MDV 395 · Sofia; David Geller

Geller answers that their daughters are content. Kerler then asks how the evacuation from Zhmerynka was organised. The speaker, who was twelve, recalls loading belongings, leaving most things behind, and travelling in heated freight wagons. Katz begins asking how it was decided that Geller should go into the army, and Kyiv is mentioned.

The transcript shows no mention here of Moscow; the passage is chiefly Kerler's questions on how the evacuation was organised.

Geller explains that he had a four-year deferment from mobilisation. He pressed the authorities to take him, and then worked for a month in Kyiv on bricks. Back in Bratslav, already married, he found work as a turner at night because electricity was supplied only at night. Kerler closes by turning to postwar antisemitism.

The Gellers discuss antisemitism after the war. One says he never heard a slur in Central Asia, where Uzbeks were friendly. They reject the claim that Jews did not fight at the front, and compare the antisemitism of today with the past. They also discuss the Jewish press and the Doctors' Plot of 1952–53, when small towns were not affected. The speaker labels are uncertain in places.

Also covers the Jewish press and the Doctors' Plot period, with Kerler's questions.

Sofia describes how few Jews live in Bratslav today and that there is no militia or police presence. Asked by Kerler what she remembers of old Bratslav, she says she was born into a drayman's family. Her mother kept the home and lit Sabbath candles, and her grandfather, a melamed, was killed in the pogroms of 1918. The war began when she was twelve, and her father had a wagon with two horses.

Adds the grandfather's death in the 1918 pogroms and the family's wagon and horses.

Sofia tells how her family left Bratslav on the father's horse wagon. The journey took six weeks, with the parents, siblings and a brother's wife, to the Luhansk area of the Donbas, where they worked on a kolkhoz. In December 1941 they travelled by freight train to Tashkent, then to a kolkhoz near the Iranian border in Kashkadarya oblast. There her mother took the hungry children to a nearby town. Her parents' names are given as Avrom Elye and Kheyke, and a brother is Leyb.

Sofia gives her mother's and father's birth decades. She says that before the war over five thousand Jews lived in Bratslav and that most perished in the camps, while local policemen plundered Jewish houses. She recalls five synagogues, one with a mikveh. Asked by Katz about Bratslav Hasidim, she says she remembers none, though Nakhman and Nosn are mentioned. She also recalls her mother praying in Hebrew and telling stories at home in Yiddish.

Sofia says the family returned to Bratslav in August 1944. She finds life just after the war better than today, because people then got on with each other. She describes prewar Bratslav as a Jewish town in which Jews married only Jews, and says that over two thousand Jews lived there after the war. She recalls Jewish weddings with Yiddish songs, dancing and music, and laments that today's young people marry out, including her granddaughters.

Sofia cannot recall Yiddish songs, saying decades of pressure made them forget. Katz and Kerler prompt her, and she and others sing fragments of 'Itsik hot shoyn khasene gehat' and 'Lomir zikh tsekushn'. She talks about her family: her daughters live in Moscow, a granddaughter studies there, and an aunt sang Yiddish songs. They now speak Russian at home. She says that Yiddish was her parents' language and that her older brother finished six years of Jewish school before the war, while she attended a non-Jewish school. Kerler also asks about Nemirov and a saying about it.

Beyond the song fragments, adds her family in Moscow, language at home, Jewish versus state schooling and the Nemirov saying.

Sofia describes Bratslav weddings after the war, such as her own, where all 150 guests were Jews. She says Jews are few now and that singing in Yiddish is possible only at home. Kerler asks what song was sung at her wedding. She lists the long lives of her parents and an uncle and mentions a 'Jewish field'. Katz comments, and Uman is mentioned.

The Gellers speak about the Bratslav Hasidim who now visit the town from America and Israel and who are not descended from local people. Katz asks who they are. Kerler mentions an Israeli youth of Moroccan parentage who speaks fine Yiddish. A story follows about visitors the husband guided towards Nemirov, one of them on a motorcycle. Katz then moves on to prewar food.

Sofia describes Passover before the war. Her mother baked three pud of matzo for a family with six children, and the chametz was removed from the house and sold. A discussion follows of the contemporary Jewish community, a clever man, and the few remaining Jews and non-Jews. Katz asks whether Bratslav Jews were called 'Bratslaver' or 'Breslover' and about the tsadik Nakhman and Nosn, and whether she heard Hasidic stories. The group then chat about the ages of the interviewers. The passage ends with a wedding klezmer, a caller and table dancing, and Kerler asks how the 'sher' dance went.

Adds the pronunciation of 'Bratslaver', Nakhman and Nosn, interviewers' ages, and wedding music.

Sofia and a second voice explain how the 'sher' was danced, in a set of four couples. A woman sings and others join in, giving the words of 'Lomir zikh iberbetn', a song of making up after a quarrel. The conversation then turns to the interviewers' meal of varenikes at the restaurant, and to Nemirov vodka.

Adds the explanation of the sher dance and the talk about lunch and Nemirov vodka.

Geller and others discuss whether to emigrate to Israel, where Sofia's sister lives, or move to Moscow, as the children ask. They also mention Moscow and Vilnius as cities. Kerler then asks dialectological questions about how a few short words are said in Yiddish. The items include a word for 'door', and the transcript is too poor to say more.

Adds the talk about moving to Israel or Moscow and the dialect-question items.

Kerler asks about Sabbath food. Sofia and David speak of the Sabbath cholent, which was cooked in the baker's oven. They compare chopped fish with gefilte fish, and the Yom Kippur kreplekh. Sofia explains how her own strudel and honey-baked sweets differ from the version of Kerler's mother, who was from Kremenets. They also discuss the Yiddish word for oil.

Adds fish dishes, Yom Kippur kreplekh and the dialect word for oil.

Sofia says her father's mother was a Lithuanian Jewish woman who died in 1939, and Katz asks what her Yiddish was like. They discuss differences between towns' Yiddish and how David, who knew no Yiddish after the war, learned it from his in-laws. Sofia says her mother kept turkeys, geese and ducks but no goats, and describes the family leaving the animals loose on the day of the evacuation. The conversation ends with Katz and Sofia naming Bratslav families now in America, including Feldman and Levine.

Adds the evacuation-day scene with the animals and names of relatives in America.