The first part of the tape is a formal interview with Polina (Pesel-Ester) Izrailovna Iuris, born 1949 in Chernivtsi. Iuris shows family photographs, before the team sets up the interview with her.
Before the formal interview, Iuris looks at family photographs with Kerler, and names a grandmother and relatives in the pictures. She says she has no one left to look for and wants to find relatives. Kerler explains that the recording is for students of Yiddish, not television, and the interview is set up. He asks for her Yiddish name.
Kerler explains the purpose of the recording and the recognition of the project.
The formal part of the interview begins. Iuris provides personal information and talks about her family. Iuris’ mother was born in Tatarbunary and her father, who worked at the main post office in Chernivtsi, was born in 5:41, 13:50, 14:00, 29:48 Moldova. Before the war, her parents owned a shop in Moldova. Iuris left Moldova and moved to Kolomyya in the immediate postwar period. Iuris grew up with a stepbrother.
Iuris gives her Yiddish name, Pesl Ester, and says she was named after her great-grandmother and her paternal grandmother. She names her parents and grandparents, and says her father worked in Chernivtsi's main post office writing addresses and her mother did not work. Before the war her parents had a shop or a small restaurant in Moldova. Kerler states the date and place of the interview, and she gives her address and telephone number. She mentions a stepbrother, Yasl.
Gives address and telephone, and names her great-grandmother's origin in Moldova.
Iuris discusses her childhood memories and talks about her parents. She explains that her grandmother told her to speak Yiddish at home and Russian with her Jewish and non-Jewish friends to avoid being made fun of. After the war, her parents moved from Moldova to Chernivtsi, into a house, formerly part of the Chernivtsi ghetto.
Iuris recalls that Yiddish was spoken at home but Russian outside, with both Jewish and non-Jewish children, so as not to be laughed at. She has friends in Israel who speak Yiddish. She tells of her mother and father after the war, the death of her father's first wife and his marriage to her mother, and the poverty after the war. The family was offered a house in Chernivtsi in the former ghetto.
Adds her friends in Israel and the house in the former ghetto.
Iuris talks about Sabbath celebrations at home and her family. She remembers that her parents frequently attended synagogue. She then talks about traditional weddings after the war. She put up a wedding canopy at her own wedding. Iuris raised two sons, one of whom lived in Israel for four years.
Iuris describes Friday preparations for the Sabbath and how an oven was kept warm, and says her parents attended synagogue. She mentions a grandmother or widow from a small synagogue. She recalls Jewish weddings, including her own with a chuppah, and that her husband's parents sang. Kerler remarks on her surname. She has two sons; the younger lived four years in Israel, partly on a kibbutz.
Adds the two synagogues in the town and Kerler's remark on her surname.
Iuris discusses postwar Yiddish culture in Chernivtsi, including newspapers and theater. She then talks about her relatives in America and shows letters written in Yiddish and describes a family photograph.
Iuris talks about postwar Yiddish culture in Chernivtsi, including visiting singers, a Yiddish newspaper and theater. She shows Yiddish letters from relatives in America, names the relatives in a photograph, and says her mother's sister lived in Romania. Kerler reads the address on a letter. She says she lost contact with her family and wants to trace them; she also gives the birth years of her parents.
Adds Yiddish letters from American relatives, the photograph and the search for relatives.
Iuris describes Passover at home: baking matzo with her mother, cleaning the house, and the special dishes. She then explains how she makes gefilte fish, discussing onion, matzo meal, salt and pepper, and little sugar. Kerler compares it with the sweet Galician version.
Iuris briefly talks about her life in the immediate postwar period. She lived in Kolomyya, before moving to Ivano Frankivsk in 1970 as a result of her husband’s work assignment. Iuris then talks in Russian about her family.
Iuris says she moved to Kolomyya in the postwar period, where her husband came from, after her mother died and her father remarried. She describes Kolomyya's Jewish community then and now, and that her husband was transferred for work to Ivano-Frankivsk. Kerler thanks her, and she then speaks in Russian about her family's history, mentioning her grandmother's sister, relatives in Romania, food parcels, and the closing of the border.
Adds Russian talk on relatives in Romania and the lost contact.
The second part of the tape is a formal interview with Froim Kalmanovich Bukshtein, born 1923 in Novoselitsa. Bukshtein provides personal information and talks about his life before the war in Novoselitsa until 1940. He studied at a religious school (cheder) for six years and also attended a Romanian school.
Bukshtein, born in Novoselitsa on 28 December 1923, gives his name and address and telephone number. He says he lived in Novoselitsa until 1940. He studied in a Yiddish cheder for about five or six years in the afternoons and in a Romanian school in the mornings.
Names the Romanian school and gives address details.
Bukshtein talks about his family and contemporary religious life. Bukhstein serves as assistant rabbi. He then discusses the history of the region and prewar Jewish life in Novoselitsa. Bukhshtein recalls many non-Jews speaking Yiddish. He then lists Zionists organizations, including Hashomer Hatzair, Betar, and Poale Zion. Bukshtein was a member of the youth organization Hashomer Hatzair and recalls its activities to prepare chalutzim (young pioneers preparing aliyah to live in agricultural settlements). Bukhstein’s cousin made aliyah in 1935.
Bukshtein talks about his grandfather, the old Leyzer, who prayed before the ark, and says that he helps the rabbi as a baal tefilah today. He explains how Bukovina became Soviet in 1940. He recalls that Novoselitsa was a Jewish town and that non-Jews spoke Yiddish. He lists the Zionist organizations, and tells of the hakhshara preparation and his cousin, who left in the 1930s.
Adds the grandfather Leyzer, and the town's non-Jewish population and Zionist movements.
Bukshtein talks about the Sovietization of Ivano Frankivsk in 1940 and his life during this period. He worked as a tailor and was sent on a work assignment to Mykolayiv at a 51:28 construction site. Bukshtein explains how he and other tailors were called away by the Jewish director of a tailoring factory. He maintains that most workers at the factory were Jewish and the young workers were called to a meeting in 1940, held in Yiddish. Bukshtein states that his plans for returning home for vacation were interrupted as World War II broke out.
Bukshtein talks about 1940 after the Soviets came. He signed up for work at a construction trust in Mykolayiv, where the tailors were called away by the Jewish director of a clothing factory. Most of the factory's workers were Jewish. A meeting for young workers was held in Yiddish because they knew no Russian. He was planning a trip home when the war began in 1941.
Adds the Yiddish-language meeting and the Jewish composition of the factory.
Bukshtein talks about his life during the war. His family was imprisoned in the Stanislav ghetto and Bershad ghetto. His mother, sister, and brother survived the war because they were imprisoned in the Romanian-occupied Bershad ghetto, according to him. The leadership of the tailoring factory in Mykolayiv was evacuated to Siberia. The workers were responsible for their own evacuation. Bukshtein describes how he followed with his friend the echelons with factory evacuees, including factory machinery, and traveled for one month to Novosibirsk, Russia. He further evacuated to Bolotnoye, where the tailoring factory was reestablished for the Soviet war effort. Bukshtein was drafted into the Red Army in Novosibirsk at the end of 1941. Bukshtein states that he joined his Jewish friend, who volunteered as a “westerner” and was sent to the military authority in Siberia 59:25, whereas the other draftees became soldiers. He explains how the military commander was upset about their visit because they were not allowed to serve as minors in the Red Army.
Bukshtein recounts that his father was shot and the rest were in the ghetto; his mother, sister and brother survived in Bershad under the Romanians. He followed the factory by echelon to Novosibirsk with a friend, and the tailoring factory was set up again to sew for the army. He was drafted at the end of 1941, but the commanders sent him and his friend away because they were not yet eighteen.
Adds the father's death on the way to the ghetto and the commanders' refusal on grounds of age.
