Khavin recalls Hanukkah before the war: his grandmother gave each grandchild five kopeks of Hanukkah money, and his father fattened geese that were slaughtered by the shoykhet for the holiday. Kerler asks about force-feeding geese, which his father avoided, and about the goose cracklings and fat. His mother made buckwheat pancakes fried in goose fat, and Khavin and Kerler discuss the terms for pancakes and latkes. Katz asks about Hanukkah and Purim games and noisemakers.
Includes the terminology of pancakes and latkes, Purim noisemakers and a rabbi receiving the best goose, not just the holidays.
Katz asks Khavin what he remembers of prayer. Khavin says he needs a prayer book, recites a Kaddish and says he can read Hebrew only in the synagogue; he says he knows other prayers only in Russian. He then recites a blessing, perhaps one over wine. Kerler and Katz ask whether there was a beys-medresh in Chernihiv; Khavin says he only heard of one.
Kerler and Katz put dialectological questions to Khavin. The items include words for ceiling, beam, back, suddenly, and 'very ill', along with sentences to translate. The sentences include 'Jews live on this street', 'you were at our place', 'they are Jews', and 'I don't know whether he knows me or not'. Khavin often says he does not remember a word; there are also expressions of pleasure and of a bad face.
Kerler asks whether Khavin's father told stories about rebbes and tsadikim; Khavin says there was no such talk in Soviet times, though his father took him to the synagogue. They discuss which cities counted as Jewish: Vilna, Kyiv, Vinnytsia (?) and Chernihiv. Khavin gives figures for Chernihiv's prewar population, and Katz clarifies them as 56,000 inhabitants of whom 26,000 were Jews.
Includes Khavin's comparison of Vilna, Kyiv and Vinnytsia as Jewish cities, and the population figures.
Katz and Kerler continue the dialectological questionnaire, asking how Khavin says words such as well, potato, shop, merchant, attic, rich man, and cross. They also ask for flowers, tomorrow, evening, and various sentences to translate. Khavin often answers with Russian glosses or says he does not know the word.
Kerler and Katz wind up the questioning and thank Khavin. A phone call about a man (Mark Lipkovich) is discussed, and arrangements are made regarding a possible further Yiddish speaker. Khavin then mentions family members' knowledge of languages, including German, English and French.
Khavin shows photographs of relatives and names them for the camera: his grandparents, his father and mother, his brothers Kolman and Yankev, and his sister Libe. Katz and Kerler ask him to name each in Yiddish. Some of the names are unclear in the transcript.
The speakers talk about timing at the synagogue, including when Aleinu comes in the service, with Khavin saying about twenty minutes after half past. The transcript shows nothing clear of Khavin's war medals.
The transcript shows talk of prayer times rather than medals.
