00:00–01:45
Informal chat at the start, with equipment being set up. Kerler and the informant talk about food that was cooked at home, praising its taste, with passing mention of the informant's wife cooking it herself.
Later expeditions, 2012–2018 › 2015 Expedition
AHEYM-2015-085 · Wider, Cvihers
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.
Summary
Audio track of a session in Munkach (31 May 2015) with the interviewee Wider, a Munkach-born man who speaks Yiddish. It opens with informal talk about food and cooking, then moves to his marriage to a Munkach woman and his philosophy about death, prewar Munkach with its Jewish and non-Jewish population, and acquaintances in Budapest. The recording closes with a fragment of a Yiddish song, remarks on the Munkach rebbe and the synagogue, a digression on how Jews got German surnames, and arrangements to break off.
Stretches
01:45–03:41
The informant says that he and his wife are both from Munkach, mentions the year 1993 (?) and fate, and sets out his philosophy of life and death, that it is better up above than down here because no one has come back. Kerler asks whether he understands Yiddish, and the informant replies that he understands Hungarian and Russian and can no longer speak Yiddish, which appears to be a self-deprecating remark.
03:41–05:29
The informant describes the street in Munkach where he grew up, half Jewish and half non-Jewish, where the non-Jewish boys spoke Yiddish as well as he did. He recalls a town with fifteen large synagogues and small prayer houses on every street, and the Friday custom of taking cholent and kugel to the baker's oven to keep warm until Sabbath noon. He reflects on how quickly all of it vanished.
05:10–07:57
The informant speaks of a friend in Budapest, Blaufstein (?), and Kerler recalls an interview with a Lupstein/Blaufstein (?) there. They discuss the friend's pension from the Germans and the informant's own position, having served with the Russians, who pay nothing. They also talk about a nickname, Shmilko, for someone called Shmil.
07:57–10:23
The informant recalls a Yiddish song about a drunken non-Jew and a Jew going into the beis-medrash or a tavern, and says he was in a Zionist organization in Munkach where they learned songs. Kerler asks about a Hebrew song. The informant recites a few lines of a song about a Jew and his wife, and Kerler says that the song can be looked up. They talk about the informant praying well since childhood.
10:10–13:03
The informant talks in part in Hungarian, then about the Munkach rebbe Hayzler (?) and his father, who was rabbi in the synagogue (temple). The informant and his brother were called up to the Torah there for the blessing, and entry on a weekday used to cost money, but the door was free for them. Kerler and the informant compare the large synagogue in Nad (?), and small Kish (?).
12:27–15:15
The informant tells of an American Jew visiting an office in Hungary in the 1950s and being told there were Jews there. He then explains how Jews came to have German surnames, starting with the Spanish Inquisition and the expulsion under Isabella and Ferdinand, and the surnames based on occupation or color, such as tailor, shoemaker, carpenter, Roth and Schwarz.
15:05–16:01
Kerler comments that he did not know about this and thanks the informant, and the speakers decide to take a break. The informant says he wants to go out, and there is brief talk of the elevator, arrangements, and a haircut (?).