One conversation with Iakov Shor, continuing over MDV 337, MDV 338.
The team concludes the interview with Shor, while the camera collects footage of Shor's apartment and neighborhood.
Fragmentary, largely unintelligible talk at the end of the Shor session. The transcript shows no clear topic beyond scattered words about a synagogue and a visit, and no footage description.
The camera cuts to the Vaismans's interview. They chat, before the team begins the formal interview with them.
Kerler chats with the Vaismans before the formal interview begins. He says they are in the Skvyra synagogue, confirms that both come from Berdychiv and that they grew up in the same courtyard, and gives the date as 10 July 2002. He explains how he will take notes and then ask them to talk.
Kerler states the date and the setting (the Skvyra synagogue) and the plan of the interview.
Isaak and Bella provide personal information. She also speaks about her family. Bella's father was born in Warsaw, Poland.
The Vaismans give personal information to Kerler: his name Yitskhok ben Yoysef (Isaak Iosipovich), the surname Vaisman, her name Beyle Mindl, and her maiden name Reinsdorf. Her father came from Warsaw; she says she was born in August 1925, and she praises her husband. She mentions that they grew up in the same courtyard in Berdychiv, and that she travelled to Kharkiv to her grandparents after finishing eighth class.
Gives the maiden name Reinsdorf and her husband's patronymic.
Bella addresses her life before the war. She explains that she finished eight years of schooling at a Russian school and went to visited Kharkiv with her uncle. They had to evacuate from Kharkiv in July 1941. Bella also addresses her family's fate in Berdychiv during the war. Bella then speaks about her life after the war. She took classes in Kharkiv, before moving back to Berdychiv in order to get married. Bella also speaks about her family. Their daughter lives in America.
Vaisman recalls that the war caught her away from home, so she could not return; her parents stayed in Berdychiv with her older and younger sisters. After the war she studied in Kharkiv, and her husband took her away a year later to marry. She speaks warmly of her husband and mentions that their children and grandchildren are in America.
Adds her statements about her husband and the family in America.
Isaak talks about his life before the war and addresses his family. His father, who was also born in Berdychiv, was a tailor and passed away in 1928. Bella also speaks about her family, particularly her father's career and work as a musician. Bella's father was a chief accountant.
Isaak Vaisman says he was in Berdychiv before the war. His father, a tailor born in Berdychiv, died in 1928. Beyle Vaisman describes her father, born in Warsaw, who came to Russia as a child and graduated from two institutes. He knew many languages, played the violin, worked as chief accountant and was killed in the war. She kept some of his documents.
Adds her father's languages, his institutes and his killing.
Isaak addresses his childhood memories of Jewish Berdychiv. He also speaks about his mother's observance. Isaak attended a Yiddish school for four years until 1938. He explains how he continued to study in the same building, which was turned into a Russian school.
Isaak Vaisman recalls his religious mother, who took him to synagogue on holidays; he says Kaddish for his father on the yortsayt. Asked about Berdychiv's synagogues, they name several. He attended a Yiddish school until the Yiddish schools were closed in 1938, after which pupils were moved to a Russian school, and the couple note that schools now teach in Ukrainian.
Gives the state's role in closing the Yiddish schools and the later Ukrainian language of teaching.
Isaak speaks about his education at a Yiddish school. He then speaks about his childhood and poverty, before Bella addresses her childhood, particularly her education. Bella attended a Russian school. She also addresses her father's education and career as chief accountant. Bella then addresses her life shortly before the outbreak of World War II, when she traveled to Kharkiv with her uncle.
Isaak Vaisman recalls Yiddish school lessons, including Hebrew, and the family's poverty; his mother worked at a factory. Beyle Vaisman says her father foresaw the closing of Yiddish schools and sent her to a Russian school. She describes a trip to Kharkiv with her uncle just before the war, his evacuation, and her father's last month in Berdychiv under the Germans.
Bella and Isaac briefly speak about their lives during the war. Bella then talks about her family, including her father's religious education. She grew up with two sisters. She then turns to her childhood memories of her father's fiddl playing and holiday celebrations at home. They then discuss Jewish life in Berdychiv during the war and mention Vasily Grossman.
The Vaismans briefly discuss the early war, when people believed the Germans would not touch them and many stayed. Beyle Vaisman names her two sisters, Esther and Zisl, and describes her father's observance, Yom Kippur and violin playing at brisn in the courtyard. Kerler asks about Vasily Grossman, a Berdychiv writer; they know the name and say he was Jewish.
Adds the Grossman question and the sisters' names.
Isaac talks about prewar Jewish life in Berdychiv and states that Party members were not allowed to attend synagogue. According to Bella, her father refused to join the Party. Bella then talks about holiday celebrations at home before the war, including food customs. In particular, she recalls Passover and Sabbath, as well as the local kosher butcher. Bella remembers her father's story telling about Jewish history, before she describes her family's oven where they cooked latkes (potato pancake).
The Vaismans say that Party members were not allowed into the synagogue and that her father refused to join the Party. Kerler asks about the Sabbath at home before the war. Beyle Vaisman recalls baking in the kitchen oven, with latkes, challah and cholent, and Passover seder, a shoykhet, and her father's stories of Jewish history.
Adds Party exclusion from synagogue, the shoykhet, and the oven and cooking details.
Bella recalls her mother's recipe for gefilte fish and speaks about prewar Sabbath celebrations. According to Bella, her father worked on Sabbath, but not on Yom Kippur. Isaak and Bella then address prewar religious life, including synagogues and secret circumcision ceremonies, in Berdychiv. They then speak about their traditional wedding.
Beyle Vaisman starts to answer how her mother made fish for the Sabbath. She says her father worked on Sabbaths but not on Yom Kippur, when the whole town knew. They discuss synagogues in Berdychiv, including craftsmen's shuls, and circumcision, which was done in secret and was very strict. They then say they had a traditional chuppah wedding with klezmer.
Adds synagogues, secret circumcision and the wedding with klezmer.
Bella speaks about her father's religious customs and praying. She also addresses his education, before Issak speaks about prewar holiday celebrations at home and his childhood memories. Bella and Isaak state that they had mezuzot (doorposts) at home and then describe their childhood memories when they lived across from each other in the same courtyard. Bella remembers how Isaak's mother borrowed money from her family.
Beyle Vaisman describes her father's daily prayer with tallis, his learning, and a university degree finished the year the war began. Isaak Vaisman says Passover was kept without bread, and Kerler asks whether a mezuzah was allowed. They say they lived in the same courtyard on a street whose name is garbled in the transcript (Makhnovka(?)), and that his mother often borrowed money from her family.
Adds the street name, mezuzah question and the borrowing of money.
Bella and Isaak address their lives in the 1930s, particularly during the Great Hunger and Stalinist persecution.
The Vaismans discuss the 1930s, including the Great Hunger of 1933, which Isaak was too young to remember well; there was little bread, and many Jews and non-Jews died of hunger. They then describe the arrests of the later 1930s, when people were taken at night. Beyle Vaisman says her father kept a rucksack ready, and others in their courtyard were taken.
Adds the arrests and the family's fear in the courtyard.
Bella and Isaak speak about prewar Jewish life in Berdychiv, as well as mention Yiddish newspapers and writers. They recall Yiddish spoken on the street. According to Isaak, 60,000 Jews lived in Berdychiv out of a total population of 80,000. Bella then speaks about family letters, written in Yiddish.
The Vaismans talk about prewar Berdychiv as a Jewish town, saying there were around 60,000 Jews among 80,000 inhabitants, that Yiddish was spoken openly on the street and that some non-Jews spoke it. They discuss the Yiddish newspaper Shtern (?), Yiddish reading, Sholem Aleichem and a street named for him. Beyle Vaisman mentions letters in Yiddish from her parents in Kharkiv.
Adds the non-Jewish Yiddish speaker, the Yiddish newspaper Shtern (?) and the street named for Sholem Aleichem.
Bella speaks about antisemitism during the Soviet period, as well as present-day Jewish life.
The Vaismans talk about antisemitism in Soviet times, when Jews were not taken for work, and about how few Jews are left in the town. Beyle Vaisman says that after the war, when away, she gave Kiev or other places as her home rather than Berdychiv, because she was afraid to say where she was from.