MDV 207 · Dina Abramovna Mirenburg; Zelda Davidovna Roif

Mirenburg continues her war account. Her group was sent to Yampil instead of Rîbniţa, and she tells of a family friend from Sguritzy who survived a massacre of a column. Then come the march through Ukrainian towns, food rations, and the Potashna cowshed, where she fell ill with typhus and had a dream while ill. Her brother and then her father died. In Bershad the family begged in the villages, and a Ukrainian village elder beat her and her mother. She also tells of a boy who was tied to a motorcycle. Kerler asks about a song the village boys sang.

Adds the typhus dream, the boy tied to a motorcycle, and the father's death date.

Mirenburg describes the liberation of the Bershad camp and the Jewish partisan Yashe, who told the prisoners what had happened. She recounts how he hid among the dead on a cart and how his family was tortured and killed. After the Dniester was crossed in March they returned home. Her mother and sister worked in a canteen in Soroca, and she herself was studying.

Adds the partisan Yashe's story in detail, including the fate of his parents.

Mirenburg answers Kerler's short dialect questions: words for 'frozen', 'sick', 'pious' and 'honest', and the phrase 'give me'. She comments on mixing Russian with Yiddish. Kerler thanks her and the formal part ends.

Mirenburg describes the synagogue, where people were forced to gather in 1941, the room's earlier arrangement and its restoration. Kerler thanks her, and talk turns to the recording and what it is for. The camera then films the synagogue, with some Russian aside.

Adds the interviewer's discussion of the recording.

Roif talks with Katz about Jewish observance and the Ştefăneşti rebbe. She describes her father-in-law, who spent six years in America and returned wealthy, and his wife's illness. The rebbe sent his gabbai to fetch the doctor. Roif also tells of their kashrut observance and the family's deportation to a camp.

Adds the details of the in-laws' story and the observance of kashrut.

Roif says she was born in Iași. Three days later relatives took her to her grandfather in the village of Duruitoarea, about 25 km from Rîşcani. She tells of her paralysed mother, who was sent to Iași, and of the family farm with horses, a cow and poultry. Her father's name was David (Dudl).

Roif sings a Yiddish song about the rich and the meaning of life and giving to the poor. She then talks about Jewish life and charity today. She gives alms and lives on small pensions plus support from Germany for survivors. She gives figures for pension and prices. Katz asks how elderly Jews without that support manage.

Roif tells how a holy book was passed on to her uncle in the camp and kept in Bălți. She then sings two songs learned in the camp: one of longing for home, the other about a hungry child who steals bread. She says the songs come from camp life and that she has forgotten others.

Roif describes the deportation. The family was held near Rîşcani for three months, then in Mărculeşti for about two weeks. They were driven to the Cosăuţi woods before crossing the Dniester. Her paralysed mother was carried on a cart. She died in the first kolkhoz in Transnistria. Roif also tells of an aunt and her children who died, and the Red Cross.