Shternberg shows family photographs and talks about her family. Her son lives in America. Shternberg then talks about prewar Jewish life in Khotyn and childhood games, as well as political organizations. Shternberg remembers how she attended meetings of political organization on Sabbath because school was not on. She then discusses Yiddish literature.
Shternberg looks at family photographs with the interviewers and says her son lives in New York, America; a sister, Sarah (surname unclear), was killed by the Germans. She is asked about Khotyn synagogues and trades, childhood games (including a circle game), and the Jewish youth organizations of the town. She says she went to meetings on Sabbath because there was no school, and she recalls Yiddish reading, including Sholem Aleichem, and sings a Friday-night song.
Also covers a sister killed by the Germans, childhood circle games, and a Friday-night song.
Shternberg discusses food customs, in particular koshering meat. She recalls how she went with her mother to the mikva and discusses religious customs on Sabbath. Shternberg also mentions folk remedies.
Shternberg describes how her mother salted and koshered meat, soaking it in water, and baking challah and bread for Sabbath. She recalls going with her mother to the mikveh, and her mother's blessings over the candles and her Sabbath prayers. She and Kerler discuss taking challah, and she talks about folk remedies, including one for a ailment she calls hiccups or a fit (the term is unclear), and the pouring of coals, which her mother did not believe in.
Also covers challah baking, the mother's candle blessings, and pouring coals as a folk practice.
Shternberg talks about her life during the war. She was imprisoned in the Kopayhorod ghetto. Shternberg then sings two songs in Russian, she wrote during her imprisonment in the ghetto, before she continues talking the difficult life in the ghetto. She then sings a Yiddish song, she heard in the Kopayhorod ghetto.
Shternberg talks about the war years, when she was held in a camp from July until March at Kopaihorod (the name is garbled). She sings two songs in Russian that she composed there, and describes hunger, her mother bartering for bread and potatoes, and local non-Jews warning of gendarmes. She also sings a Yiddish song she heard in the camp, and speaks about praying in the camp and Yiddish among younger people today.
Also covers her mother bartering for food, praying in the camp, and Yiddish among younger people.
Shternberg talks about life after the war and her return to Khotyn. She explains that non-Jewish neighbors took her house apart and used the land as potato fields. Her family moved into an abandoned house. She helped cleaning and restoring houses. Shternberg took care of the business, after her co-worker was drafted for military service, and never returned, and continued to work for forty-four years.
Shternberg recalls returning after the war to find her house gone, with non-Jews having taken it apart and planted potatoes. She describes moving into abandoned houses, cleaning and organizing them, and her work with a young man who was drafted and killed without further word. She says she continued working for forty-four years, and Lemster asks her about Jewish weddings.
Shternberg sings wedding songs and recalls the Moldavian cantor Fushman, who performed at a synagogue in Chotyn. Shternberg then sings a number of Yiddish songs about Eretz Israel and observant life, she remembers from Fushman.
Shternberg sings and talks about wedding songs and songs she loved from childhood, recalling a cantor from Moldova named Fushman who gave concerts at the Khotyn synagogue. She sings several songs she says she learned from him, about a pillow, a drunkard and Eretz Israel, as well as a song lamenting the decline of synagogue life. Kerler asks about his occupation and about cassettes of songs.
Also includes Fushman as a visiting cantor and songs about the decline of synagogue life.
Shternberg talks about prewar Yiddish culture and Eliezer Steinberg, a Yiddish writer, though the passage is hard to follow. She describes the Sabbath gatherings at the Hesed today, and the Yiddish theater in Khotyn, where touring artists from Moldova and Romania performed; she mentions a Sidi Tal performance (?). Kerler thanks her at the end.
Also covers Khotyn cinema and traveling theater, and current Sabbath gatherings at the Hesed.
