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.
Interview with Wider, an elderly man in Munkach, recorded 2015-05-31 on an audio recorder; the file is one of two consecutive files of the same session. He recalls a rebbe's daughter's grand wedding, his father's army service and marriage, his own birth and family, former Munkach acquaintances, the Hebrew gymnasium, kosher meat, Purim and the Purim play, cheder, and his six years in the Gulag. The conversation ends with talk of his grandchildren and refreshments.
Wider describes the wedding of Rabbi Chaim Luzer's (?) daughter Fruma (?), which lasted seven days. Jews and non-Jews took part, and guests came from many countries. The rabbi was brought from the station in a carriage with two white horses supplied by a local family, and the town was crowded. Wider says he was then thirteen or fourteen.
Wider tells of his father, a native of Sighet, who was sent to Munkach as a soldier in the First World War, served four years and became an officer, and was later stationed in Italy. In Munkach he was hosted on Sabbaths by the Wetenstein (?) family. He returned in December 1919 and married, and Wider gives the birthdates of the four sons, including Menachem Mendel, Moshe and himself (Tsvi, Hershl). The family was Hasidic.
Wider speaks of praying on Friday evening and on the Sabbath in the great beis-medresh across from the big synagogue. He mentions that Chabad (?) showed it and that his father had two seats there. Kerler is asked to send greetings to the woman Anya, who made a diploma. Wider says he is short of breath and that his lungs have water. He says no family remains in Munkach; they are in Győr, and he describes his great-grandson, aged seventeen, a handball player.
Kerler says he lives in Bloomington, Indiana; the talk touches on Texas tornadoes and Wider's visit to a Holocaust museum in Los Angeles in 1990. Wider recalls dead Munkach friends, including the Schönfeld (?) family, and the Hebrew gymnasium (a commercial college). He says he himself finished at the Czech school and spoke Hebrew with friends. In town they knew Czech, Hungarian, Yiddish and Hebrew.
Wider recalls a summer reunion of former Hebrew-gymnasium pupils with guests from Israel and America, and speeches by the director and the mayor. He says he is the last of them in Munkach. Kerler asks about neighbours who bought a calf for slaughter. Wider talks about kosher chickens at the beis-medresh yard, eating less meat and more fish, and how kosher meat is brought in. He looks for a photo of Dr. Chaim Kugel (?).
Wider describes how Purim was kept in Munkach: reading the Megillah, sending shalachmones, and a Purim play performed on a stage by young people rehearsed for a month or two. The roles were Ahasuerus, Haman, Mordechai and Esther. Under Gorbachev it was revived in the 1980s. He recites a Purim rhyme and discusses the word for a good-Purim greeting. Kerler asks whether he knew the Joseph play (the sale of Joseph), and Wider knows the story from the Chumash.
Wider talks about cheder, which he began at four: the alphabet, numbers, Chumash and later Gemara. His studies were cut short in 1940 when he was arrested by the Russians and spent six years in the Gulag. On returning he found no one: his parents had been deported, and two brothers were in the Haganah in 1948. His brother Moshe, a year older, served in the Czech army formed in France under Masaryk's flag.
Kerler asks about grandchildren, who visit and talk by Skype with the daughter. Wider offers a cold compote and speaks in Hungarian and Russian with his wife, who goes out for fresh air. Kerler and Wider talk about the pleasant location of the house.