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.
Kerler interviews Litman, an elderly man in Lublin, on 29 May 2017; this is the first of two consecutive files of the session. They cover his names, his parents and grandfather, his schooling (cheder and the postwar Yiddish school), childhood games and songs, the Lublin synagogues and the postwar Jewish committee, and a few word questions at the end.
Opening in Lublin on 29 May. Litman says his given name was Szloma (Chajm Szloma), that he was called Roman in Russia, and that he went back to Szloma in Poland until 1958. He talks about how his parents addressed him and about his mother, who was affectionate but not sentimental. His parents had no formal schooling but could read, and his mother wrote letters in Yiddish. After the war the family bought the Yiddish books published in Poland, and they lived together with Fajwl Fried.
Kerler brings up Chelm and the Chelmer fools. He asks about an anecdote concerning Gridinger (?) and about Hershele Ostropoler. Litman no longer remembers them well. Kerler offers to send a printed copy of a booklet, and the two talk about how much Litman has forgotten. The stretch ends with a toast.
Kerler asks about Litman's paternal grandfather, a tailor, whose name is given as Yisroel. The grandfather was called Chekhover (?) and Litman links the name to the Czechów quarter of Lublin. They also discuss the Polish poet from Lublin and the Russian writer Chekhov.
Kerler says he visited Lentschne the day before and met a relative of a Lentschne family who came from abroad. Her family had fled Lentschne with Litman's family to Russia, then went on to Austria, Israel and America. Litman recalls that his siblings were in Lentschne in 1940 (?). Kerler also mentions the Fajn relatives (Szymche Fajn, Cirl Fajn). The synagogue there no longer has its furnishings, but the cheder building is still standing. Kerler then asks about 'pierwsza klasa'.
Litman jokes that he is a bachelor and says he is the only Yiddish speaker in Lublin with a home Yiddish. Others have learned it. He mentions a woman born in the 1940s whose parents spoke Yiddish. He attended the Yiddish school in Lublin from 1945 to 1949, with Hebrew taught and English in the sixth and seventh classes. They also discuss that the word for Palestine and the word for Eretz Yisroel differ, and the wish to emigrate.
Kerler cites Tevye in the Sholem Aleichem film and the options of Argentina, Palestine or Eretz Yisroel. Litman says he was six when the war began and attended cheder for two years, from age four. The melamed did not hit the children and used a switch and a tallis to show them what to read.
Kerler asks about childhood songs and a Purim song that children sang for treats. Litman remembers a rhyme about being thrown out and called back in and a glass of wine, and hamentashen (?) given as treats. He cannot recall further wording.
They talk about Lentschne, about twenty kilometres from Lublin to the east, nearer the Lithuanian and Russian side. About 2,000 Jews lived there, and Litman says their Yiddish was mixed Lublin and Lithuanian Yiddish. He says he learned literary Yiddish at school after the war, and Kerler remarks that his Yiddish is still Lithuanian-like.
Childhood games: hide-and-seek, and nuts played at Passover by dropping nuts onto a surface to hit another, with the winner taking them. Kerler asks about the term used. Litman also sings or recites part of a Hanukkah song about dreidels and latkes but cannot remember more.
Litman's father and his brothers sang in the synagogue with their own father. Litman describes the Lublin synagogues: the study house next to the synagogue, the great synagogue, and the one on Lubartowska 10, which was returned to the Jews in 1944. A Jewish committee and Yiddish signage were there. Several thousand Jews were in Lublin after the war, most of whom had survived in Russia. The Old Town and the Rybna (?) street, the ghetto and its destruction are also mentioned. Some passages are in Polish.
Kerler asks about the father's work song about a hammer and shoes, and Litman gives a few words. Kerler asks how to say 'manager' and 'many' in Yiddish and discusses the expression for 'full', and tries to get Litman to sing 'Manishtane'. Litman says he cannot sing. The talk ends on siddurim and men who pray without one.