Raisa Izrailevna Faiershtein (born 1932 in Soroca) talks about her family, in particular her parents. She recalls how she attended synagogue services with her parents before the war. Her grandparents were born in Racovat, Moldova, and her parents lived there, before they moved to Soroca (recorded in Briceni).
Faiershtein talks about her aging parents, whom she took in; they died within days of each other. She says she went to synagogue with them and that her grandparents came from Rakovits before her parents settled in Soroca, where she was born. She also mentions her husband's birthplace near Soroca, calls Soroca a Jewish town, and says she writes her poems in Russian and cannot easily render them in Yiddish.
Also covers her husband's birthplace, Soroca as a Jewish town, and her Russian poetry and difficulty translating it.
Faiershtein translates one of her Russian-language published poems about her life during World War II. She remembers how she was carried, escaping shootings, and hid with Moldovian neighbors. She published five books in Russian, including 1017 poems.
Faiershtein reads and half-translates a Russian poem about the Holocaust, then recounts her childhood in 1941. She was driven toward the Dniester, saw children torn from their mothers and thrown into a fire, and was carried by other people because she could not walk fast. She hid with a Moldovan family in Rakovits and reflects on the poem's message never to forget the war.
Gives the escape, being carried by others, and the Moldovan family's cellar hiding in more detail than the catalogue.
Faiershtein recalls going to synagogue as a child, with the women and men seated separately. She describes Sabbath observance: no work, no lighting fire, and a Moldovan slaughtering the chickens. Asked about Purim she cannot remember, and she says the war and beatings erased much of her childhood. Lemster then asks about her working years, and she answers about being invited to schools.
Adds the answer about invitations to schools and the question on her working years.
Faiershtein answers questionnaire items on words for being ill, sleepy and sick, and on the word for a Jew who converted. She compares which words are Yiddish and which are German-like. She also says she has almost no one to speak Yiddish with today.
Faiershtein talks about her life today as a writer and introduces her books. She also talks about her family. Faiershtein then addresses Holocaust deniers and the contemporary relationship between Jews and non-Jews.
Faiershtein talks about her life today as a poet: five books with 1,017 poems, and she explains their Russian titles. She mentions her sons, daughter-in-law and granddaughters, who have Jewish names. She speaks about a local teacher who builds Holocaust memorials, Holocaust denial, relations with non-Jews, and pensions, prices and Hesed help. She also talks about her late husband, a school director in Cupcini.
Adds her writing and book titles, her family, Holocaust denial, and pensions and Hesed aid.
Faiershtein talks about life in the Soviet period. Her husband worked as a school principal for a school in Cupcini, Moldova, for twelve years. She describes the good reputation of the school under his leadership.
Faiershtein speaks about her husband, a school director for twelve years, and the school's high reputation, with visitors coming from other republics to learn from him. He died in Chișinău and was buried in Edineț; she mentions that her mother's gravestone and others were smashed at the cemetery. She says life was better before.
Adds his death and burial, and the vandalised family gravestones.
Faiershtein answers questions about a Yiddish word for "ahead" and a sentence using it, and about the order of words in a sentence. She switches to Russian to say she has had several operations, clinical deaths and strokes, which affect her memory. She offers to read Russian poems, including one about her husband, and Katz blesses her.
Informal talk in the room, partly in Russian: about not being able to read Yiddish and translating from a literal gloss. A second woman tells Lemster about her grandfather, his travels and a nickname. The speech is largely garbled.
The transcript shows conversation about reading Yiddish and a woman's grandfather, not just footage of the center.
The second part of the recording is a formal interview with Malka Zelikovna Altman, nee Bluvshteyn, recorded in Bălți. She was born 1921 in Bălți. Altman provides personal information and talks about Jewish life before the war in Pervomaiscoe, Moldova. She recalls the kosher butcher and Avreymele, the mohel, the local fur factory, and Lipson’s mill.
Kerler introduces the interview with Altman, who was born in 1921 and whose maiden name was Bluvshteyn, in the Hesed building in Bălți. She cannot give her birth month. She recalls a neighbouring ritual slaughterer, Avreymele, who also performed circumcisions, and describes Kuznechnaya street, the fur factory on the site of Lipson's mill, and nearby synagogues and prayer houses.
Places her prewar life in Bălți, not Pervomaiscoe, and adds the street, the factory and the synagogues.
Altman discusses her childhood memories, in particular games. She grew up with three siblings. Her father was a baker. Altman never went through formal schooling. Her parents were born in Bălți.
Altman talks about her poor childhood and her father, a baker who worked nights for an employer. She grew up with three siblings and never attended school. She names her siblings and her parents, Zelik and Feyge, and says the family came from Bălți. She describes games played in Yiddish with friends, a blind-man's-buff or hide-and-seek game with counting to ten, and chasing games.
Altman speaks about the aftermath of evacuation. When she returned her parents were no longer alive; she was told they died, and does not know when. Her father, left alone, was hidden by a neighbor. She says her husband came back from the army and later died in Bălți. Kerler then asks about prewar Bălți; she recalls a Jewish street with many Jews.
Shows she is unsure when and where her parents died and covers her husband and the Jewish street.
Altman remembers prewar Jewish life in Bălți. She recalls a non-Jewish woman speaking Yiddish. Her father prayed in different synagogues, such as the cobbler and 53: 45 synagogue.
Altman recalls a non-Jewish woman in a shop who spoke Yiddish and called herself a Jew. She says her father liked to pray and went to the cobbler's synagogue and another named synagogue. She answers Kerler's questions about Hasidim and about travelling to a rebbe, and begins to mention a rebbe in Ștefănești.
Altman describes an episode about her husband’s encounter of a rebbe in Stefanesti during his military service. Her husband stopped in Stefanesti for the night, on the way to the soldiers, to bring them food (cattle). A Christian woman advised him to go to the rebbe. The rebbe foresaw that her husband will not return to the front, which turned out to be true.
Altman tells how her husband, during army service, was bringing cattle to feed soldiers and stopped for the night in Ștefănești. A Christian advised him to visit the local rebbe, who received him, gave him supper and a bed, and told him he would not see the front again. She says this came true. Kerler checks what the livestock was for.
