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.
Camera file of the Ribnitz session with the interviewee Zbirzher (name as in the index), a man who answers mostly in Russian with a few Yiddish words; a second man (S2) puts Russian questions and Kerler speaks Yiddish and Russian. It begins with talk about the Joint and the man's daughter in Germany and moves to his wife's family, language use, Passover and religion. It then covers fish, a wedding dance, his doubts about faith, languages and songs, the mezuzah, and ends with talk of the Holocaust museum in Washington.
Talk about a woman who had come from the Joint (the American organisation) and the Hesed. Kerler recalls what his father knew of the Agro-Joint. The interviewee's daughter has lived in Germany for 18 years in a town that Kerler calls a known city. The conversation turns to her husband and mother-in-law.
Kerler asks for the Yiddish word for a kinship term (mother-in-law). The interviewee talks about his wife's family: her father was a coachman (bal-agole) and a fashion designer (модельер) who trained in Moscow, and her mother died in Baku in 1942 during the evacuation. Kerler asks how he met Tsar Nicholas. The interviewee also mentions his wife's village origin and her upbringing in Yiddish, Moldovan and Russian.
Questions about home language and holidays. The interviewee spoke Russian with his wife, who used Yiddish only with her brother, and his daughter did not learn Yiddish. They kept Passover and his wife did some cooking, but he does not remember the details. Kerler asks about fish and the interviewee says he disliked boiled fish and ate only fried; he caught fish himself and matzo was ordered rather than baked at home.
Kerler asks about a wedding dance with makes (?) that was danced at Jewish weddings. The interviewee says his own daughter's wedding had one, at the wish of her mother-in-law, who came from a religious family.
The interviewee says he did not learn religious customs: his father fell in the war and his mother brought him up in Russian. He was taught atheism at school and remains unsure about God, citing his training in biology. He and Kerler discuss religion, the need for faith and Marxism. Kerler asks the meaning of the word for Jewishness, and the interviewee answers in Russian.
The interviewee lists the languages he knows: Russian, Moldovan, Ukrainian, Yiddish, German, French and English, which he studied at school, technical college and teacher-training institute. He can sing Ukrainian and Moldovan songs. Kerler asks how many songs he knows in Yiddish, Moldovan and Ukrainian, and the answers are about five or six, a few, and eight to ten.
S2 asks how old the mezuzah is. The interviewee says they have lived in the house since 1965, about 73 years (as heard), and does not remember who put it up. There was also a mezuzah on an older wooden veranda. Kerler asks if there are more questions and thanks him.
The interviewee declares himself a patriot of the Jewish nation and calls it the cleverest, citing his relatives' education. Kerler disputes this and says he does not think there is a cleverest nation. The interviewee mentions a cousin's daughter's son in Berlin and his own grandson, a gymnasium top student. He tells of a visit by Paul Shapira (?), head of the Holocaust museum in Washington, and of the Holocaust in nearby Bessarabia. The session ends with the interviewee asking Kerler why he does this work.