a clandestine cheder. The group then discusses whether a man they were looking for was present the previous day. The talk turns to local Zhitomir artists, including Nebulskin (?) and the painter Zabrodskaya, who illustrated a book.