Recording of Boruch Dorfman, a Yiddish-speaking public figure in Lviv, made on 2015-05-28 (audio track, one of three consecutive files). He gives his family background and the story of how he came to Lviv in 1949 after the war years in Kishinev. He then talks about his later public work, his standing in the city and his contacts with visitors. The last minute is a short exchange about household and recording logistics.
00:01–03:05
Kerler returns to the grandfather of Sephardic origin, but Dorfman first tells how he came to Lviv in 1949 (?) from Kishinev, where he had studied. He describes the outbreak of the war in Kishinev and the first bomb. He recalls the funeral of the Kishinev rebbe, Tsirelson (?), at which he was present at about seventeen or eighteen. He mentions the rebbe's grave and the friends buried next to him. He also names a local figure and his son-in-law Rosenthal (?), the last Jewish director of a gymnasium.
02:22–06:02
Dorfman talks about Rosenthal, editor of a Yiddish newspaper in Kishinev, who was deported in 1940 and later died in Lviv. He turns to his maternal grandfather Aron Zinger (?), a wealthy synagogue warden with twelve children, married to Brakha, daughter of a Kishinev rebbe. Of the twelve children only two daughters survived: one by evacuating, the other being his mother, who spent fifteen years in Soviet camps and died in Lviv. He mentions showing a family photograph.
05:30–08:14
Dorfman discusses his paternal grandfather's descent from Galician Jews, saying documents from Vienna recently confirmed his Galician roots. He mentions the Dorfman family who built a grand hotel in Lviv some 150 to 200 years ago. He explains that he came to Lviv not by choice but because his mother was imprisoned a second time in 1948 in a roundup of writers and Jewish activists. He recalls his good position in Kishinev at around 23–24 and his part in rebuilding the Chabad (?) synagogue after the war.
07:39–10:42
Dorfman describes his life in Lviv: his work, thirty years on pension, and his Jewish public activity. He speaks of his standing, his portrait in the city council and visits from journalists from several countries. He mentions articles and his own writings. He tells of attending a concert and the opera, where he once worked as chief engineer of the theatre, and meeting a philosopher. Kerler asks whether the man knows Yiddish.
10:42–13:03
Dorfman says the philosopher knows only French and English, not Yiddish. He speaks of his contacts with the city president and with a Catholic university and its professors. He says he helped Ukrainian democrats with translations from Yiddish. He recalls a professor who died in his arms and wrote a book on the tragedy of the Jews of Europe (western Ukraine), which Kerler had earlier visited him about twice.
12:38–13:49
Dorfman mentions he has the book but cannot find it now. The remaining lines are a short exchange with another person in the room about the kitchen and a device or recording apparatus, in Yiddish mixed with Russian. The content is unclear.
Informal