MDV 561 · Dora Iosifovna Nisman; Volf (Veve, Velvl) Tsalevich Leibel

Nisman talks about non-Jewish neighbors in her hometown who spoke Yiddish. One was a monastery servant who asked her to help him sweep. She says there was no antisemitism before the war and recalls a non-Jewish neighbor's family helping her when she left to study in Chişinău at fourteen. She says she feels little antisemitism today. Kerler then turns to her first husband.

Includes her time as a student in Chişinău at fourteen and a neighbor's family helping her there.

Nisman talks about her first husband, a bookkeeper who was shot. She was married to him for only a few months and remains in touch with his family. Discussion turns to the Yiddish and German poet Kubi Vol (name unclear in the transcript). She says she was his wife, not a lover. They met in Chernivtsi in the 1930s, and he died young of tuberculosis. He wrote twelve Yiddish poems. She reads a last poem from his book and shows photographs, one of them with Romanian writers. She names other Chernivtsi Yiddish writers and teachers.

Adds details of the book, her portrait with the Romanian writers, her marriage and the dates of her husband's death, and the lists of writers from Lipcani.

Nisman recalls amateur theater and singing at the Yiddish house in Chernivtsi, in a group called Kameleon. Kerler asks about a small-stage (Kleynkunst) form. She describes performing, and a photograph that was lost. She remembers Itzik Manger visiting Chernivtsi. She sang songs he wrote, which were set to music and which he taught to her, and she recalls his family. She also says she recited a poem at the Hesed. She explains that she wanted a family and children.

Includes Manger's family and her explanation of why she chose family life.

Nisman closes the interview because she must prepare for the 9 May celebration, which she calls a great holiday. She speaks about her family: grandchildren and great-grandchildren, with a younger daughter and grandchildren in Israel. A son was recently born to a grandson in Israel, and a brit was held. She then answers questions on terminology (the word for glasses, the word for pills). Her photographs are shown on camera. Russian conversation with another person is interspersed.

Adds the 9 May celebration, dialect terms asked about, and the Russian conversation with S3.

Mostly unclear chat in Yiddish and Russian between Kerler, S3 and Nisman around the end of her interview. The transcript does not show the singing of a song, and nothing of the community center is heard in this span.

The transcript does not show the song beginning or the cut to the community center.

The interview with Leibel begins. Kerler records the date, and Leibel gives his names: Volf in Russian and Polish documents, Zev in the synagogue, his patronymic spelled Tsalevich after his father Betsalel, and the family name Leibel. His address is asked about.

Leibel gives personal information, including the Yiddish forms of his first and family names, with Kerler discussing diminutives. He mentions cousins who went to Palestine as pioneers in the 1930s. His family was poor: his father was a petty trader and his mother helped him. Two sisters, Gitl and Faygele, are named. His parents and sisters all died in the Rivne ghetto while he was in the army.

Adds the discussion of Yiddish forms of his names and the names of his sisters.

Leibel says he studied at an institute in L'viv and survived the war, and that he was born in 1921. He names grandparents on his mother's side: a carpenter grandfather and a grandmother who sold yeast to poor Jews from a small scale. He also explains what their names were and where she sat in the town. The war's start and army call-up are mentioned only briefly.

Focuses on his maternal grandparents and their trades, which the catalogue summary only calls 'family'.

Leibel talks about Rivne before the war: a small town, the streets, the large stores and a small bookshop that sold school texts and serial novels read by Jews, and his memory of Friday night. He names his mother Golda and recalls his father as a soldier in the First World War who told stories about Jews freed to attend synagogue on the High Holidays. His grandfathers, a carpenter and a tinsmith, are named. He grew up with two sisters, and his parents and grandparents were born in Rivne. Kerler also notes that his own great-grandfather came from Rivne.

Adds the bookshop, Kerler's family tie to Rivne, and discussion of his father's army years.

Leibel says he finished the Polish gymnasium (lyceum) in Rivne in 1939. He recalls the Polish poets and recites a Polish verse in answer to Kerler. He names his first cheder teacher, Rabbi Nisl, and describes the rabbi's discipline. He mentions that his youngest sister went to a Yiddish kindergarten led by someone named Erlikh.

Leibel recalls a song his sister sang at the Yiddish kindergarten, remembering only the first lines. He describes the Rivne street where he lived, its Jewish and Polish neighbors, the synagogue on the hill, and local figures including a children's doctor who survived the war. He names a professor and an economic figure or factory owner. A neighbor later hid people in a hideout (?).

Adds non-Jewish neighbors and a hideout account.

Leibel recalls going to Jewish gymnasium Purim and Hanukkah evenings even though he attended a Polish gymnasium, and mentions a doctor's family whose daughter died in the war. He describes his cheder years from about age three or four to seven, the Friday blessing and kiddush, the Polish primary school of seven classes and then the gymnasium, and a private Yiddish teacher named Mandelboym who came in the evening. He also recalls Polish-language religion lessons, and teachers including Balaban (?).

Adds the Polish-language religion lessons and Balaban's role as teacher.