The team meets Kupershmidt and his wife Rakhil (Rukhl) Natanovna Kupershmidt, nee Reznik, and they chat, before setting up the formal interview. He talks about his family in Israel. Rakhil, who is his second wife, was also born in Bratslav.
Greetings and chat with Kupershmidt before the interview. Kerler explains that the team came looking for Jews from Bratslav and had hired a car and driver. Kupershmidt asks about their origin and mentions that a son and grandchildren are in Israel and that a daughter-in-law or relative married a doctor there. Kerler mentions his father's family origin, and Kerler then asks the couple to sit down for the interview.
Kerler explains how the team found them and mentions his own father's origin, which the catalogue does not say.
Formal interview begins with the date and Kupershmidt's name. He says he can still pray, having learned with a poor father about seventy years earlier, and Kerler asks him to repeat some of it. He remembers Hebrew Bible study (khumesh, gemara), and Kerler asks him to say the opening of Genesis. He then recalls that before the war Bratslav had a shoykhet, a rabbi and many learned men, and that after the killings few were left.
Adds a prompted attempt to recite the start of Genesis and a short note on the town's rabbi and shoykhet before the war.
Kupershmidt gives his Hebrew name as Moyshe ben Aaron and the name of his wife Rakhil ben Naftoli. He then gives his official Russian name and patronymic, Mikhail Aronovich, and says his own surname is Kupershmidt while his wife's maiden name was Reznik. Kerler asks about the wife's Russian patronymic and then about their address.
The catalogue's prewar Jewish life topic is not evident here; the passage is mostly names and address.
Kupershmidt says he was born in Bratslav and so was his wife, and that his parents and his grandfather Meir were also born there. He was not born in a house of his own but in a two-room dwelling on the lower floor. Kerler explains that the project collects Yiddish and memories of earlier life. Kupershmidt begins to say that what he lived through in the war would take three days to tell.
Includes Kerler's explanation of the project and Kupershmidt's introduction to his war experiences.
Kupershmidt speaks about regional Jewish life during the war, before speaking about his family's fate during the war. Kupershmidt's mother was evacuated and his father was killed in Bratslav.
Kupershmidt describes seeing thousands of naked Jewish prisoners kept under German guard, and says memory of this must be passed on. He says his father was killed by the Germans in Bratslav, while his mother was evacuated and sent to the Pechera camp, where he says Romanians rather than Germans were in charge. He describes Germans taking young people to be shot and sons forced to load their parents onto trucks. Kerler then asks how he saved himself in Zhytomyr.
Adds the description of mass killings seen by Kupershmidt and his insistence on remembering them; the catalogue's evacuation of the mother is unclear in the transcript.
Kupershmidt talks about his life during World War II. Before the war, Kupershmidt worked at a driving school and was then drafted as chauffeur in Finland in the early war years. He describes the situation after he returned from Finland and was caught to be executed. Kupershmidt then talks about his escape to Zhytomyr from a massacre. Kupershmidt was caught again with non-Jewish prisoners and volunteered to drive to Zhytomyr. He explains how another prisoner informed on Kupershmidt that he is Jewish. He continues to talk about his life in hiding and with non-Jewish forced labor group, as well as in a prisoner of war camp in Rivne. Kupershmidt also mentions how he dressed up as a non-Jew.
Kupershmidt explains that he was a driver, worked at a driving school before the war and was in the Finnish war. On returning he drove a military vehicle, was stopped by Germans when the war began and was identified as a Jew from his papers. He was taken to dig a pit and fled when Soviet prisoners mocked him, was recaptured and driven to Zhytomyr, and denied or admitted being Jewish at different moments. He describes the Jewish prisoners held naked in the camp, hiding in a barracks attic, and joining a non-Jewish work group of Tatars and Georgians. He was then taken to a prisoner camp in Rivne, where he feared recognition by someone from Bratslav and gave a false Ukrainian name.
Gives the order of events: the pit near Zhytomyr, the capture and driving to Zhytomyr, the naked Jewish prisoners, a work group of Tatars and Georgians, and a false name in Rivne.
Kupershmidt shares an episode of his life during the war, when he was with a non-Jewish forced labor group that received permission to move around between local districts. He describes the daily life and escapes, before he was caught near Bratslav and sent to the Pechera camp, via Bratslav and Nemyriv ghettos. Kupershmidt also mentions his work assignments, including driving service. He states that he was allowed to drive to the Bratslav and used it to look for his family in the ghetto. Before Kupershmidt was liberated and drafted in the Red Army, he was imprisoned in the Mohyliv-Podilskyy ghetto.
Kupershmidt describes a non-Jewish forced labor group of about a hundred men that was released to the districts and warned to avoid Jews. He fled from this group and returned to Bratslav, where he worked in a garage for a German firm, with papers allowing him to move about, and drove a German to Vinnytsia. He used the driving to look for his family in the Bratslav ghetto. One day he found his wife, child and parents gone to the camp at Pechera, and he tried to get them food. He describes false documents and the camp under Romanians, flight to Mohyliv-Podilskyi, and being in its ghetto before his draft into the army.
Adds that he drove for a German firm, how he used the permit to look for his family, and the documents he used in the Romanian-run camp.
Kupershmidt addresses the moment when he was drafted in Mohyliv-Podilskyy. He served in the Red Army for one and a half years. Kupershmidt talks about his life and family after the war. His first wife died in 1947; and his son lives Israel. Kupershmidt maintains that his family was prepared to immigrate to America.
Kupershmidt recalls being drafted in Mohyliv-Podilskyi, where he drove a vehicle and served in the army for another year or so. After the war his wife died in 1947 and their son later died as well. He says relatives had papers to leave for America. Another relative went to Israel, a nephew named Naftoli who is known as Talia (?), who phones every week. Kupershmidt says he and his wife stayed alone, receive some support, and are cared for by the people around them.
Names the relative in Israel and says what he and his wife receive in support today; the transcript is unclear about the son who died.
