Plotnik sings a short Yiddish song about an unpleasant girl. She then answers dialectological questions from the AHEYM Yiddish linguistic questionnaire.
Plotnik sings a short comic song about an ugly, unpleasant girl. Katz then asks about love songs, which she no longer remembers, and puts questionnaire items to her (words for 'to arrange', 'attic', the cantor praying, 'dreidel', 'at that time', 'suddenly', 'back', 'room', and a sentence to translate). S3 prompts her with Russian and Romanian equivalents.
The questionnaire items include some Russian and Romanian prompting by a second person.
The team concludes the interview with Plotnik and then the camera switches to the van, where an unidentified man takes the team to the interview with Rolshut.
Katz thanks Plotnik and says goodbye. Katz and Kerler then leave and drive through the town centre with a man who points out sights. Much of the Yiddish here is unclear, mixed with Russian.
The formal interview with Rolshut begins. She provides personal information and talks about her family. Her father was born in Tomashpil and worked as a banker. Her mother was born in Soroca. She grew up with two sisters and also had a half-brother and half-sister.
The formal interview with Rolshut begins, with Kerler noting the date. She gives her name as Sara and her maiden name (apparently Burman), and says she was born in Soroca in 1917. Her father David came from Tomashpil and worked in a bank; her mother Ite was from Soroca and kept house. Rolshut was one of three children, with a sister Nesye (?) and another; she also had a half-sister Tunye and half-brother Benyamin from her father's first marriage.
Rolshut discusses her childhood memories and her education. She attended a Romanian school and graduated in 1936. Her mother passed away in 1927 and her father in 1928. She then talks about her family, in particular her husband, who served in the Red Army during the World War II. Rolshut got married in 1945 and her son was born in Germany. She also raised a daughter.
Rolshut recalls speaking only Yiddish as a child at home, then learning Romanian at school, and Russian from her parents. She attended a Romanian lyceum, finishing in 1936. Her mother died in 1927 and her father in 1928, and she was raised by other people. She married in 1945 her husband Eynekh Rolshut, a doctor who served in the war; her son was born in Germany and her daughter in Soroca.
Rolshut briefly talks about her life during the war. She was imprisoned in the Rîbniţa ghetto. She then discusses prewar Jewish life in Soroca, in particular Yiddish cultural life. Specifically, Rolshut recalls a Yiddish library and concerts by Sidi Tal.
Rolshut says she was in the Rybnitsa ghetto during the war. She then recalls prewar Soroca: its many Jews and large Jewish life, community, library and visiting Yiddish theatre. Visiting troupes included the Vilna Troupe and artists from Bucharest, and local amateurs staged shows in the club or cinema. She also mentions a penny library of small Yiddish books, including Sholem Aleichem, and says there was no local newspaper.
The transcript shows the Vilna Troupe and the Bucharest artists, a club and cinema theatre, and the absence of a local newspaper.
Rolshut talks about prewar religious life, in particlar local rabbis. She then talks about her religious education. Her parents hired a female private tutor.
Rolshut speaks of prewar rabbis in Soroca, including Rabbi Kalker, shot in the woods at the war's start at about ninety years old. She learned to write and read Yiddish from an old woman tutor hired by her parents and read Sholem Aleichem, but has largely forgotten it. She spoke Yiddish with her husband and his family, but now speaks Russian with her children and has almost nobody to speak Yiddish with.
Rolshut recalls prewar holidays at home with her parents: her father lighting Hanukkah candles, Purim, Yom Kippur at the synagogue and Friday-night Sabbath candles. She mentions Purim baking, potato dumplings and dreidel at Hanukkah, and sending baked gifts. She can describe only the content of the Purim play, about Haman and Esther, and does not remember it being performed in Soroca.
Asked again about the penny library, Rolshut says she borrowed little books there and could still read Yiddish then. After her parents died she became cut off from Jewish tradition, though she remembers her childhood home.
Kerler asks about childhood games, and Rolshut says she had only Jewish girlfriends and played with dolls and ball games in the yard. She does not recall street singers or klezmers before the war. She says there were youth clubs, which she attended, but cannot give details.
Rolshut talks about her mother's cooking: gefilte fish, separate meat and dairy kitchens, and how she koshered meat using a wooden board and salt, timed by the clock. She recalls Friday challah baked in a Russian oven and mentions jam made from rose petals. She does not remember what her mother said while salting.
Rolshut answers questions on cultural terminology: dybbuk (which she knows from seeing the play), golem, local place, and wishes for the dead. She then talks about prewar Passover at home, with separate Passover dishes, kept in the attic. As a child she asked the four questions beside her father, found the afikoman, and opened the door for Elijah. She also describes her mother lighting Sabbath candles and the Yom Kippur eve table.
Rolshut talks about synagogues in Soroca, saying there were ten or fifteen, with the great synagogue by the Dniester. She remembers her father's place by the Torah, his praying with tefillin, and an old woman praying at the new moon in the courtyard. She is asked about her own bedtime prayer and 'modeh ani' but remembers little.
Rolshut recalls her mother reading the siddur and attending the synagogue only on the high holidays. Before Yom Kippur the mother swung a fowl over the head (kapores) while reciting Yiddish words that Rolshut repeated. She also remembers going to the river on Rosh Hashanah and throwing things from the pockets into the water.
Rolshut talks about prewar life in Soroca, in particular Jewish occupations. She then remembers the activities of the youth. She then mentions political organizations, including Bundist and Zionist. Rolshut also talks about the Tarbut school.
Rolshut describes prewar Soroca's Jewish occupations: Jewish shops, butchers, tailors, shoemakers, blacksmiths and food merchants. She mentions three Jewish cafés and a restaurant, where youth gathered, along with the cinema and park concerts by non-Jewish military musicians. She speaks of Zionists, Maccabi, the Yiddish talmud-torah, and the Hebrew Tarbut lyceum, which gave Hebrew and Romanian diplomas. There were Jewish lawyers and doctors, but no Jews in the police, fire brigade or courts.
Rolshut talks about the Jewish bathhouse and mikvah in Soroca. As a child she was taken by her mother to the mikvah and was afraid of drowning. In summer people bathed in the Dniester between set hours, in a limited stretch of riverbank watched by a soldier.
