Recordings › Nyíregyháza, Vaja

MDV 109 · Zoltan (Zolti) Galambos

Nyíregyháza, Vaja, Hungary 17 December 2006 Interviewed by Dov-Ber Kerler, Jeffrey Veidlinger Part 1 of 3 58 min · 8 passages

One conversation with Zoltan Galambos, continuing over MDV 109, MDV 119, MDV 311.

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Passages

0:00

The camera collects footage while the team drives from Debrecen to Nyíregyháza.

Footage · MCO
From the machine transcript

Travel footage while the team drives toward Nyíregyháza. The speakers note phone numbers and make phone calls in Hungarian to find Yiddish speakers and the Jewish community, mentioning a Yiddish speaker and the synagogue. They discuss who might be interviewed, and the transcript is largely garbled.

The transcript shows phone calls to locate Yiddish speakers and the community.

13:44

The team enters the Nyíregyháza synagogue and Miki Kiralyi gives a tour and provides historical background of the orthodox synagogue in Hebrew. He also addresses Jewish life in town after World War II, as well as contemporary Jewish life.

Tour after the warlife today Synagogue and prayerLocal Jewish historyLife today · MCO
From the machine transcript

Tour of the Nyíregyháza synagogue with a local man (S2, Kiralyi per the catalogue) speaking Hebrew and some Yiddish and Hungarian. The talk touches on the history of the Orthodox and Neolog congregations, Jewish life in Hungary, Romania and Slovakia, and the Jews of the town after the war. A Hanukkah gift is mentioned, but the transcript is mostly garbled.

The talk also covers the Orthodox/Neolog division and Jewish communities in neighbouring countries.

24:59

The camera collects synagogue footage inside and outside.

Footage · MCO
From the machine transcript

Footage in and around the synagogue with a few words of talk that are hard to follow.

27:32

Kiralyi speaks about contemporary Jewish life.

life today Life today · MCO
From the machine transcript

Brief remarks on present-day Jewish life in the town and a Hanukkah event, partly garbled.

29:13

The camera collects footage of the community center, particularly the library. The camera then collects more outside footage of the synagogue.

Footage · MCO
From the machine transcript

Talk at the community centre and library, followed by exterior footage of the synagogue. Hungarian conversations deal with an ill person. Kerler and the others discuss visiting an elderly Yiddish speaker, Zoli bácsi, in Vaja, and whether to bring him to the synagogue by car or taxi. They phone about his address in Vaja and decide to go together.

Most of the passage is arrangements and phone calls about meeting Zoli bácsi, not library footage.

51:58

The team travels from Nyíregyháza to Vaja.

Footage · MCO
From the machine transcript

The team drives from Nyíregyháza to Vaja, with a few remarks about finding the right street and house.

54:33

The team meets Galambos outside his house and they set up the interview with him.

Informal · MCO
From the machine transcript

Kerler and the team meet Galambos and his family at the house and arrange the interview. Kerler explains they want to sit for half an hour, record how he speaks Yiddish and hear about old times, and asks him to speak slowly. The camera is set up.

56:19

Galambos shows family photographs, including a photograph when his family was driven into a ghetto. Galambos was liberated from the Majdanek concentration camp. The camera then records camp photographs.

From the machine transcript

Galambos shows family photographs of his siblings, his parents and the Jews of the village driven into the ghetto. He was liberated from Majdanek. As the interview begins he gives the place of his birth, and the interviewers discuss the Yiddish word he uses for it.

The passage also shows the start of the interview, with his birth in Vaja and a note on his Yiddish wording.