One conversation with Semyon (Yisrul) Aronovich Vaisblai, continuing over MDV 480, MDV 481.
This tape begins with scenes of an unidentified town.
Opening stretch with Kerler speaking, partly in Russian and partly in Yiddish; the talk is fragmentary and the subject unclear in the transcript. The informant answers with a single word.
The camera then cuts to a formal interview with Semyon (Yisrul) Aronovich Vaisblai (b. 1930 in Chemerivtsi). He describes prewar Chemerivtsi and also talks about how there was a synagogue in his childhood home. Vaisblai also describes the Jewish kolkhoz that was found in the town.
Vaisblai talks about prewar Chemerivtsi. He says Chemerivtsi was in Bessarabia, then Ukraine, and gives its distance from Kam"yanets'-Podil's'kyy. His family was very poor, so a prayer room was kept in his father's house instead of sending him to cheder; poor rabbis came to pray there. He describes the Jewish kolkhoz, including women's field work led by a woman he calls a 'lankovoy' (?), and mentions an uncle who worked with the horses.
Adds the question of when Chemerivtsi was Bessarabian versus Ukrainian and the explanation of the term for the woman field-leader.
He talks about his family, including his grandparents, Biumen and Pesye-Rokhl, his parents, Avrum and Nunye, and his siblings, Gitl and Berish. He also comments on who worked on the kolkhoz and what particular duties he and some of his family members had there.
Vaisblai names his family at Kerler's request: his grandmother Pesye-Rokhl (a grandfather named Biumen (?)), his mother Nunye (?), his father Avrum, his sister Gitl and his brother Berish. He explains that his sister registered him with the patronymic Aronovich under Soviet rule. He then describes the Jewish kolkhoz in Chemerivtsi, where non-Jews were also taken on, and how he and his uncle took the horses out to pasture at night.
Adds the explanation of how he got the patronymic Aronovich and the kolkhoz's hiring of non-Jews.
Vaisblai’s father could not walk because of an injury, so he worked as a cap maker rather than on the kolkhoz. Vaisblai also speaks about the changes that occurred in his family after his mother died in 1937 and further describes life before the war in his hometown.
Vaisblai explains that his father did not work on the kolkhoz because of a leg injury and instead made and remade caps. His mother died in 1937 and was buried in Kam"yanets'-Podil's'kyy; the father cooked for the children and later remarried a woman who bore no children. He tells how his father was beaten by a Soviet militiaman and the man was later sentenced. The passage ends as the war begins and his father says they must evacuate.
Adds the story of the father's beating by a militiaman and the sister's death in Israel.
Vaisblai begins to relate his experiences during the war, explaining that when his family was sent to the ghetto in Kam”yanets’-Podil’s’kyy, he went there separately, fleeing around the region to bring food to his father. He eventually left the ghetto entirely and continued moving from town to town, assisted by many of the non-Jews he met, and encountering several other hidden or fleeing Jews along the way.
Vaisblai describes his wartime experiences as a boy of eleven. His family was taken to Kam"yanets'-Podil's'kyy, where his father, mother and grandparents are buried; he escaped on his father's urging and was held for a time by a German. He describes the old and new ghettos, bringing food to his father, the killing of children, and an uncle Zelik, a wealthy man. He then wandered among Dunaivtsi, Kupyn and other villages, hiding that he was a Jew and being helped by various non-Jews. Much of the passage is Russian or garbled.
Adds the attempted conversation about the old and new ghettos and the killings of Jews at Dunaivtsi, which the catalogue does not detail.
Vaisblai then entered the village of Demkovtsy, where the residents knew his grandmother. There he was taken in for two weeks by a non-Jewish woman, despite the fact that he was filthy and covered in lice.
Vaisblai arrives in the village of Demkovtsy, where a non-Jewish woman who knew his grandmother, a dealer in cloth before the war, takes him in. He was dirty and lice-ridden, and stayed in her house for two weeks. He then goes to religious villagers of a sect and answers Kerler's questions about which villages he passed through, in what order.
Adds Kerler's clarification of the route through the villages.
After that experience, Vaisblai stayed in the home of a couple, “pious people,” who “believed in Jesus, but not in Christ.” Professor Kerler suggests that these people may have been Old Believers. In the next set of towns, Vaisblai encountered other Jews in hiding, but eventually decided it was safer not to stay with them.
Vaisblai describes the pious villagers who took him in, and Kerler asks about the sect. Kerler asks for clarification of what the term for them means. A village official sends him on to Chertkiv, and he arrives at a settlement near Demkovtsy where there are Jews in hiding. He mentions a non-Jew punished for hiding Jews, and says that when other Jews were caught he decided it was safer to leave them and go on alone, speaking Yiddish only with difficulty.
Adds the story of a non-Jew beaten and sent to Chemerivtsi for hiding Jews.
Vaisblai continued fleeing from village to village, staying with different sorts of people, all of whom were non-Jews. He eventually reached a kolkhoz, where, having adopted the name Vasil’ Ivanovich, he was able to stay with the help of a non-Jewish woman who pretended he was her nephew. Vaisblai left the kolkhoz in 1945 only after victory was declared as he was afraid of exposing his true Jewish identity.
Vaisblai continues from village to village. He is taken in under the name Vasil' Ivanovich by a childless couple, and later by a woman named Maniya, who presents him as her nephew from Poltava. He herds cattle and horses at a kolkhoz, hiding that he is a Jew, and stays until the Germans are driven out in 1945 because the villagers frighten him. Kerler asks about places such as Zavadyntsy and Futori and about local words.
Adds the details of the false Poltava origin and the herding work.
In the immediate postwar period, Vaisblai returned to Chemerivtsi, where his neighbors returned to him his father’s pillows and allowed him to live in his grandmother’s old house. He then describes his life in subsequent years, focusing on his family and their various occupations.
After the war Vaisblai returns to Chemerivtsi and gets back two pillows left with a neighbour; he lives in his grandmother's old house. He says the family had no gold and was poor. He discusses his later life, including his sister (or aunt, as Kerler's questions clarify), who studied and a brother who taught at a university, and another brother who studied engineering. Kerler asks about the word for a woman who leads a field party.
Adds the later careers of the relatives and the discussion of the term for the field-party leader.