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.
Recording from Kraków of Emanuel "Mundek" Elbinger (the index gives the name Elbinger), made on 24 May 2016, the fifth of six consecutive camera files from one session. Kerler asks about songs, holidays, family, kashrut, and Yiddish reading. Elbinger answers with songs in several languages, memories of childhood in a small town and cheder, the Kraków Jewish community and festival, his family and the war, and a tale he began to tell.
Kerler asks for Polish and Russian songs. Elbinger names a Polish Protestant poet (Kochanowski, as heard) but cannot recall his poems. He recites or sings a Soviet artillery song about Stalin in Russian and Polish and says not everyone wants to hear about Stalin. A comic rhyming tale about a rabbi follows, and he begins to speak of a German song and Jewish-German relations.
Prompted by Kerler about prewar times, Elbinger recalls being sent to cheder as a child, where he learned Yiddish. He mentions Brzesko and that Polish and Yiddish names for towns differed. He sings the German song "O Tannenbaum" and says he sings Yiddish songs on Friday nights.
Elbinger describes the Kraków Friday-evening gathering led by a rabbi born in America, and the yearly Kraków festival of Jewish culture with cantors and Jewish cooking. He mentions the Temple synagogue and the German destruction of the old synagogue. He says he was very religious as a child but was shaken by the war, though he still likes to sing.
Elbinger discusses wearing a head covering and belief in God. Kerler suggests a song about black cherries, and Elbinger sings a different song about red apples and young girls. A Mazurka fragment is heard. He then speaks mostly in Polish about Polish as his first language, learning Yiddish in cheder, Ashkenazi and Sephardi languages, and Jewish multilingualism. He says he is 86 and still speaks Yiddish with relatives.
Asked about Jewish holidays, Elbinger recalls cheder, going to hear the weekly Torah portion on Sabbaths, and some Gemara study. He tells how his father urged people in the beit midrash to go to Israel. He shows a photograph and an inscription from Camilla, wife of Prince Charles, who visited the renovated building. He gave her a wooden carving as a gift.
Kerler asks about Purim. Elbinger recalls costumes, going around and giving small coins. He explains that he had no children because of what he lived through in the war. His sister, who wanted revenge, lived with him in a special house, and he is now alone. His father lived after the war, died of lung illness, and is buried in the Jewish cemetery (Miodowa Street, as heard). He put up a gravestone for his father but not yet for his sister.
Asked about kashrut, Elbinger says the family ate kosher on weekdays and Sabbath, although his father had no beard. In the small town matzo was baked locally and there were Jewish bakeries. He reflects on Jews lacking their own land and says he has visited Israel twice (Jerusalem, Tel Aviv, the Dead Sea, and the Sea of Galilee, as heard).
Kerler asks about Abraham (?), and Elbinger responds with remarks on Abraham and Moses. Asked about Yiddish reading, he says he read Yiddish books only after the war. He mentions Sholem Aleichem and Peretz, and that many Yiddish writers were translated into Polish. He says he loves speaking Yiddish and is the last Yiddish speaker born in Kraków.
Elbinger notes Kerler may be tired from the heat, and Kerler says he has many questions. Asked about melaveh malkah, Elbinger recalls only the end of the Sabbath, candles, and havdalah after the war and says he is not religious. His father prayed after the war, the home kept kosher, and a hen was taken to the shoykhet.
Elbinger describes the beit midrash and a house for poor visitors (as heard, "hekdesh"), and Sabbath invitations to poor guests. He begins a joke or tale about a guest who wanted revenge on his host, set in a town whose name is unclear. He says he knows many such stories, and expresses pleasure at speaking Yiddish.