MDV 464 · Mania Samuilovna Kraidman

The interviewers explain that they want to interview and film Kraidman. She objects at first to being photographed or recorded, then begins to answer, saying that the war began in 1941 and that she was living in Babruysk. Kerler starts to ask about her childhood.

Shows that she says the war began in 1941 while the family lived in Babruysk.

Kraidman discusses her name, which she says was recorded differently in her documents, and the name her mother used for her. She was born in 1923 in what was then Poland (the Brest region) and her parents moved to Babruysk in the 1920s. She completed ten grades at a Yiddish school there, studying Yiddish, Russian, Belarusian and German; in 1939 the school switched to Russian. She recalls the Yiddish library and reading aloud 'Notre Dame' to her family, and names Bergelson among the Yiddish authors she read.

Also covers her name and its spellings, and that she read the book aloud to the family.

Kerler tells Kraidman that Moyshe Lebster, a Yiddish writer, publishes in the Forverts. Lemster asks whether she reads the Forverts and then asks her father's name.

The transcript shows only Kerler and Lemster speaking; no reading by Kraidman is evident.

Kraidman gives her father's name as Shmuel and says he was a brushmaker who came from Poland near the Belarusian border, apparently because there was no work there. Her mother was Khane. She has a brother, Yoysef, who has died, and a sister, Luba, who lives in Israel in Kiryat Bialik.

Gives the mother's name and Khmel'nyts'kyy-bound question context, and the sister's town in Israel.

Kraidman says she came to Khmel'nyts'kyy after the war. When the war started she was in Samarkand, where she had finished ten classes and wanted to go to an institute. As the eldest child she had to work, so she attended accounting courses, and after the war she was assigned to work in Ukraine.

Kraidman says she spoke Yiddish at home before the war. In evacuation she spoke Russian with the many Jewish workers from Odessa, working by day and studying bookkeeping in the evening. After the war she worked in Zhytomyr.

Kraidman married in Zhytomyr in 1945 to Mikhail, who knew some Yiddish, but they spoke Russian with each other and with their children. Her husband's uncle in America was written to once and answered, but his daughters then asked that no more letters be sent. Kerler asks whether she later had occasion to speak Yiddish in Zhytomyr or Khmel'nyts'kyy.

Gives the husband's uncle in America and the daughters' request to stop writing.

Kraidman says she goes to the Hesed, where she reads Yiddish newspaper articles and translates them for others. She says people spoke Yiddish only at home, not at work, in the 1950s–60s. Her mother spoke Yiddish like that of Poland, while she herself speaks the Babruysk Yiddish taught in school, which had eight Yiddish classes and then Russian. Kerler ends by asking whether she remembers poems from school anthologies by Hofshteyn or Peretz.

Adds Kraidman's views on where Yiddish was spoken and on the dialect she speaks.

Kraidman recalls little of her Yiddish school reading beyond the name Itsik Fefer. She says she is old, and the interviewers reply that she is among the youngest people they interview. Asked about singing at school, she says there was none, apart from revolutionary songs sung in Russian. Lemster then asks about her grandparents.

Kraidman says her grandparents stayed in Poland when her parents left; they had many children, some of whom went to America. One of her mother's sisters came to the USSR and has died, but her children live in America. Lemster then asks about her work.

Kraidman says she worked as an accountant, including in Zhytomyr. She had two sons, one of whom died; the elder, about sixty and a pensioner, lives in Khmel'nyts'kyy. She says she can write Yiddish but speaking is hard. She tells of scholars from Kam''yanets'-Podil's'kyy University who found archival material in Yiddish and for whom she translated it for a dissertation.

Gives the elder son's age and residence in Khmel'nyts'kyy.

Kraidman recalls the Yiddish library, newspapers and books of prewar times and that it was popular with people of all ages. Her favorite author was Sholem Aleichem, with Mendele also named; she owned Sholem Aleichem in Russian and gave the books to her sister. She says she helped Hesed arrange its Yiddish books by author and title, though no one reads them.

Adds her favorite authors, Sholem Aleichem and Mendele.

Asked whether anyone in Khmel'nyts'kyy wants to learn Yiddish, Kraidman says a woman at the Hesed teaches only speaking. The students write Yiddish words in Russian letters. Kerler then asks about games she played as a girl; she says she did not play them.

Includes the question about childhood games that she dismisses.

Kraidman says there was a Yiddish theater in Babruysk to which her parents took the children. She does not remember what she saw, but recalls it as translations of world literature into Yiddish, and Kerler mentions Tevye the Milkman as a possible play.

Asked about religion at school, Kraidman says it was anti-religious and forbidden, with the authorities watching that nobody practised. She says she never heard of a synagogue in Babruysk; the only time she heard of anyone going was after the war, when her mother attended in Zhytomyr.

Kraidman says that after the evacuation she spoke Russian to her mother, who answered in Yiddish because Russian was hard for her. Asked for a Yiddish song, she says she does not remember any.

Kraidman recalls the journal Sovetish Heymland and says its editor Arn Vergelis was in the same school class in Lyubar as her husband. She says he befriended a Ukrainian writer, apparently Yevtushenko. She has not read Polyanker, recalls buying Yiddish newspapers at a kiosk, and has heard of Birobidzhan, where Jews went and later left.

Adds Polyanker, the kiosk, and Birobidzhan.

Asked about stories and songs from childhood, Kraidman says nobody told her any and her mother did not sing, because everyone had to work. Kerler thanks her and the exchange turns to wishes of good health, and Lemster begins asking about an article on Vergelis.

Kraidman and the interviewers look at a newspaper article about Vergelis and Yevtushenko from 2003, and Kerler talks about the Forverts and a campaign against a writer. The team arranges to photograph her reading the Forverts, positioning the paper so her face and the title show.